I prefer to just sit here staring out the window, contemplating how exactly to get to that darned squirrel, or that feisty blue jay…

You do realize it’s a holiday weekend right? Your favorite holiday? The one that’s supposed to be filled with beer and barbecue and those bright, noisy things in the sky? Really, no thanks.

I’ll be in the way, for sure. But I’ll take naps here and there. Like.. now. Have fun doing all that stuff this weekend, I’ll be here, on this ottoman, soaking up the sun.

*yaaaawn* Hey, can you open the blinds a bit? I need to work on my tan.

Found on DesignMilk this morning. I love the clean lines juxtaposed to the rugged outdoors. You can see more by visiting contemporist.

While the decor is a bit too sparse for my tastes, I love the clean lines of the home. Now if only houses like this didn’t cost millions…

Such a simple, yet versatile bookcase has been found in almost every home. Coming in all colors and sizes, you can customize it how you want, like I did with my curtain project a couple months ago.

So happy birthday Billy! Hope it’s a great one!

I wish I would have taken more photos, but when there is a lot of er.. junk around, it’s hard to take a GOOD picture. So I have just a few to share with you all…

These little salt and pepper shakers were adorable, and my current color obsession. (Imagine the photo a little less yellow..) I would have bought them, had I not just bought a new combo salt and pepper grinder a couple weeks ago!

Look at the texture on this thing! It’s a mid-century hanging lamp that I imagine would look fantastic in an entry way. I was drawn to it, though, because of the texture.

This thing was HUGE. But it was refinished fantastically. I love the green felt lining and the diamond pattern on the mirror. I just loved this piece!

I wanted to cry, I loved this chair so much. Haha! It was huge, but looked awesome! And it was the perfect size for my 6’7″ boyfriend. Too bad it was like, $3500! Some day… Some day!

There was a pair of these lamps with a delicate floral and butterfly pattern on them.. They would look awesome on opposite ends of a sideboard, obviously in the same era. ;)

What a cute table! This could totally be a personal undertaking.. Find a cheap table in need of some love on Craigslist, and with a little paint and some new hardware, you’d have something just a cute as this!

This beauty was at the end of our journey through the event. It needed a little love, but that’s a small detail — look at that convex mirror!!

In the same area as the mirror, this chair was awesome. Look at the details, all the way to the little wheels on the feet! Not my style, but every girl still has some whimsy in her!

And my favorite part.. Bertoia Wire Side chairs!! The man that was selling them bought them on the cheap from IBM years ago before they closed the Manassas branch. There was a set of them, and ya wanna know a little secret?

I bought them both. For $90. Oh yes, you heard me right. Ninety bucks. Knoll Studios makes these and they go for over $400 brand new. These are over 30 years old, and are definitely going to need some love, but I bought two of my favorite chairs this weekend. That alone makes this weekend a win!

How was your weekend?

I have been in my new apartment for about 2 weeks now, and while I absolutely love the location, the convenience and the layout, I have to say, I hate my upstairs neighbors. You may have noticed, if you follow me on Twitter, or if you look at my posts on the right rail there.

Since day one, when my friends and I were eating lunch between moving boxes, I have heard music coming from upstairs. I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, believe my ears when I heard drums — DRUMS — coming from above, and when I went into my bedroom to get a better listen, I still couldn’t believe it. I decided to let it go, though I mentioned it to the leasing office later that day, just as a precaution. We continued unpacking and went on with our merry lives.

Until it continued. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 6:30PM until 9:30PM, all I heard was violins and guitars. Thinking it was my next door neighbor, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I banged on the wall. It didn’t stop. Frustrated, I went to bed. Then Sunday came, and with my boyfriend as witness, the music started again. Loudly. Very loudly. We were painting my bedroom and had the windows open, and even with the T.V. on, yet all we could hear was this mystery neighbor’s music. Realizing we needed more paint, we left the noisy apartment and noticed we didn’t hear anything coming from my next door neighbor… So we walked down to the courtyard that my apartment faces into, and OH. MY. GOD. The entire courtyard was filled with this music.

The neighbor directly across from me, who is normally out on her balcony talking on her phone, called down to me and expressed her concern with the volume as well. Then a neighbor on the first floor apartment (2 floors below the noise and on the other side of the courtyard) came out and explained that it had been going on for awhile. Oh no, I won’t stand for it. I am not paying the amount I pay every month to listen to someone else’s music penetrate my apartment. Though we wanted to finish painting the bedroom, we headed to the leasing office to get someone to the courtyard to listen for themselves, because in the past, they had said that they couldn’t really do anything because it was not happening during the ‘quiet hours’. Excuse my language, but bullshit. If someone is disrupting EVERY. ONE. ELSE. in the vicinity, something has to be done!

After talking to the leasing office, we decided to head upstairs and see if we could pinpoint the apartment it was coming from. A few ears against walls and doors later, we deduced that it was in fact, the apartment directly above mine. We went downstairs to see the staff in the courtyard assessing the situation. After telling them which apartment it was coming from, there wasn’t much else we could do — and we had walls to finish painting, so off to Lowe’s we went!

One would think that after the leasing office heard for themselves, and saw 3-4 people on their balconies expressing their concerns as well, that they would do something more drastic about it. You would think that the noise would have stopped. At least for a few days. Not happenin’.

The following night, last Monday, the noise started up, again. The boyfriend and I were trying to have a relaxing evening, but we couldn’t hear ourselves think over the music. The weather was cool and I wanted to enjoy the fresh air — but how could I enjoy it with the music being louder than the T.V. that was 10 feet away?! We decided to confront the neighbors. While we were extremely upset, we were calm. Upstairs we went. Knock knock. No answer. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. No answer. POUND POUND POUND. No answer, still. But the neighbor across the hall from the noisy one, came out to see what was going on. The noisy one just didn’t want to confront us. Jerks.

At this point, you can imagine that I am very annoyed. I understand, it’s apartment living, but COME. ON. I can’t NOT hear your music. Even with the T.V. going, the dishwasher running and the washer cycling!

But then it stopped. For 4 days, I heard nothing. Until this past Friday.

At 6:30PM.

DRUMS.

Drums so loud that the lamp on my desk was shaking. You remember that scene in Jurasic Park, where they are all sitting in the Jeeps, and they notice the water start to shake? My glass of juice was SHAKING.

I couldn’t take it. I called the leasing office and matter-of-factly told them that if they did not do something about the noise, I would be taking it to the Police. I don’t particularly like to involve ‘our finest’ in matters as trivial as this, but when a woman calls in distress, those guys usually respond. The leasing office proceeded to tell me that since they had sent out a preliminary warning to all surrounding residents, it was now time to contact the apartment directly with a possible breach of contract. Horrah!

It has been a few days since then, and even at 10:30PM last night while lying in bed watching the finale of Design Star, I heard their music. I’m giving it until the end of this week until I proceed any further. It’s extremely frustrating when someone can be so inconsiderate of everyone else and not even have a notion that, “hey, maybe I’m being a bit too loud. After all, I do live right next to and above other people.” But no, it’s not the case.

Have you ever dealt with noisy neighbors? How do you handle it? If you’ve had a situation similar to mine, I would love to know how you went about handling it. I will not be confronting them alone, and while I have written several notes to put on their door, I feel like it’s pointless at this stage to even bother with it.

If you look in the upper right hand corner of the blog, you will now see an extra tab sitting next to the once-lonely ‘About This Blog’ tab. Because I enjoy doing DIY, and I am in a new place, with plenty of new projects, this is going to be a quick stop for any visitors to check out projects that I have done, or that others have done (like Amanda’s super-cute birdcage planter!). There you will also be able to keep tabs on upcoming projects that I plan to tackle!

So next time you want to just check up on the DIY projects in my life, click the tab!

Enter the D.C. Big Flea Market in Chantilly. Held at the Dulles Expo Center, only 10 minutes from the airport, the D.C. Big Flea Market apparently happens four times a year. Admission is only $8 and is good for both days. With an array of furniture, decor, rugs, and more, the D.C. Big Flea should not disappoint. I am planning on attending, and urge anyone else to take a Saturday or Sunday and go explore. I will be sure to have a report the following week from the event.

If you want more information regarding it, you can Google ‘D.C. Flea Market Chantilly,’ and you’ll be sure to get a couple reviews, directions and more.

See you there!!

Hold your horses! Moving day has come! Kira has this covered from her perch, that is, until I shove her in her carrier and toss her in the moving truck. I joke, I joke — she just gets thrown in the back of the moving truck, no carrier. After all, someone has to watch the fragile boxes! ;)

With moving day comes lack of connectivity. What will I do!? Oh right, I have 15 boxes to unpack, walls to paint, things to organize and furniture to rearrange 20 times in 6 hours. Anyway, Just a Little Bit will be experiencing a bit of a hiatus for the next week or so, and I promise, once I get set up at the new place, I’m going to go back to actually posting more than once a week.

A question for all of you out there — what challenges do you face with moving? Organizing? Those mystery boxes at the end? Perhaps all of the things you have to juggle? Me for example, I have yet to confirm my rental truck and I move on Saturday. Eeep! So, what’s on your moving-mind?

See you in September!

Anyway, my apartment is an utter mess, smells like paint still from painting my green walls ugly ‘Bone White’ last weekend (and we have more to do…) and I’m just frazzled. All I’ve had the energy to do is sit in front of the television and veg, and sleep, sleep, sleep! I am also tending wounds from a spaz-attack from Kira, leaving the palm of my right hand tore open and my chest with a deep wound. Ow!

Enough blabbing — I have a question for you all out there on the interwebs. Where is a good place to get a certificate in Interior Design? I am interested in pursuing it on the side to see if it’s a fit for me, but because I was screwed out of so much money at my last school for a dinky degree in Web Design, I am being careful with my funds. I am located in Northern Virginia, and am probably going to look at some of the local schools in the area — but do you know of any online programs that are creditable?

I’d love to hear what you think of this. I feel like I want to pursue something that I’m passionate about, and honestly, I was sort of pushed into web design by my advisor at my last school.. What are your thoughts?

Check back later this week/weekend, and I’ll have a post worth reading up here. ;)

Have a fantastic weekend, I’ll be back this week with a not so pleasant review of one paint company… *grumble*