Ikea

I went to Ikea with my friend, Penny this past weekend, and it was a bittersweet experience. I got some really cute stuff for super cheap, but during checkout, we had a bit of a mishap. Penny was lifting a rug she found out of her cart and upon lifting it, she accidentally hit a hanging sign above her. Attached to the bottom of the sign, was a smaller sign that read, "Cards Only". This part was only attached by a magnet, and it fell directly onto Penny's head. She immediately grew a golf ball-sized bump, and it scared us both. I don't want to get into too many details, but the Ikea people have not been very compassionate. Penny seems to be doing okay... the bump is still there, but the doctor she saw said that was normal. I really hope Doc is right. Head injuries freak me out.

On a lighter note, Here are some of the items I purchased at the store...


Curtains for the Living Room



Throw pillows for my couch



I bought two of these side tables. I'm going to use them as a coffee table set up for right now. They were just so cheap...

Rug for the kitchen (the pink one).


I also bought a set of sheets and pillows for the guest bed, and two matted photo frames.

Like I said, so bittersweet.

Coming right along...

Last night I had nothing to do, so I bit the bullet and took some pictures of the newly-painted living room. I normally like to procrastinate and/or tease, but I decided to be nice this time.


View from the porch door. I think the color looks really well with my stuff. I'm definitely going to change out a few things... The mantle isn't going to stay like that, most likely, and I want a new coffee table eventually. I was thinking maybe something kind of Hollywood Regency, similar to the ones in the following photos, but we'll see.




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I'm really liking the color against the bright white trim and the dark wood furniture. I think with some random bursts of color on the wall, it'll all come together. I'd like to collect colorful art prints and arrange them on the wall above the desk here, or possibly above the couch. Here are a few images I've seen on other blogs that caught my eye. The first two are bedrooms, obviously, but its the same concept I'm imagining.



...and this last one is a little blurry, but I like the odd, cramped grouping. I found all of these on the Domino Magazine website in one of the Galleries.


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Well, thats all for now. I have a couple other ideas for entries today, so check back later to see if I follow through!

Oh, and just for good measure, here's a picture of pup-pup!

Weekend Summary

Rachel and I painted my living room this weekend, and I must say, we work quite well together. Its amazing how efficient I can be when I actually pull through. Saturday morning started off a little rough... I woke up, went back to sleep, woke up again and it was just way too nice outside to begin any type of indoor labor, so we decided to walk to Starbucks (its a block away, folks!). Well, Starbucks led to a little stroll around the park, which led to a full-on coffee picnic in the grass, which led to hunger, which led to sushi at Sake House... then we decided, what the hey, lets just walk through Five Points real quick to see what we may see. What did we see? A new store called Nest Living, for one. Expensive, but gorgeous. There is a post on Urban Jacksonville about it here, and the store website is here. We also shopped around in another one of my favorite neighborhood antique stores treasure chests, Fans & Stoves. Then, it was down to business. We finished in about 4 hours and it looks excellent (pictures to come).

So, over the weekend I had a lot of time to just sit in the apartment and reflect. I have a lot of work to do/things to buy (and minimal funds). But I composed a little list of priorities in order of importance.

Living Room
- curtains
- TV stand
- new light fixture for ceiling fan
- rug
- more DVD/book storage

Bathroom
- curtain/shade
- bath mat
- shelving/storage for toiletries
- new light fixture (vintage chandelier?)

Kitchen
- curtains
- curtain and hook for pantry doorway
- mats

My Bedroom
- curtains
- rug for vanity

Slowly, but surely.

good morning!

I took some pictures of the interior of my new apartment yesterday afternoon. However, I have yet to set up my computer so you'll just have to hold your horses until this evening. Today, Blanca and I will be getting the last few items of mine out of the old and into the new. And then hopefully by the end of this weekend I can take some "after" shots for comparison. In the meantime (while I'm sitting at work, kind of working), I'd like to share some of my thoughts and ideas for the new place. I pull most of my inspiration from the many different images I see on the design blogs... I don't yet have too many ideas that come solely from the creative part of my brain, but hey, maybe that will come with time. I keep thinking about this David Hockney quote I saw in a book I was reading at my friend, Stonie's house... "The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist." Well, if he was right, then I'm an apple whose not as far from the tree as I thought!

Here are some of my favorite images that I've saved to my desktop in the past few months:


I saw this image in one of dominomag.com's many Galleries and just fell in love with the entire room... I doubt any room in my apartment will be quite this fancy, but I love the idea of an elegant, oversized gold mirror surrounded by a room full of brightness, playfulness and color.

I'm currently watching this mirror on ebay, but its starting to reach my price limit, so we'll see.



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I've had this quirky, little figurine of a girl's head for a few years now, and I've always just kind of placed it among some of my other figures on tables...

...but I came across this image a while ago while randomly browsing Flickr, and I think having a vanity set-up similar to this one from Flickr user and blogger, Kelly Loves Whales, would be fantastic...

I'll be using a darker color scheme, of course.


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I love simple bathrooms. But I also love all things girly. So this scene (which I cannot for the life of me remember where it was found) is exactly what I'd like to see happening in my quaint salle de bain.

I've got the pink walls covered (my landlord let me choose my paint colors before I moved in AND painted for me, which was super awesome), all I need now is a petite chandelier.

This is going to be a process... and of course my ideas/wants will probably change a lot, but its box-of-puppies exciting. Right now I just need to focus on not getting too far ahead of myself (I am just a lowly secretary, after all!), and just take it one day - and one room - at a time.