{Spring Detox} Our Granny Chic*** Bedroom

This post doesn't really have anything to do with my Spring Detox series, but I wanted to mention my bedroom suite to set up the posts that I have planned for later this week.

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When I graduated from college and was penniless and furniture-less, I inherited a very, very, very old bedroom set from my great aunt.

While I'm very lucky and grateful, I sometimes struggle with it, as it's not my normal style (whatever that may be at any given moment). Over the years, I've paired it with a various linens:

Simple yellow linens in my first apartment:

I can't believe that I *ever* had a teddy bear on my bed.
I think that my little sister gave it to me when I was in the hospital.
It's the only remotely feasible guess I have.

Modern Calvin Klein linens in my second and third apartments:

This apartment was infested with thousand leggers, which I am terrified of. I actually took down my closet doors and installed these curtains so that my bed would not touch any walls and, hopefully, not be conduit for thousand leggers to crawl on me in my sleep. Guess what? Thousand leggers crawl on curtains.

Homey modern paisleys from Crate&Barrel when I moved in with Andy.

{I have no pictures of this, as I've mentally blocked living there.}

When we moved into our current place, we wanted a modern, clean, and airy bedroom in which to spread out and recover from living in a glorified box for two years. But how do you achieve that look with an OLD, OLD, OLD bedroom set?

I fell hard for the bargello waves pillows by Jonathan Adler.

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Crochet AND mod? Yes, please! They cost me a small fortune, but were worth every penny. Tossed on simple beige linens, they really helped me bridge the gap between the centuries.

BTW, last Saturday would have my great aunt's 100th birthday. This is a picture of her and my dad back in the day.

I wonder if he is smiling so big because she told him she'd give his future daughter a bedroom set one day?

***"Granny Chic" as seen on Making It Lovely.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. I'm taking the afternoon off to meet her for lunch. Andy and I went to dinner and a movie with her on Saturday and presented her gifts.

My mom's been unemployed for a few years now, so all she ever wants is Visa gift cards that she can use to treat herself to the occasional T.J. Maxx trip or haircut. (Well, she also wants hardwood floors, as she is tired of sitting in the house and staring at her carpets. But I think her odds are better for Visa gift cards.)

I can never give myself to give just cash as gifts, so I try to mix it up with fun, inexpensive gifts when I can.

Earrings and Necklace Set from Macy's

I had some extra Macy's boxes, so I snuck in some extra treats:

"Custom-Wrapped" Fannie May Candy

BTW, I was 2 out of 3 on the candy.
My mother likes chocolate-covered ALMONDS, not peanuts.

Cold, Hard Cash

wrapped in orange twine and confetti made from the 4,000 paint swatches
that I seem to always have around the house.

You know that she probably saw these boxes and thought, "Oh great. A bunch of costume jewelry that I don't need." Surprise!

{Spring Detox} About that Dining Room Wall...

The wallpaper that I had my heart set on was discontinued. Boo! Searching for wallpaper has to be one of the most frustrating tasks on the the Internet. (Seriously, if they gave Razzies for Web design, I'd bet my insurance copay that a wallpaper company would at the very least place.) So, after blowing about $60 in wallpaper samples, I gave up on wallpaper.

 

The wall sat like this until New Year's Day, while I obsessed on paint colors and wallpaper options.

Thirty dollars in orange paint samples later, all of which Andy nixed, we ended up painting it with the brown paint that I had picked up last October. I was getting worried about how naturally dark the area is and being overwhelmed with brown, so I decided to paint a rectangle to lighten it up a bit.

I'm not wild about the brown, but am forcing myself to live with it and move on. Andy loves it. I've gotten a lot of compliments from friends, which has me feeling more reassured.

The brown rectangle posed some problems that I hadn't foreseen:

1. Our table and light aren't centered on the wall 99 percent of the time. (Thanks, developer!)
2. We needed art* that worked when the table is "tucked in" daily and "pulled out" for guests and parties.

We decided to use the light as an anchor point and staggered CB2 Perspective mirrors across the rectangle.

I love, love, love these mirrors. I was slightly hesitant to hang mirrors across from the kitchen, but they were just what we needed! Our condo is pretty vanilla (as are our decorating and DIY talents). These mirrors give us just the smidgen of personality that we need and widen and brighten the space in the process.

(*As a total aside and much to Andy's chagrin, I refuse to hang a giant Chicago skyline picture in any home in which I hang my proverbial hat, including this space.

Impulse "Gardening"

I wasn't planning on putting flowers on our balcony this year. This is VERY uncharacteristic of me, but planting on this balcony just isn't as much fun as I would have expected. By the time I haul home whatever half-dead flowers Home Depot offers, lay down a tarp to avoid dropping dirt to the neighbor's balcony below, kneel on the sweaty tarp, and cut the sh*t out of my feet on the screen door as I take my shoes off to run inside for something, I'm always, "eh." And then we keep the blinds closed to keep the house cool, so I barely get to see them anyway.

But on the way home form my morning walk yesterday, a hanging basket caught my eye at the Lincoln Square Farmer's Market. So I nabbed it.

And while I was waiting to pay for it, this potted arrangement caught my eye, so I nabbed it too.

As I carried my treasures home, I decided that their window boxes were a total steal at $20-$24/ea. Since I was working from home to focus on a big deadline, I totally had time to grab the car and run back down there. Which I did. And then did again to pick up a third box when my selections didn't fill in our built-ins. Those adorable teens working the gardening stall were very patient. Love them.

The view from the street:



I realize that this goes against the blog grain given that everyone is so hip to urban and window gardening this season, but this has to be one of the most brilliant (albeit lazy) decisions I've made in my 14 years of apartment and balcony living.

I'm totally going back next week for a basil plant.

P.S. I have so much blogging to do, but have just been too lazy to gather all of the photos together. Editing photos on my slow-a*s laptop is lame.

P.S. I need to Impulse Redesign my blog. My header graphic makes me puke.

Pretty Curtains

I wish that I could find a way to hang some pretty curtains in our living room. I bet that it would change the whole look of the place.

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If I had a little girl, these curtains would hands down be in her room. No questions asked. The color is perfectly divine to me. 

 

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{February} Hitched ‘n Hatched Tea

Back in February, my friends and I enjoyed an afternoon tea in celebration of our engaged friend and pregnant friend. I know that it seems like I go to tea a lot, but in my defense, this one wasn’t my idea. I just styled the event. (Ha! Ha!) 

The “engagement party” was a surprise, so I made neutral, Valentine-themed invitations inspired by a set of persimmon heart cards and peacock envelopes from Paper Source.

As always, I was on a huge work deadline (and office move) in the middle of this project, so they turned out to be a "lazy man's invite," as my Grandma Ona would say.

 

At the tea, everyone was greeted with a customized menu, cloth napkins (from Paper Source - no longer online), and a box containing a party favor.

 Napkins and Menus

I repeated the pattern from the envelope liners inside the menu.

 Party Favors

 

For party favors, each guest received a monogrammed mug, a tea bag with a crepe paper heart attached with baker's twine, a red or blue “tea bag holder,” and some heart-shaped chocolates from Macy’s.

 The complete package:

 The boxes were wrapped in pool wrapping paper, the peacock hearts and lined hearts (printed on plain text) were free-handed and cut out by hand, the persimmon heart was traced from a left over heart card.

The Best Part about Engaged Friends is that You Can Justify Browsing for Wedding Dresses without Seeming *too* Weird

If I were engaged today and panicking about my tiny dress budget, I'd probably be putting down the McDonald's Breakfast sandwiches and rushing to David's Bridal to try on this dress.

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Then I'd starve myself to fit into it.

And although I hate to jump on the BHLDN bandwagon, I may or may not be mentally planning a fictional wedding re-do (and the requisite breast reduction) around this dress:

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Then again, if we're playing the "If I knew then what I knew know" game, I'd probably follow the little voice in my head that was telling me to go balls out in a non-weddingy, jewel-toned dress. I still can't believe how much pressure I allowed myself to feel when I was getting married at age 34 (vs. age 24). So lame of me. If you're engaged, don't do that.