Tag: interior design

Cabin Fever: Rearranging Furniture

Three posts in one day? You guys are going to think something’s wrong with me. Getting an unexpected day off of work was just what I needed–it gave me a little jolt of energy which has made me super-productive (more on that tomorrow…)

By now I think you all know what my living room is like (if not, check it out here). The room has been set up in the same way (more or less) since the week I moved in, 13 months ago. I have rearranged it a few times, been unhappy with the results, and put it back. This time I’m going to leave it for a few days to get to know the “feel.”

One of the differences between this rearrangement and previous rearrangements is the new tan and green rug my mom generously purchased for us last November. It really helps anchor the room, even at the wacky angle I’m currently testing out.

I moved the pink circle rug in from the office to help offset the empty floor I unearthed by moving the couch and sofa table. The only problem with this is that I don’t have a rug pad under it, so it slides every-which-way quite easily.

Please ignore the window. I know by saying this, it’ll draw more attention toward the window, but c’est la vie. Let me explain the weirdness, then: the towels are strategically placed to keep the snow out (no joke)!

I sort of feel like this arrangement downplays the dark green bathroom door. The old layout left more room to get to the bathroom (not that it’s difficult to get over there now–it’s fine), but since the door was directly across from the entertainment center with little in between the two visually, it made it more noticeable.

“Inside” the seating arrangement, I feel like there’s just as much room as before, but “outside” the seating area (ie, from the front door) I feel like the whole room looks bigger.

What do you think? Love it, or put it back to the way it was?

More Bathrooms

Ever since making that board for Liz last week and planning on beginning its execution this coming weekend, I’ve got bathrooms on the brain.

My back has been killing me this week (getting it looked at tomorrow) and to alleviate the pain I took a long bath in my crazy, vintage bathroom. I’ll post a tour of it this week–it’ll be brief ’cause it’s hard to get a decent picture in such a small space.

Here are bits and pieces I love from current collections by the Big Three (in my–and many other decorators’–book) West Elm, Pottery Barn, and Crate & Barrel. Images will link to stores where you can get some early birthday/Christmas shopping done for me ;)

West Elm

I love this look West Elm currently has going for it. The monochromatic walls & sink, then the standout blue of the shower curtain, it’s perfect. You can tell this isn’t a real room though, because in reality I bet that charcoal color would make any bathroom (without a window, skylight or natural light source) look suuuuper dark and sketchy.

Love this take on dual sinks. Much more interesting than the standard long slab counter.

Crazy about bright white and dark wood. It should also be mentioned that the reason I found this image was because I was looking about these really pretty towels. Potter Barn isn’t always my style, but I love the look of these:

Audrey Organic Towel Set. Wish list?

And finally, Crate and Barrel has pretty much the only shower curtain (that I’ve seen recently) that would even possibly work in our tri-colored bathroom (you’ll see… just wait). Their new Marimekko Samovari (in “Berry,” I call it “purple”)…

“Berry” nice! Also craving the green version of this for a sheet set.

I’m not going to build up “bathroom week” like I did with “living room week” but do expect to see some bathroom related posts as I continue to have decor for the least-spoken-of room of the house in the front of my mind…

Welcome to my Kitchen

You know what room is horribly underrepresented in this blog? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the title of this post.

I was thinking, it doesn’t make sense that I haven’t talked about the kitchen at all because it’s one of the more completed rooms in the house. The theme I have going on with the kitchen is “world travel.” This is where awesome international stuff and souvenirs come to live since none of them are quite intense (read: big) enough to stand alone as an accent piece in another room. So I have grouped them in here. They also help when I’m at a loss for making meals… I look around the room and get inspired to make an interesting international dish.

Below is a shot of when you step into the kitchen. You see the sink and counter. Yes, that is the extent of our counter space. In the WHOLE kitchen. See those cabinets? Also the extent of our cabinet space (plus one above the fridge). Storage is at a premium here. Hence the hanging basket which you can glimpse on the left part of the image.

Out of view (to the right of the picture) is the oven. When the old one broke the landlord had to search and wait for a backordered 27 inch oven. Because our kitchen is tiny and a normal sized one won’t fit.

On the left side of the picture, where you can see the top of the trash can, is a wierd 7 foot tall column thingy. It really makes the room smaller and is kind of ponitless. But behind it is sort of counter space, I suppose, it has an outlet and is where our toaster oven lives (we’ve chosen to live without a microwave).

When you stand next to the trash can, you can see our breakfast nook. This was invaluable before we got a dining room table–we ate all our meals here and still eat most of our meals here. The benches look built-in but they are movable.

The 6 photos on the wall are pictures Doug and I took overseas in Dublin, Morocco(2), Rome, Paris, and London. They’re kind of our pride and joy :) The other two (poorly aligned–they should be closer together) canvases are images of Moroccan slippers and mirrors, picked up at Earthbound in Salina (buy one get one free!) And on the third wall of the breakfast nook, there are coffee bags we got from a local coffee shop for $5 a piece. Possibly my favorite decorative items in the whole apartment.

Questions? Comments? I’d love your feedback on one of my favorite rooms in our place.