Well, we are in! It’s been exactly a month since we moved everything in and we LOVE. IT. It’s definitely a different type of space in here than our last place, but it’s a welcome change! The last place, boy what a mess it was. I’m so glad to be finished with that! We have some minor storage issues here, since we don’t have an attic or extra room anymore to store things in – but we are making due just fine! Obviously the first part of the home to really get settled into was the living room, so I thought I’d share some photos from that area. I can’t seem to find my camera cord, so iPhone photos’ll have to do for now!

We definitely have a ways to go, but we finally have a dining area! No more sitting in front of the tv on the couch to eat dinner!

From the kitchen, the dining area and the living area are seen. I need to stop calling them living room and dining room, because, well.. it’s one big room. :)

We went with the Meltorp dining table from Ikea, and metal chairs from Overstock. Love the combo. The photo wall has made it’s debut – the idea is to continue it over the tv as we gather more frames. The red table was in my dressing room at the last place, and I’m thinking I’ll cover it with contact paper in either white, or wood grain to take the harsh red out of the room. I’ve never been a big red fan and it clashes with the tv stand right now.

We have a serious bird problem. Now that all our art is basically in one room instead of spread out, it’s kinda ridiculous. Counting all those orange birds, I think I counted 26 in this space (including the salt and pepper shakers and the art on the photo wall). Crazy. We still need to figure out what to do with that space above the couch. I’m thinking the placement of this art may change here soon. Not loving the placement of the vertical bird prints.

And from the couch you can get a better view of the dining area. I really love the chairs and table. But that red really needs to go. :(

Kira is adjusting fairly well. We are on the first floor and the street is fairly busy, so the reflections from the cars throws lights all over the apartment and keeps her running around. Maybe she’ll lose a pound or two, hehe.

We are currently working on the den/office and the bedroom is getting there as well. I think we are planning to keep the walls the color they are. They aren’t dirty looking, but are a slight off-white color that doesn’t bother me. Gasp, I know.

Can’t wait to share more as we continue to turn this little white box into our home. I’ve already been told it ‘looks like Laura lives there’. Good! :)

This bloom pillow from Z Gallerie is gorgeous. The combination of colors and textures created by the different flowers really keeps your eye moving. Grab it quick, it’s on sale.

While ultimately the Saarinen Marble Tulip table would be our table of choice, we know it’s WAAAAY out of our price range. It may be a temporary solution since other things will be more important (a bike for me, a larger bed for us) but it looks like we’ll be going with the Ikea Docksta table. For under $200, our biggest issue will be getting it to the house with just the Mini.

There are a wealth of dining chair options out there, and while there are definitely more than these three, I like these the best.

The Tabouret Chairs are my favorite, I think. The juxtaposition of the white table to the cool steel is great and I think they would work perfectly with the industrial style of our new place. Just think about it with those cement floors. Drool.

I really like these Wishbone chairs as well. They keep things light over all, provide a bit of back support without being bulky and aren’t overly modern. My biggest beef with them is where the front legs jut up at the edge of the seat. The boyfriend is a big guy and I imagine those would be uncomfortable. Sad trombone.

These were my first choice, knock off shell chairs with the dowel bases. Love them. Sadly, we went by DWR last weekend while checking out the new CB2 that just opened in Georgetown and they are too small for the boyfriend’s frame. I was really sad about these, since I’ve had my eyes on them from Day One. (whenever that actually was)

Overall, I think our hunt is still on, but my vote is currently with the Tabouret chairs that resemble the Tolix chair quite a bit. We’ll definitely be waiting until we actually move (June 24th!!) but I’ll be keeping an eye out in the mean time.

If you had a choice, which ones would you choose?

Uh, yea that’ll work. Except, yanno, BIGGER.

I looked around and priced large canvases – but in the size I wanted, at least 5′x5′, we were looking at spending at least $300. Yea, no. So I dug around a little more – lightbulb, ding ding! You can stretch your own canvases with stretchers and linen canvas, but even then you were looking at spending at least $120 on a roll of canvas. I don’t want a pretty painting on it, I just want a modern blank canvas for the wall!

That’s when I thought back to painting the dining room a couple weekends ago – the canvas I used to cover the floor is only about $10-$20 at Home Depot and are at least 5′ wide! Add in the stretchers for $7 a pop and we’re talking under $40! Ding ding we have a winner! I already own a staple gun and staples, it’s just time to decide if we should do it now or later. I’m torn.. I really want to try it out now, but we don’t have a place to put it. It would just be good to know if it will turn out right. What do you think?

We neglected to take any actual photos of the space, but a video was taken, so here is a semi-blurry shot of our new kitchen. Well, not OURS, but one very similar to it. I love the triangle it’s creating and the open feel. Over there to the left is our den/studio space with a kick-ass shoji door that slides shut. So. Freaking. Cool. Here’s a blurry close up:

When you turn around, the living room seems small – but we think it’ll be great for our awesome sectional and perhaps a small round table with four chairs (Eames-style with dowel bases?). Ignore me, I was busy space planning. Oh! This space has 9 foot ceilings (I’m 5’3″) but the one we are renting is on the first floor with TWELVE FOOT CEILINGS and finished concrete floors. I’ll have to think of some interesting way to paint, eep!

There are only two large windows in the space – well, actually the one we will get has Juliette balconies in the living room and bedroom, so they will be taller and have a door in the middle – so the den at the back of the apartment where you enter is a bit dark (there’s no ceiling light!) but hopefully we’ll be able to remedy it (perhaps with the pendant we have in our current living room?). The view out this living room’s window on the third floor wasn’t too bad and is similar to the one we will have, save that we’ll be street level.

I used to live around here for almost three years, and this street, while a main artery between pockets of the city, wasn’t too bad – the windows are double paned so the noise will hopefully be not too bad.

You may remember my last apartment, before the boyfriend and I moved in together, I had a huge problem with my upstairs neighbor.. While that’s always a possibility here, I’m really, really, REALLY hoping that the twelve foot ceilings will allow for a bit of a space buffer. Right now I’m more worried about where we’re going to store a ladder to get that high to clean. Oy.

We move in at the end of June, which is a busy work month all together for me: Company retreat to Annapolis, a company trip to Philadelphia, and a friend’s wedding the weekend before we move… It will be a busy month indeed! Until then, we’ll be cleaning and packing and I’ll be daydreaming of fun stuff to do with the new apartment. Can’t wait!!

Found a great little etsy shop today! Jan Skácelík of the Czech Republic runs a great little shop that carries wonderful mid-century modern inspired prints. I’ll let the prints speak for themselves.

Mid Century Modern Modernist Print

Nordic Tea Print

I like to Rock Print

Stig Lindberg Bersa – Swedish Tea Time Print

Some Like it Hot Print

As you can see, Jan is a talented designer and while I haven’t had a chance to totally dive into her blog just yet, it looks promising form the quick scroll I gave it. I’m definitely bookmarking her etsy shop and subscribing to her blog posts. :)

This space wasn’t horrible, at least not in this photo. But the table was way too big and the whole space felt a bit cramped! So we ended up getting the Smart Round Marble coffee table from CB2:

And it’s fitting quite nicely! Kira especially loves it, though normally she hangs out underneath of it.

But we had to show the table up and get something else. I’ve been watching craigslist every day waiting for the right moment to pounce and then BAM! There it was! I hustled to contact the seller, and after a few hours finally got in touch with him – but oh no! Someone else wanted it! I puppy-dog-eyed the boyfriend and we were on our way to swoop in and nab it. So I guess this is where I should say, if you are the other person that was interested in this:

I’m sorry.

I wanted something with plenty of storage, modern lines and maybe something that made it a bit different. I think these will do the trick.

I think the new coffee table and the new (old) tv unit will play nicely together..

What do you think? We are absolutely in love with the storage it’s giving us. Plenty of room to hide away the DVD player, DVR and Wii; hold all of the DVDs we never watch and the Wii games we have. Plus, since the new coffee table doesn’t have a place for storing remotes, we have those drawers at the top to wrangle all those odds and ends. :)

I’m quite excited. :)

We got this sweet pillow at the Crate and Barrel outlet in Alexandria — I love it because of the different colors — makes it easy to change things up. :)

Over the Holidays I was given this book — It’s been on my wishlist for awhile, it’s got a ton of eye-candy in it, maybe one day I’ll scan some photos of my favorite spaces. Makes me realize I need to get to the Mid-West or West coast in order to get the type of home I one day would like. Or, build it. Haha.

Finally, there’s this cute little candle I got at Target on a whim for only $6 last weekend. I love the pattern and the warm yellow glow. I’m going to be said when it burns out. :(

Any fun finds for you recently?

From this view, it doesn’t look like it’s TOO bad, but that space between the chaise and the end of the table is only about 7 inches. That makes it really hard to get around the table to the chaise, and frankly, it makes the whole room feel cramped!

From a different angle:

See? Way. Too. Big. So, despite just getting the table in September, it looks like it’s off to craigslist for a reduced price (sigh…) and in with something more for the space. Our choice? The Smart Round Marble table from CB2.

We had a few considerations, and despite this not having hidden storage like our current table does (you know, for all those pesky remotes), we wanted something that would be timeless, durable and of a decent size without being too bulky. Comments from owners have said that it’s very heavy Carrara-style marble with sleek chrome legs look great. It’s got a 4.9 out of 5 reviews (and based on the one or two that were 4, it wasn’t really anything that kept it from a 5) so it’s gotta be good.

We’ll see; delivery is scheduled for this coming Friday, so here’s hoping it meets – nay – exceeds our expectations.

Any stories out there of furniture you’ve bought only to have to replace something else due to style, color or size? I feel like we’re playing musical furniture around here!

Empty. Our living room is echoing. Kira is freaking out because everything that has her scent on it is GOING AWAY OMG. We’ve just spent almost all day at Ikea. Well, traveling to and from BOTH Ikea Woodbridge and College Park. But we have a couch! Well.. Actually as of this moment, we don’t have a couch. We donated the purple one this morning, and the new one will be here tomorrow morning. Happy New Year’s to us, eh?

But! New couch! We decided to go with the Kivik loveseat + chaise in Teno grey. It’s a great, tweedy fabric that kind of matches our walls. At any rate, it will be nice to have something that 1) isn’t purple and 2) is big enough for both of us.

Oh, and that chair up there? Yea. The Bertoia chairs, while fun to look at, were totally impractical, and we had NO room for them to just sit pretty. During my constant craigslist searching, I came upon this curb-side wonder. We ran out, looked for it, and voila! In our home! A little WD-40 and a quick wipe down and she’s basically new! A bit wobbly still, but much better than the uncomfortable Bertoias.

So with that, I bid you a Happy New Year. Since we’re couchless, we’ll be spending the evening watching Star Wars: IV and V in bed. Daring, I know. ;)

Happy New Year, all. See you next year: new year, new couch. New lots of stuff!