Wish List.

I've mentioned before how close we live to Ikea.  It's dangerous, really!  But also so fortunate, because there are so many things where one will find equal quality at Ikea to Home Depot, Lowe's, Cost Plus, Target, etc. and Ikea is almost always the cheapest.

This is why I'm such a huge fan of Ikea for furniture and decor.  We just bought our first house, but it's by no means our dream house.  We'll probably have to trade up a couple more times, at least, before we get there.  Here's hoping trading up also includes more space!  Considering the changes we're bound to encounter I just don't think it makes sense to invest in lifetime pieces - at least not all at once.  When you buy Ikea pieces, they hold up (at least in my experience) and you don't feel so bad when your taste changes or you want something different for a different space.

So here's my wish list for our current space:

Loving these glass lamps, with neutral shades. It also comes in white, tan or a pale pink.

I have seriously been drooling over this corduroy arm chair!

I am a Ribba convert. This is a gallery frame for $20! You can't beat the price, unless you have an Ikea Family Card, which often brings the price down to $15. Seriously the best.

Since I moved out for college I've been buying Hemnes pieces. At some point I'm going to be able to fill every room with them!

More hemnes. How (shabby) chic are these?

Ok, maybe Ikea isn't the best place for plants. But they seriously have everything!

Where are your favorite places to shop?  And what's on your wish list?

Shitty Landlords.

As one of my colleagues says, when you buy a house you are your own shitty landlord.  So true! Today's post is a "simple" before and after.  It's also an example of a project that moved way up to #1 on the old priority list out of pure necessity.  

When we moved into our house there were no window coverings, so we ran over to the nearest Ikea (which happens to be two minutes away!) to pick up some temporary shades.  For just $3 these were a major score!  The first thing you have to understand is that this is a strangely placed and oddly sized window.  Evidence below.  And the guest bedroom is identical.

Ignore the big white blob on the floor.  That's there for a future project.

See that guy there in the corner? Well I imagined a fun patterned shade or something.  But since we have to hold off on painting anything until we can resolve our insulation issue my days at the fabric store are few and far between.

This is not ok...

Well, four months later we're just getting to some permanent solutions.  And I'm ashamed to say that we're only replacing the shade in our bedroom now because our neighbors installed a pesky light that makes our room too bright at night.  After a full week of waking up in the middle of the night we couldn't take it anymore!  So off to Ikea we went.

My husband spotted this guy and after some convincing I agreed to give it a try.  For the record, I wanted white.

Once we got home, we measured the window.  Backwards, I know, but we had a rough idea.  It turned out that we needed to trim the rod a bit, which required taking the whole thing apart and using a hand saw to cut off about an inch.

Since we already had to take it apart, the hubby decided to cut off the almost two feet of extra length.

And voila!  Here's the finished product.  Ultimately, we'll paint the walls a light grey and probably go with white curtains on the big (normal) window to keep the space bright and crisp!

By the way, generally anywhere I use "we" I mean "my husband."  Credit where credit is due, you know?

"Brighten The Corner Where You Are."

I love my job. Most days it’s really fun to help people give money away and I’m definitely on the better end of the giving/receiving money deal! But sometimes it’s frustrating how slowly change happens. We often don’t see the fruits of our labor for years and years and when we do, it’s hard to say just what moved the needle forward. I can so easily get lost in the big picture and fail to revel in the magic of baby steps - both at work and in my personal life.

On a recent plane trip I was reading Ties that Bind by Dave Isay (have your tissues ready!), given to me by my boss with a note that read, "Thanks for always reminding us of what is most important."  Much as I try to keep things in perspective, I'm often living in the anxiety of the future, worried about things I can't know or control.  While reading on the plane, I ran across a phrase that brought my feet right back to the ground. The speaker in this particular chapter referenced a hymn called, “Brighten The Corner Where You Are.” What a novel idea. One corner at a time is not only all it takes but the best each of us can do. We’d be fooling ourselves to think otherwise.

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately trying to squeeze it all in - work, school, keeping the house clean and the household fed, figuring out how to stretch every dollar.  But I'm trying to remind myself all the time of this important lesson and know that it's enough.

Retreat.

I was looking at my last post about projects we have planned for our house in the coming year and realized that there is one space I completely left off the list. And this always happens! My husband and I have lived in three homes together and we just never get to designing the master bedroom. It's always the last space we think about because it's the one few guests see. Well that just won't do this time! That space should feel like a retreat and shouldn't be ignored just because we're the only ones who lay eyes on it.

There are a couple of legitimate hurdles, though.  First, our bedrooms are extremely COLD!  I've mentioned before that we were bummed to learn our house isn't insulated.  Well, we've got to fix that and we're evaluating the various methods of insulating - I'm voting for the method that involves poking holes and blowing it in versus the method where you tear down all the walls and simultaneously pull out your hair!  In any event, it might not be so smart to paint at this point.  The second issue is that some day, this room will be a nursery.  We need a dedicated office space for my self-employed husband (currently occupying the guest bedroom) and if our plans to add on pan out, we'll add on a new master bedroom and bath.

I suppose I can compromise and make some modest updates that can eventually transition into a new space for the master (i.e. furniture and decor) and hold off on projects that may be a waste of time and money (i.e. I may never get my hands on that gallon of revere pewter I so desperately want!).

Take a look at my vision board for the full picture:

master bedroom featuring french home accessories

Fabric shade / Energy star lighting / Energy star lighting / HUGO king sham / Home decor / French home accessory / Frame / Shadowbox frame / Joie word wall art / Handmade home decor / Black bedroom dresser / Black bedside table

I'm also excited to incorporate a recent (sort of) purchase.  Way back on Cyber Monday I purchased this duvet and it finally arrived today!

Calvin Klien Poppy Bedding Collection

Home.

For as long as my husband and I have been together, we’ve shared a dream of owning a home.  Well, we finally did it!  And it’s terrifying!  But I hear everyone feels that way, so we’re just going with it, making one payment at a time.

With our small (for the Bay Area!) budget, we thought we’d end up with a major fixer-upper but life had other plans in store and we wound up with a house that was remodeled top to bottom about three years ago.  We were still excited for a project, so leave it to us to find plenty of other things to do. 

Here’s a brief list we plan on tackling over the next year:

Make a built-in in our dining room

Add a brick wall to our living room

Make a tufted headboard

Build a dining room table

Add a third bedroom with an ensuite bathroom

Repaint:  I’m thinking Edgecomb gray for all the common spaces and Revere Pewter for the master bedroom!

The husband wants to tackle some more serious projects like insulating the whole house (darn contractors didn’t do that in their major remodel!) and installing a whole house water filter.  Let the DIYing begin!