We’ve been wanting to buy our own herbs to use in our daily cooking for quite some time now, and since our hiking trip to Shenandoah had to be postponed due to weather, we figured now would be as good a time as any. We wanted to use a galvanized tub to plant the new additions (thyme, mint, oregano, garlic chive and basil) to our balcony but couldn’t find exactly the sort of thing we had in mind, so instead, we went with a nice wooden planter that really stands out against the brick wall of our balcony that extends past the bedroom. We then bought a bag of large popsicle sticks from Michaels so that we could distinguish between one herb and the next all the while adding a little creative flare. Of course, you know I just couldn’t do without naming each of our herbs after famous celebrities or characters. And just like that, our cel-herb-rities came to be. We welcomed Drew Basil-more, Chive Owen, Sir Mint-A-Lot, Thyme-y Tim, and of course, no fashionista could go without paying homage to the late Jackie O-regano.
Ps. Check out the book Fast, Fresh Garden Edibles by Jane Courtier for great tips on planting in small spaces and how to yield faster results with your crops! It’s fab.
I have found that, above all else, the key to a truly successful relationship is LEVERAGE. I know what you might be thinking. “Really Amanda? Leverage? Are you sure it’s not trust, great communication or an electrified connection!?” No no, it’s leverage. You see, if you find that your significant other has been stepping it up far too much, making you look bad and feel as though you ‘owe it to them’ to do X and Y things, that’s when you know you’re in trouble. This is why you do something to gain an upper hand; you give yourself leverage. This is precisely the reason why I surprised Javi with a delicious breakfast in bed consisting of an ‘egg in the basket,’ fruit, and a glass of chocolate milk. Nothing melts a mans heart like food. Now, you see, the ball is in his court to do something loving for me. It’s a beautiful cycle really. And that right there, is why we’re such an exceptional couple. Neither of us like to be outdone by the other.
There’s just something about snuggling up on the couch with a glass of wine in hand as you gaze upon the TV, happily engaged in a movie or guilt-worthy reality TV show, the latter of which I really have no idea about since Javi has yet to get cable in this place. That’s right people. NO TV. Do you know what this means!? There was absolutely NO Jerzday for me. I’m ashamed and utterly disappointed to admit that I didn’t catch the first episode of this seasons Jersey Shore. But alas, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t spent many hours in our cozy living room, perhaps reading a book in our oh so lavishly cool 1950′s Swedish black leather Overman Pod chairs or kicking my feet up on the far from lavishly cool couch, a front row seat to a spectacular view of the rainstorms that make their way at least once a week (and make for the perfect setting to an afternoon nap).
Some other stand out features that we love: the transparent plastic dining table chairs, the framed poster and ABC art that stand on the floor, propped perfectly against the wall, the single bamboo branch that sits in rocks and water in a square glass vase on the coffee table, and the Darth Vader clock. If you thought I was kidding when in my last post I told you that Javi demands at least one piece of Star Wars memorabilia in every room, you were sorely mistaken.
Some things that we still want to do: remove the ugly aforementioned boob lamps, decide on a paint color, add some more splashes of color with art on the wall (especially over the dining room table), and buy a BIGGER and better TV. I mean come on, seriously? Just look at how sad my old college flatscreen looks in the big open space of the entertainment center. And of course, we’re always wanting to embark on some more DIY additions!
PS. We DIY’ed (if you can even call it that since it was so simple) the bamboo in the vase for about 7 bucks with a bamboo tree, rocks and pebbles from IKEA, and a glass vase from Target. It’s great because it’s quick, super easy, you can choose the vase you want to use allowing yourself a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colors, and it gives off that cool “I have a green thumb and really care about nature” vibe.
I had friends coming from Chicago for a visit a couple weekends ago and was in a scramble to get the new place ‘visitor ready.’ The living room was pretty much complete, the hallways had done away with the awful sky blue and in its place a nice crisp ultra white paint was freshly applied. Amazing what a difference a change of paint color can do to a place. The one thing I just couldn’t bare to live in any longer was the mint green color in the bedroom that clashed so horrendously with our brand new CB2 bright yellow quilted comforter. My eyes could no longer look at the atrocity, and there was no way I was going to force my friends to look at it, either. After all, what are friends for, right? Don’t remember what the bedroom looked like before? Take a gander here and here.
We definitely wanted the bright yellow quilt to be the stand out feature of the room so we decided on using a cement gray color for the accent wall. There’s just something about gray and yellow that I love. It’s a fabulous color combination. We obviously decided against painting the whole room gray because, well, that would be a bit depressing and I think the winters in Virginia provide us with enough gray in our lives. The rest of the walls were painted the same ultra white that we used in the kitchen and hallway.
Now I’ve been absolutely dying to paint some interior doors in this place after seeing it done so wonderfully on a few blogs (inspiration coming from here) and since the current color of the closets, what I liked to refer to as “stained teeth yellow” wasn’t really meshing well with the white, I thought oh what the hell. Let’s paint the doors gray too! It’s probably one of my favorite parts of the whole room. It just gives it so much instant character and it’s an easy way to bring more life into the room.
Isn’t that piggy bank adorbs!? $10 bucks at Target people! And of course, by Javi’s decree, no room in this house is complete without a little splash of Star Wars.
What do you get when you have two extreme nerds living under the same roof? A lot of fighting over who gets to use the desk for their nerd stuff. I want to use it to comfortably expand my mind by browsing the happenings on the ‘interwebz’ (also known as may-jah facebook or twitter stalking) and Javi wants to use it for legit dork stuff, like discrete math homework or software blah blah blah. So much learning to be done and so little space! What were we to do?!
Before moving in we searched for some inspiration on what to do with our office space and found what we thought to be the perfect solution from a DIY blog we love, Young House Love, seen here. A His and Her desk. Pure genius. Of course, we have a long way to go in here but at least we can finally dork out in complete peace and harmony.
I’ve never been one for cooking. Up until recently (and by recently I mean 8 days ago), my repertoire of dishes didn’t go much beyond buttered noodles and grilled cheese sandwiches. So naturally, I didn’t think I’d really care much about a kitchen, but alas, miracles truly do exist. It’s like having a kitchen of my own mixed with the great power of the cooking gods have come over me, turning me into the perfect domesticated house-wife girlfriend. Now that I’ve fallen all in love with my kitchen and what not, I wanted to make it the best darn kitchen around, and that doesn’t just mean having all the best cookware that Ikea the world can offer. It means creating a functional space that not only looks great, but feels great to cook in.
The first of many changes to the kitchen was adding a bar to the wall below the cabinets to hang those everyday cooking utensils. Why is this necessary you ask? It’s not, but I hate when you jam all of the spatulas, ladles, pasta spoons, etc. into the same drawer, usually resulting in a cluster of crap so big that you can hardly get the drawer closed at all. We got the supplies at, where else, Ikea (seen here, here and here) totaling about $7 before tax. So all in all, a quick, easy and extremely cheap addition to give the bare kitchen a little flare… and the possibilities of how to use it are nearly endless!
So, what are we going to do with the place? We’re not sure yet, but here are some pictures of stuff we want to use as sort of inspiration.
I’d say we’re definitely going for a look that’s very minimalist meets contemporary retro. Can’t wait to see what we come up with!
Got a little behind on the blog with the whole hoopla of flying back from Cali and then moving out a mere 1.5 days later. Defying all odds, however, I managed to keep my cool, get annoyed and grouchy only 2 or 3 times (hey, for me that’s good so no judging here!) and not a single tear was shed. Success.
As you may or may not know, I could play very little part in the apartment shopping process. Poor Javi, having to bear all responsibility and live in fear for weeks, unsure of whether or not he made the right choice. Sure, I saw the place in pictures but as we all know (thanks to millions of deceiving facebook and/or match.com profile pictures) it’s possible to get a very different feel from a place in a photo than in person. As I show you pictures of the place on the first day we moved in, I will run through a few thoughts that crossed my mind about each room as I first stepped in to what would be my new home for at least the next year. Warning: Neither Javi nor I have a decent camera so we were forced to use my iPhone, which isn’t bad, just not ideal. Also, the sun was setting, making the lighting near impossible to capture any usable photos.
Living Room. The windows are, of course, demanding attention. The view is breathtaking and these wonderful floor to ceiling windows are all sliding doors leading to the balcony that extends the length of the entire condo. Definitely a unique feature around here and my favorite part of the place. I was also very happy with the size, especially since we want to turn it into a combo living/dining area and use the dining room as an office. So now that we got that out of the way, what the hell are those curtains? You can’t tell here, but they were yellowed, dirty, frayed and half falling off the bar holding them up. Not sure why anyone would leave that for us to deal with. Perhaps it was so we didn’t get too jaded by the amazing windows. Well played, landlord.. but your scheming was in vain. Also, we have two wonderful light fixtures that you can see were left on both sides of the entertainment center. Just what I’ve always wanted. Lights that look like they came from the mold of women’s boobies. Just sayin’. To be fair, we gave them a chance, tried to make them work, and they don’t. Anyways, nothing that can’t be easily taken care of with a swift trip to the dumpster. Also, the dark blue/purple is pretty cool. I like the bold color in this room even if we do plan on changing it eventually. What’s not cool is the color we shall call ‘sky blue’ that they decided to put not only on the walls running in the living room and hallways, but also on the ceilings. WHAT!? Painting the ceilings sky blue? People, you have perfectly functioning windows in the ENTIRE place to remind you of the wonderful scenery that awaits outdoors, no need to bring it into the house. I’m surprised they didn’t paint little clouds up there, too.
Kitchen and Bathroom. Both have been remodeled, thank god. I can only imagine what they would have looked liked being that the building is from the 70′s. On the other hand, it might have fit in well with the vintage/retro look we want to go with.. but nah. I think I’ll take nice tiled floor in a neutral color over black and white vinyl any day. There really isn’t anything terrible to say about the bathroom. It has a nice sized vanity that can’t be seen and it’s actually bigger in person than it looks in the picture. Although the kitchen is a tad narrow, I think of it as motivation to stay skinny so that I don’t bump into the fridge, counter or any other people/objects that may be there. And again, I love that while cooking I can gaze outside and probably burn many meals as I lose myself in deep thought.
Office. Again with the horrendous paint job. Mint green walls with sky blue ceiling. So beautiful. Reminds me of looking into the distance and seeing the landscape of majestic fields meet with the skyline of a perfect summer day. Barf. Looking past that, though, we can look into the upper right hand corner and see another lovely present our landlords left for us. A wind chime with a dolphin. I will cherish it for the rest of my years. But really, a new paint job and this room is good to go. It’s the perfect size for an office/multi-purpose room to do whatever it is that I feel like doing on any given day. Yoga. Sewing. Reading. Whatever.
Bedroom. Ugh. The attack of the ugly green walls have struck again. At least here they had a lapse of better judgment and decided against painting the ceiling this minty green color and actually left it white like normal people. Again, great size, great view and I was especially pleased with the His and Her closets. They’re tall, wide and ALMOST large enough to hold my enormous collection of clothes and shoes. The only downer was that they made me feel like a dwarf and I actually had to go out and buy a step stool just so I could actually reach the clothes/shoes that I put on the various shelves, but hey, I can live with that! Also happy that the curtains they left in here were clean, properly assembled and didn’t look like someone dragged them through a puddle of cat pee. Hooray!
Balcony. This doesn’t even do it justice.
Well, that about covers it. I know I make jokes, but really, this place is perfect. Javi did a pretty damn good job! I don’t know many women who could leave such a thing up to their boyfriends or husbands or whomever to figure out and it actually be a success.. so kudos to you, Javs! I’m glad to move into a place where Javi and I can make changes and as a result, make it more ours. We are definitely going to have a fun time fixing this place up and adding our own flavor to it and we’re exciting to share in that process with all of you!
Before I leave you, though, I must show you another one of my favorite pieces to the place that showcase themselves brilliantly on the storage closets in the hallway.
So. Fricken. Rad. They may look like they’re huge but really they’re puny and only slightly bigger than a silver dollar but still, these bad boys are majestic and they aren’t going anywhere.
We’ve finally picked a place!! We’re leaving the Reston basement of my parents to welcome into our lives a nice (yet older) high-rise built in the 70′s in the small town of Kensington, Maryland. I had to do most of the apartment shopping on my own as Amanda has been in San Diego visiting friends and family for over a month now. Very convenient I’d say. Anyways, I thought I’d throw out some pre-images of the place from the current homeowners. We love the windows and the balcony. Overall, it’s not bad, we just want to make it more ‘home.’
