Monthly Archives: October 2012

The West of Elm

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Jefe’s least favorite part about our new hood – we have a West Elm 2 BLOCKS AWAY.  How have I lived the previous 28 years of my life without this magnificent beacon of home decor so close?!  I am obsessed.  It’s a problem.  Jefe may or may not be looking in to WEAA – West Elm Addicts Anonymous.  Thankfully, the ole budget won’t allow me to take home the store and I’m positive that I’m too freakin slow to try and grab a throw pillow and make a run for it.

With all that said, I did a little bit of window shopping this past weekend.  Below are some of the highlights:

Mercury glass and owls are my new crack.  I just can’t get enough of either.  Apparently, neither can West Elm.  I bought the little guy on the left, Hootie, on a previous trip:

So I was hunting down a companion for him.  (Jefe already vetoed Hootie’s bigger brother, who is on the right).  I ended up with this little votive that looks like a tree trunk:

Then I ventured over to the wall ‘o pillows.  I was searching for something to replace a recently failed no-sew pillow cover project.  I came across these two hand sewn favorites:

   

I do, however, have a trouble spending so much money on something with “throw” in it’s name.  Same goes for these warm-hued blankets (anything fall-colored is my jam) that would look amazing on my couch.  Unfortunately they were also not machine washable which is kind of a necessity in my book.

     

Then I ventured up to the kitchen section.  I found these woodland creatures that I’m trying to convince Jefe, (aka-Cookie Monster) to let me adopt.  They also still have this tea towel that I might as well shell out the $9 it costs for the amount of times I’ve looked at it.

     

Then on my way out, I was magnetically drawn to the shiny objects.   How I wish I had a place big enough for fancy holiday parties that required such beautiful dish and glassware…

     

It’s all just so pretty….. I need the sale fairies to show up pronto.

Downsizing – Coping with 400 less sq. feet

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For the last 3 years, I had the luxury of sharing a 2 bed/2bath condo in West Hollywood.  First with a roommate for 2 years, then with my Jefe for the last year.  But at the end of July, Jefe and I were forced to move due to landlord issues.  I admit that we were renting our old place for a steal so we knew when we started apartment hunting, that we’d be forced to downsize.  I was shocked at how true that statement turned out to be.

Turns out, when I have 1300 sq. feet of space at my disposal, I WILL FILL IT.  I had to learn the hard way that if there is empty space available, it’s very easy to continually shove stuff into every closet, cabinet and corner available without ever truly evaluating what I have and purging what I may not need any longer.  Below is a quick tour of the old place:

(Note that these pictures were taken shortly after Jefe moved in to the old place and before we broke out the paint cans, bought an island, hung nicer curtains, etc.  I unfortunately don’t have many “after” pictures as we moved in such a rush.)

Two months later, we’re finally settled in to the new place, but I’m still working to weed out the things I’ve discovered that I truly don’t need as you can see from the below (please excuse the work in progress that is our apartment…):

Thanks to some serious prodding from Jefe, I had to realize that without the space, I can’t hold on to such things as unused decor or uncompleted design “projects” that there just is not space for.  When downsizing from 4 full closets, a kitchen the size of a sailboat, a linen closet, and a dining room hutch to 1 closet, a tiny linen cabinet and a kitchen the size of a dinghy, I had to reevaluate….

  • Having an Ikea lamp reworked to fit a standard lampshade I loved.  Lets be honest – when do I have the time to find a place that repairs lamps?  It probably would have cost more to get it reworked to fit the lampshade than it cost to buy an entirely new, standard size lamp.
  • Throw pillows with less than stellar covers (my no-sew hem tape skills still leave a bit to be desired and I have yet to acquire a sewing machine)
  • Picture frames that although I love, don’t fit the style of our current decor
  • More Christmas decorations than kitchen supplies (sad by true)
  • Books I will never read.  Although much to Jefe’s dismay, I’m still holding strong to my Twilight series.  He’s currently considering purchasing them for me on my Kindle so he isn’t embarrassed by their visible presence when we have guests over.
  • Owning enough candles to burn down a city block

I had to learn the hard way that I can’t just store things without truly evaluating if I will ever use them once they’re behind closed doors.  Hoarding tendencies run strong in my blood and it’s nice to be on the path to a somewhat simpler life.  And I can finally admit that I do not miss the vast majority of the things we donated to Goodwill/resold on Craigslist.

Although I miss the amount of decorating opportunities such a large space provided, at this point in my life, I’m working 10-13 hour days and am exhausted by the time Friday night rolls around.  That leaves little time for large-scale decorating.  So for now, I’m focusing on really turning our smaller space in to a home so on the weekends, we can just enjoy the space we do have.  I’m also looking to take on side projects that include badgering my friends to let me redecorate their places, which would leave less time for my own.

Finally, this large-scale purge of ours will hopefully make it easier when the big moving day to NYC comes along, whenever that may be.

Before & After – Family Living Room

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Last weekend Jefe and I took it upon ourselves to spruce up his parents living room.

Here’s what we had to work with:

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The process was jumpstarted a month prior when they had the living room repainted and ditched their drapes for wooden slat blinds which immediately improved the quality of light and the feel in the room. In addition, thanks to our own recent move, we gifted them with our like-new loveseat that needed a new home.These small improvements, however, shed light on a few obvious challenges – the remaining furniture and storage. Most of the furniture were pieces they acquired over the years and haven’t had the opportunity to update until now. In addition, as Jefe’s father is an AVID reader, they had books stashed in every nook and cranny .Below is the mood board I prepped ahead of time so we had a plan of attack:
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So while Mom and Pop Jefe were galavanting through Europe, we snuck in armed with a few Ikea boxes and went to work.We started by ditching the coffee table and massive corner table that were once parts of a sectional sofa that died long ago. After lugging them out to the curb, we assembled 3 Billy bookcases to replace the corner table for book storage and 2 additional ones to store CD’s, DVD’s and VHS tapes (yes, they still use them but we decided to hide the VHS tapes by attaching a matching door.)To replace the coffee table, we choose the circular Vejmon that would give them an additional shelf for storage and would be reachable from both sofas. After some rearranging, we discovered there was still space for another side table so we picked up a smaller Vejmon.Once everything was assembled and in place, we organized the massive library, alotting the corner bookshelves for favorite authors. We placed a few of their coffee table books on the shelf below the table top.
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It’s still a work in progress as I haven’t really styled with accessories yet, such as a few new throw pillows, an upgraded table lamp, and some new picture frames. We also have plans to add the below rug in the coming weeks:
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More fun soon!