Just wow.

(via Photos courtesy Yang Ya-ching & photographer Xiang,zhen-hua )

Before I run out for work (albeit late...shhhh) I have to post this. Homegirl has huge cajones and is a genius! "Hey mom and dad, thanks for sending me abroad to France! You think I'm learning French language and culture, really, I'm just gonna kiss EVERY dude I see."

http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=angelduck777&b=296&f=1312154505&p=42

Living Room Details

Do you know that dogs like to be enclosed and have their own "den"? For real. Here's this week's projects:

1. Higgins' Doggie Den-Need a table cloth. Thinking natural linen and a black grosgrain ribbon trim.

2. Find accessories at Stitch Rock on Saturday and add some STYLE to this room. 

Anyone in the Palm Beach area this weekend and want to meet up?

3. Keep an eye out for used chairs or ottoman. People need to sit somewhere!

Evolution Part 1: The Living Room

This is Part 1 of a 5 partseries where I will chronicle how my apartment has evolved room by room. Each entry will be compiled into a master page for the entire apartment, which you will be able to access via the floor plan icon in the right margin. 

One of the first design challenges was finding a home for our golf clubs. I created a storage solution by hanging IKEA curtain panels a few feet ahead of the sliding glass doors to create a nook that would disguise some of the things we could not store in our walk-in. 

The living room is being slowly furnished. We received a timely and generous donation of the entertainment center and occasional chair in the first year by our neighbor. It's been tweaked and re-styled numerous times to provide us with a compromise of chicness and functionality. 

BEFORE

AFTER

The opposite wall holds the end table, couch, and my desk area. The wall above the couch needed something to draw the eye upward so I hung six black frames which will house B&W pics of our fav cities. The black decorative brackets will have boxwood topiaries. I've got some potted herbs standing in for those.

BEFORE

AFTER

Next steps are:

1. Printing photos for frames above the couch

2. Finding boxwood topiaries for the brackets

3. Area rug

4. Two occasional chairs on flanking the entertainment center

Mission Statement-Jerry Maguire Style

Don't buy any new furniture for your rental; it will be destroyed when  you have to move it.

The apartment building won't let me paint.

Why hang up all these pictures? I'll have to spackle all the holes before I move. 

It's only a rental. Wait until you have a home to start expressing your style.

Anyone else have that voice in their head? Maybe it's your roommate/significant other/parents telling you to hold off on decorating because EVENTUALLY you'll have a house to call your own. 

Why wait to decorate? I have been battling this out with my oh-so-pragmatic life partner for the past 3 years living together.  Let's face it; we're not buying a house tomorrow. I'm digging in. 

This is my mission going forward: 

1. Limit the amount of recycled content on this blog. Most of you reading this follow many decor blogs and read the same magazines. I repeat myself enough as it is, you do not need to see the same picture 5 times a week. 

2. Write posts that address common design challenges for the average renter. With this economy, many of us aren't buying any time soon so now is the best time to experiment with your tastes and tackle projects. 

3. Demonstrate that apartment living can be chic and chic living is deserved by all. You don't have to have a million bucks to look like you spent it. 

4. Empower the average renter to make each big, beige box their own. 

Sunday Madness

(source)

Blame it on the espresso shot in my AM venti non-fat iced chai (yes, I know, totally high-maintenance) but I'm on a decorating roll today. I'm currently tearing apart each room so I can photograph it for a future post on the evolution of my apartment. Stay tuned and happy Sunday!

Making Life Easier

My girlfriend and fellow blogo-phile sent me a link to Blog Lovin' a while ago and I never bothered to sign up. I decided enough is enough and signed up to keep track of my favorite blogs as well as add my own. Here's my link:

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Oh, The Places I've Been!

I'm rooting through my personal archives for photos of the various cities we've lived in or the places we love. I'm going to print them in B&W and put them into the frames I installed over the couch yesterday (pics pending). Here are some shots I am contemplating:

View from the Empire State Building, 2005

Boylston St, Boston MA 2009

Versace Mansion, Sept 2009

Cliff Walk, Newport RI, Dec 2007

Any favorites and suggestions? I'd like to keep it to architecture and cityscapes. I'm thinking the Newport one doesn't belong (although it means a lot being my hometown). 

Frosty.

My entertainment center doors hide a huge mess of DVDs, electronics, and random items. I have covered them in the past with wrapping paper but soon grew tired of that. 

 

I found these really cool overlays that are used in scrap booking. Immediately I thought this would make a good stencil for the doors. 

After some research on frosted glass spray and spray mount, here are the results.

How to Avoid Spending $100 in Target

...when you only went in there to get toilet paper. I just got a shipment in from Alice.com.

Upcoming Projects

This is the weekend I get everything together....no, really.

Here's what needs to get done:

1. Frost entertainment center glass doors w/ stencil I bought WEEKS ago.

2. Buy dog bed and table cloth to build the doggy-cave/end table replacement for the crate/end table that was in the living room. (Now talk about GHETTO)

3. Hang picture frames (sans pictures) above couch.

4. Hang brackets along side said picture frames.

5. Find tiny boxwood topiaries for said brackets. 

6. Buy brass nail head to trim out the newly upholstered desk chair. 

Pimp My Chair!

Two weekends ago I tore apart a desk chair and decided to reupholster it. Mind you, I have never done this before. After roughly 15 hours in my "design cave" aka, the ADHD-aided tunnel vision that allows me to quit eating, peeing, and sleeping until I complete a project, I finished. I'm waiting to buy the 200-some nail heads to finish the project but I figured I'd post some progress. On yeah, not to mention that I made a pattern and SEWED the cover for the chair. 

 

Before.

During.

After. So proud that I matched everything up. 

Little Tweaks

I've been furiously tearing apart the house since 8am today. I blame it on an itchy design finger coupled with a VAT of Einstein's iced coffee (seriously, they should not sell me that much caffeine).  I tweaked the book case ever so slightly as well as addressed the first wall you see upon entering my apartment.

Here's a progression of how I've styled my bookshelves. What maniac styles shelves? Check out the Godmother of this obsession here.

Before.

During.

After-ish. 

It's looking a bit more balanced up top but I still need to frost the glass doors with the attached stencils. 

BTW, this wall is the bane of my existence. I can't seem to bet it right.

First inclination that I needed something here. Oh hey, plant, I killed you.

Oooh. Maybe a lamp will be better. But not this lamp.

Not this lamp either.

What about my favorite lamp in the house? Something's missing.

I HATE this. Ugh. Help!

***UPDATE***

After some stewing, I consulted a post from Young House Love on re-covering lampshades. Here are the results:

Congrats to the GOAT

As in, Greatest Of All Time.

If I can scan pictures, I can show you how this is design-related.

Gorgeous.

House Beautiful

I still can't get this out of my head.

Bury Me Here

Last night we went to dinner at the Versace Mansion (more on that later). Then for drinks at the new W hotel in South Beach. My friend was dying to show us the decor there, stating that we would be speechless and would want to die there. She was right. So sexy, so chic. 

Oh, and we went to The Wall after drinks. The music was off the chain and the decor is straight off a Kanye West video. 

THIS is what it's all about.

I've been following The Sartorialist for over a year now and most recently his gf Garance Dore. This blog posting is the epitome of love at its finest; unattached admiration for your partner.

http://www.garancedore.fr/en/2009/09/04/the-sartorialist/

The Sartorialist book is on sale now. Get a copy.