Life Happens While You’re Busy Making Other Plans

Posted in Beautiful Places, Life Stuff, Redecorating, Visual Eye Candy by Mallory

New year, new blog, new fiance, new home. You read that right, Jefe & Sledge are finally getting hitched! Needless to say it was a rather exciting holiday season as Jefe popped the question right before Thanksgiving.

After the confetti and bubbles in the champagne settled and the parents all had wedding bells on the brain, Jefe and I started to discuss what was next for us. The big plan if you will.

That led us to Craigslist, an apartment showing and a quick lease signing later, we had the keys to a new place.

So what convinced us to decide to sign a lease while visiting family and planning a wedding all over Christmas break? Central air. Refinished hardwoods. Sconces. A fireplace (nonworking, but it’s beautiful). FRENCH DOORS.

I’m sure you all want to read a little less and ogle a little more so without further ado, here’s our new place!

Front entrance! White roses line the walkway.

Our amazing living room! It’s bright, airy, super spacious yet cozy.

Great archway in to the dining room.

A chandelier we don’t hate! And ALL the lights in the apartment are on dimmers!

The kitchen is large with plenty of counter space. The colors have proven a bit challenging as I don’t know how to accessorize two-toned blue floors and buttery yellow walls, but I’m up for it!

The second bedroom we’ll be using as our home office. (I can see the Red Sox paraphernalia filling the walls now….)

And our master. The place was renovated with such an eye for design while still being neutral enough that we can inject our own style in to it. Because of this, I don’t even hate the boob light because it matches everything else!

There’s plenty more to come (including our amazing bathroom with pedestal sink and original penny tile floor) but as our place is still COVERED in boxes, we’re not quite ready for the full, non-Craigslist ad pictures yet.

But there’s definitely more to come in the next few weeks! Sledge is back (and engaged!)

2Oct2015

Hello? Is anyone there?

Posted in Life Stuff by Mallory

Hi. You may not remember me but I’m the former blogger who disappeared into oblivion 5 months ago without a trace. Where did I go you might ask. What have I been doing you may inquire. Well, to quote the great Donna Summer: she works hard for the money.

The day job got the better of me. I love what I do, and think I’m damn good at it. But I definitely have been earning my paycheck lately. Countless late nights in front of a computer screen and over 30,000 miles flown proved difficult to make time for dinner, let alone playing amateur decorator and blogger.

But I’ve missed you all! And missed making things pretty which my life could definitely use a little more of lately. So in the coming weeks I will begin to emerge from hibernation. Frequency and consistency, however, is not the name of this game so bear with me while I get back in the swing of things and find a little more blogging balance in my life.

Bonus – I already have some fun projects stored in my digital attic that I’ve been unintentionally hiding from you! Backyard? Done! Living room rearrange? Done! New artwork? Done and done!

So for now while you patiently await my next impromptu appearance (as I certainly fail to plan these things lately), here are a few personal highlights from my otherwise very professional last few months, courtesy of my dear friend and companion Instagram:

Jefe & I headed to Seattle in May:

Then I headed to NY for 2/3 of the month of June:

But over the weekends, I’d hop the train to head home to Lancaster, PA for much needed reunions with family & friends.

Once I got back, I did manage to find a few moments for a little beauty while at home. It was peony season after all!

Jefe & I spent my second favorite holiday at the Hollywood Bowl:

And later in July we headed to Anaheim for the annual Red Sox / Angels match up. The Wells men came to represent:

We also experienced the first Anaheim cancellation due to rain in over 20 years!

A few weeks later I headed out to the Rhode Island Film Festival for work:

After all that travel Jefe and I tried to escape for a few days. But an excruciating LA heat wave kept us from the beach and Disneyland so we escaped inside to the LA Natural History Museum. Dinos!

Later in August, Jefe & my friend John and I hit up the LA Food & Wine Festival, complete with a performance by The Roots! This picture does NOT do it justice; we were 15 feet from the stage!

Once September hit, I was knocked off my butt by a serious cold & cough. But I had to suck it up as it was time to run the 5K I had been prepping for with Jefe & my brother who came to visit just for the occassion. It was brutal, but I made it. Slow and limping wins (well, at least completes) the race.

And like the good USC alums we are, we headed to the SC vs. Stanford game with our friend John.

Two weeks ago I left for a 9 day business trip to attend a few film festivals. I was pretty stoked to travel internationally for the first time since I was 16!

I also happened to fall head over heels in L-O-V-E with London. I’ve already plotted how Jefe and I could change careers to make the move. L-O-V-E.

Unfortunately the love affair was short lived as I had to keep on moving. This time for Vancouver. Most of this leg was spent either working here:

…or in screening rooms at the festival. I did manage to snap this beaut on the way en route to the airport on my last day:

And this one while landing later that night.

I came home carting a handful of gifts for Jefe but he happened to have a surprise for me too!

I hope everyone had a less eventful, but fulfilling summer!

6May2015

House Tour!

Posted in Redecorating, Visual Eye Candy by Mallory

It’s about time I finally took you all on another tour of the place since we’ve done a bit of updating over the last few months. Let’s get right to the photos!

We’ll start with the master bedroom which really sold us on this place as it is a true master with plenty of space and a walk in closet. It’s definitely a work in progress in terms of design: it needs a floor mirror, lots of artwork and a rug. But I really do love the space (how did I live for 30 years without black out curtains?!)

Next we move down the hallway towards the rest of the apartment. The door on the right leads to our service porch with washer & dryer (and absolutely NOTHING to see.)

This little clock gallery wall was inspired by a recent episode of Fixer Upper. Jefe saw a version in a kitchen Joanna designed and LOVED the idea. We started with the bottom 3 clocks and are just adding as we find unique and interesting ones to include. Smaller 3 clocks are from Target, silver one is from Ikea.

Through the doorway on the left is the second bedroom/office. This room has changed the most recently and we’re really happy with the way its turned out. It is a great, comfortable space to work from as both Jefe and I do a fair amount from home. And despite this really being Jefe’s domaine in terms of aesthetics, I can’t wait to finally get a reading chair in here! It gets the perfect amount of light all day and is arguably the quietest room in the house.

Continuing down the hallway, on the left is the kitchen. This room is probably the closest to being done. There’s a few small tweaks yet, like covering the black cord of our new, much needed pendant light and finding a few small items to hang on the wall. But otherwise I’m calling this space COMPLETE (or until I find something new and decide to rearrange my open shelving).

We’re going to skip the super pink tiled bathroom for the moment (until I can clean it enough to be presentable for photos!) and move on to the dining room. We’re still on the hunt for a sideboard under the windows (from this perspective you’re back is facing them), but we really have only been purchasing items to a) replace our worn down Ikea pieces and b) that we plan to keep for the long haul. Nothing has really struck my fancy so far that I don’t think I’ll hate 5 years from now so there’s no need to rush a large purchase like that; I’ll know it when I see it. So the space is what it is for now. Nice, spacious and simple with plenty of room for dinner parties where I can get my Martha on. Artwork is by my extremely talented cousin!

Lastly, we move in to the room where we spend the most time – our living room. It’s really cozy and perfect during the cooler months. We’ve been working to really incorporate meaningful pieces in to the space – each of our home state flags, photos from my hometown, a few tchotchkes from our trips. Not much left in here to do design-wise but hang some more artwork, a mirror by the front door and a mirror to hang up blankets on by the floor lamp.

So there you have it for now. Our little home. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

30Apr2015

New Look

Posted in Design Challenges by Mallory

So after going MIA for a month, I’ve got 2 posts in 2 days for you – can you tell Jefe is out of town and I’m bored?! I’m playing around with my newly acquired photoshop skills and am working on creating a sleek, new look for the site. Please bear with me as I toy around with some things and would LOVE your input?

So if you see some color changes, new logos, or title treatments pop up, send me a comment! I’d love to hear what is working and what’s not. I THRIVE on input 😀

In case you managed to miss the GIANT new header (still working on sizing….), here it is. Thoughts?

30Apr2015

MIA

Posted in Before & After, Design Challenges, Design Projects, DIY, Mood Boards by Mallory

So where the hell have I been? I know, I know – life just got away from me. I’ve been refocusing on myself a bit – trying to get healthier, taking care of some actual health stuff too. Then a crazy girls weekend with my bests from college followed by getting sick for a full week just as I was cutting out caffeine and anything that tasted delicious….

Today’s gonna be a quick recap of updates around Chez Sledge. Last when I left you, we were working on our office. Since then we got our new chair from Wayfair:

And last weekend Jefe hung up some more art. Can you believe he took those photos of Fenway himself? The one of the stadium’s green seats with the single red seat is stunning.

The room is really coming together; I can’t wait until we can afford that armchair so I finally have my reading nook! I’m planning to relocate that white chair to the dining room, scoot the shelf unit over and make room in the corner on the left for it, right by the floor lamp and next to the window.

Next up is a quick update in the master bedroom. We finally managed to find a new nightstand for Jefe; it was made of solid wood with a reclaimed style to it. It was the first time we ordered anything from Joss & Main and I was thrilled with the outcome. Everything came pre-assembled and well packaged. From date of order until delivery was less than 2 weeks!

We’ve slowly been switching out the furniture in this room and with the addition of the new nightstand, it admittedly looks a little more mismatched than eclectic at the moment. That’s always the challenge once you move out of matching furniture sets to create a more curated look; it can look like quite the hodge podge of random items until you get close to the finish line. Here’s a little refresher (with a few updates) of what I’d eventually love the room to look like:

If you’re following along on Instagram, you’ll notice that we’ve made some serious progress in our backyard. But there’s a few more pieces to come so I’ll just leave you with this little before & after until I can give you the full recap.

BEFORE

AFTER

Lastly, I finally got around to tackling the lighting situation in our kitchen. After a quick trip to HomeGoods during my girls’ weekend, I snagged a cheap, neutral drum shade to cover up that horrendous fake-brass boob light.

BEFORE

AFTER

I still need to add a piece of fabric to it so you can’t see the ugly fixture it’s hiding underneath, but just by hanging the shade I can feel such a difference in the room.

Jefe and I also made a quick trip to Ikea last Saturday and managed to snag the Foto plug-in pendant and I can FINALLY see what I’m cutting while making dinner! I need to use some white cord cover so it blends in a little more, but I’m really happy with it.

I tried hanging it with the ceiling screws included, but it turns out our ancient drywall is a bit crumbly in the ceiling so 3M hooks to the rescue. I only wish I had tried them before I put giant holes in my ceiling but that’s what spackle is for, am I right?!

Here’s both lights in action:

All in all, we’ve been making some great progress around the place. I’m really please with how it’s turning out!

Sledgehammer With Style

Hollywood marketer by day, design blogger by night.

Life Happens While You’re Busy Making Other Plans

Hello? Is anyone there?

House Tour!

New Look

MIA

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