Saturday, May 11, 2013

Pieces of the Bedroom

The multitude of things I still need to finish the bedroom: 
Two George Kovac's swing arm wall sconces to flank the upholstered bed after we get that box spring to raise it up so that headboard won't be so high looking. 

The linen curtains are $50 so I'll make my own.

The art is found here and it's a card so I'll have to DIY that on some canvas.

Sydney Hale candle for that late night ambiance ;) 

These Witlock and Co. throw pillows for the bed, two. 

And all white bed linens on my charcoal gray upholstered bed. 


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Staying Simple

Mini Alcoholic

On our recent trip to World Market J actually spotted something he really, really wanted. This little guy:
It's a mini cocktail shaker! It's barely six inches tall, stainless steel, and waiting on my desk while we build up a bar to go on top the dresser in our bedroom. Just a little Mad Men corner for us to enjoy in the evenings. Meanwhile, it sits here:

I'm a Gold Digger

Update: Be sure to check out the before and after pictures of the bedroom in the house tour here.

Okay so I'm not really a gold digger, but it's a better title than "I painted dresser knobs this weekend." Anyway, let's go back to the beginning. I was seriously lacking storage for my clothes and because almost everything in this apartment has masculine lines, I wanted to find a dresser to add that smidge of feminine touch. It needed to be simple, clean lines, but with curved legs. And antique. Dovetail drawers preferably, with character because we all know this apartment has too much Ikea already. Then, I found it. It was an hour away which wouldn't have been so bad had this not been winter (I know, I JUST painted the knobs even though I've had this half a year) and where we were going, there was snow. The seller even  had coyotes in her backyard/frontyard/sideyard. Just all around. But we trekked it up there in our sedan, got stuck in their newly landscaped grass lawn which was covered in snow so I don't know why they landscaped in the dead of winter, and somehow shoved placed the dresser in the trunk. I should have taken a picture but just know there were legs sticking out and lots of rope all over. This is the first picture of my beauty: 
In all honesty, I could have just gotten an Ikea dresser and added pretty hardware and legs but I wanted something different, old, mixed so here she was. I live in an apartment with carpet everywhere and have no sander so I sanded this thing by hand. First with 80 grit, then 150. I primed it all with my favorite primer, Zinsser Bulls Eye. 
Some of my favorite perks about Bulls Eye:
  • water based makes for easy cleanup
  • mold and mildew resistant, inhibits rust 
  • blocks ALL stains, I mean ALL
  • I've used it on glass, metal, ceramic, laminate, wood and this stuff STICKS. It sticks real good. :)
Then I just painted it with Behr in a custom, slightly modified color - "caviar" in matte. I did two coats to be extra safe, then sealed with polyurethane. Now, here's the gold digging part. I love gold. I used to hate it as a kid and now I can't get enough. It goes so well with dark colors like black, greys, navy blues which are also what I love and it adds a nice girly touch to my dresser too. So, I used some of this magic stuff:

The above is what it looked like halfway through my Rub N' Buff, with the bottom drawer and wheels still left and you can really tell the difference. 
I think I might redo them in an antique gold though, cause the gold leaf just looks super yellow sometimes. So far the only gold incorporated are the knobs on this dresser, the titles on the spines of some books, art, and my gold wood grain pillow.



Sunday, May 5, 2013

Patio Dreaming

My patio has blue floors. Like a dirty, murky," I was once sky blue but now I'm a sad piece of crap" kinda floor. I'm on the third floor and right in front is a giant oak tree that creates such beautiful leafy canopies for us in the summer. It currently holds old spray cans of paint and a strawberry plant that I have loved for years and is still thriving, despite the odds - I have a notorious black thumb. Hand. Soul? Somehow that strawberry and the succulent next to it are still alive though! With the warm weather and summer rolling in, I'm itching to get the patio finished although in reality it'll probably be "finished" next summer. In the meantime I whipped up a mood board of the direction I want our little outside oasis to go in, on a small budget of course. We really love clean, simple lines and little clutter and I wanted to extend that to the outside. I do want to go all out on the greenery but aside from that, very simple. Here it is:

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Apartment Sneak Peak





Hello, My Name Is:

I used to be a biochemistry student at a very expensive university. It cost a lot and although the experiences and people I met there were great, it wasn't my thing. Maybe. I'm still not quite so sure. I left school and my job at a cancer research lab right in the middle and for the first time in my lifetime I thought maybe I don't want to go to med school. It shattered me. Everything I had ever done, ever planned, ever dreamed, revolved around that plan. Graduate, never sleep, become a physician, scrub my skin up to my elbows and scrub some more, wear green, perhaps blue, every day and tell people when they wake up that yes, I, with the power of God and modern medicine, fixed YOU. And make a difference. Every day.

Then two years into my studies, reaching into my junior year, life hit me in the face and I fell apart. Before letting my grades take a dip and falling more behind, I left. And for the first time ever, I slowed down. I breathed. I walked. I hung out without worrying about finishing that lab assignment or clocking into work early the next day to aliquot samples from a 6 am surgery. I went to the gym in the middle of the day instead of 10 at night just because I could now. 

It's been two years since I left and I'm still figuring myself out. What I want to do. What REALLY makes me happy. I currently work but it's not what makes my heart pitter-patter. So, in the meantime, this is just a place for my thoughts and what I do while I figure it all out and do what I love and I LOVE design. Although I'm not sure if I want to commit an occupation to it, it does makes my heart pitter-patter. I have a wonderful man who has been my rock and together we live in a modest 950 square foot apartment complete with a hideous patio that has blue floors. (Don't even get me started on our pink bathroom floors). Together we've slowly moved out some furniture the place came with and plunked down some modern touches but we have such a farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr way to go. Oh and we have a cat named Ellie, one white goldfish named Raleigh, and 7 unnamed goldfish that are all orange.

Welcome.

My name is Angela. 

Stay a while.
I'll go put on some tea. 






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