A Few Recent Additions To My Kitchen, Plus-- A Tea Kettle Dilemma

The print I ordered from Etsy arrived recently, which I framed and hung on that empty wall above the kitchen table.

I love it even more than I thought I would! Check out the print I ordered, and the etsy shop I bought it from here.

I took the above picture the night it arrived. I had been stashing a frame I picked up from goodwill in anticipation of its arrival, so as soon as I saw that cardboard poster tube on my doorstep I framed it and hung it right away. I waited to post this until I had a chance to rephotograph it in proper sunlight. Sadly our kitchen doesn't get that much sun even on bright days, since it is in the back of the apartment, facing another part of the building. I always hope for bright sunny pictures in the kitchen, like I get in my bedroom. Another room that does get that kind of beautiful streaming bright sunshine, however, is the pantry.

DIY CRAFTS PROJECT: paper bunting for the kitchen

Good news: I'm still loving my cheerful blue kitchen. It has been feeling pretty devoid of art work and decoration though, since changing the general color palate in the room led me to start from scratch with wall art. I picked out a print from Etsy that I think will look great, framed, under the pendant light on the wall above the kitchen table. Now I am waiting for the print to arrive, which may take a while, for 2 reasons: 1. I ordered a custom size, so the artist first has to MAKE the print, and 2. The artist I ordered it from lives in the Czech Republic (isn't the internet an amazing thing?) so who knows how long shipping will take.

The other empty wall in the kitchen, the one above the stove, has always been confusing for me as I try and decorate. Since there are no upper cabinets, the space is kind of awkwardly broken into two parts horizontally by a rail where traditional upper cabinets would sit. In the center is the stove, and the hood above the range visually splits the space into 3 parts vertically.  When I consider what to do with this space, I am baffled. Do I try to work with the look of the top 3 vertical sections by placing a large piece of art in each? Do I put something large in the middle only? Should I work against those visual divisions and put something off center, or two pieces? It may not seem like such a big problem, but somehow I couldn't get my head around it. Everything I tried looked either too symmetrical too off balance.

Look What I Found

A while ago this caught my eye (and the eyes of quite a few bloggers and decor magazines I read):

I have seen it for sale at urban outfitters and around the internet including Amazon.com from $120-$140. The first time I saw it I swooned a bit, I admit I have a thing for birds and owls in decor (just like everyone else it seems, put a bird on it!), They are sort of all over my room.Especially in white ceramic forms.

Well, look what I found today at TJmax on clearance for $16.99?

quite a resemblance, right?



I think he fits right in, though I am contemplating if the branches look too much like weird spiky hair coming out of his head, what do you think?

A small change

In my last post about my kitchen I mentioned this little problem area:

Somehow clear glass does not do a good job of hiding the microwave/cord disaster ugliness. Who knew?

I have been planning a pretty clever hack to cover up the cord area entirely, but since I probably won't get to that project until things warm up a bit (can't use my claimed workshop space - the alley behind our building- when it is holding several feet of snow) I thought I would try and use things I had on hand to better distract from the things I dislike in that corner. I used a placemat from a set a friend gave me at Christmas, a book end I had in my bedroom, and a few of my favorite thrift store collected cookbooks.

Now the area looks like this:

 You can still see the cords, but only if you are looking straight on, which involves standing right in front of the pantry door. Otherwise, it looks like this:

I think it's an improvement. And I actually love how the red book covers pop against that blue. Unfortunately I can't really make the microwave stop looking...microwave-y. Oh well. Now it has pretty vintage cookbooks on it, what's wrong with that?

Oh, and if you are wondering what happened to our growing wine cork collection, I simply moved it across the room to sit on top of the wire cart near the window. I'll post a pic soon once a few other little things come together.

changing and rearranging

There have been a few changes at my apartment in recent weeks, and I thought I would share.


We moved around the furniture a bit in the living room to create a workspace right under the window. The new arrangement also encourages conversation by having the seating a bit closer and more intimate. I also got a rug after pondering options here (you can also see the old arrangement at that link). Now the room looks like this:

 And here is a close up of the rug I went with:

The dresser conversion in the foyer is on hold at the moment, though it hopefully will be done next weekend. In the meantime our foyer looks like this:

The biggest change, however, is in the kitchen. It is getting a heavy dose of cheery colors and whimsy.

Though I pretty recently made some changes to the kitchen here, I ended up feeling really unhappy with the result. I tried to live with it for a bit to see if it would grow on me, but you know what? It didn't! At all. if anything, I started to like it less and less, and started imagining new ways I could fix what I had done. Hope this works, I like it a lot better already, and can't wait to find some fun, poppy art work for that empty wall to pull it all together!

I'll post a few more shots once the project is done. Right now a lot of the kitchen looks a bit unfinished...

A few small projects in the bedroom

I did a couple quick projects in my room this past weekend, some simple things to help me feel organized. First, I made some changes to my ikea Aneboda wardrobe. You know the kind, with the corrugated plastic that is translucent, so you can see whatever mess the thing is meant to hide. I used a roll of soft blue contact paper, and some decorative drawer pulls to change its appearance a bit. I am still debating adding some decorative moulding around the crown to give it a more feminine look that matches better with the pulls. I also have a second more modern pair of pulls I may use instead. I am going to give it time.

Before: (ikea stock photo)

 

After: 

(poorly lit bedroom photo...does that red suitcase peeking out bother you as much as it does me?)

I also made the insides of the doors into functional space. I adhered cork board to the inside of the left door, and a jewlery organizer on the other side. The jewelery holder has clear compartments just the right size for storing hair clips and elastics and earrings and things, many of which had previously lived jumbled in a bowl on my bookshelf. The organizer will have to be cut down a bit and re-hemmed eventually, as it is a tad bigger than the door.

I've been painting doors.

What have I been up to? I've been painting doors.

Like this blue door in the bathroom, with a custom mixed paint color thanks to one of my friends at the hardware store where I used to work.

I also added mirrored decals from TJ Maxx. Now I just  need to decide what to do about that old rusted doorknob. Ignore it since I rent, and with the lock mechanism it may be complicated to replace? I imagine a nice glass knob in its place.  

I also painted the door of our broom closet with chalk board paint, creating a kitchen message center for myself and my roommates to use. 

Also, see that blue tape in the upper left section of that picture? Consider that a sneak peek into a project to come. I just need to work out my final plan, and make sure my roommates don't hate it.

The Bike in the Bedroom

Firstly, doesn't that title sound like it should be the name of an episode of  Bones? No?

When I first moved into my apartment a year ago, my bedroom was the first place I decorated. In fact, I hung the curtains and artwork, and arranged vases and decorative items more than a week before I had a chance to move most of my furniture in there. After bringing in my belongings from my previous apartment, it took me all of two days to completely unpack. I wanted it to feel settled and homey, no boxes, no big blank walls.

I thought and planned out the room a lot ahead of time, picking a color scheme I thought could make the must-be-left-white walls look purposeful, incorporated into the room. So I wanted something calm and soothing. I picked a color palate of stone blue, chocolate brown and pure white. I scoured marshalls, TJ maxx and my favorite thrift stores for items that fit this theme.

At first I loved how well everything fit together. After a few months, however, I started to feel trapped by the matching-ness of it all. I felt walking into the room like it screamed "Hello, I have a color theme!!!" Recently I decided I had to find some small changes to make to keep the things I liked about the room, but get rid of some of the matchy-matchy-ness.

So I have been going through and making small changes to the room. New sheer gray curtains replaced the blue set that matched the ones behind the bed, a lavender throw, some new beige pillow cases and  a sage throw pillow I sewed went onto the bed to break up the chocolate quilt.

Also among the things that have changed is a 1972 Phillips bicycle has come into my life. After hours of scouring off rust (by the way, a little white vinegar and some steel wool go a long way) I wasn't enthusiastic about keeping it outside in the elements. This post over at Design*Sponge  inspired me not to worry about creative ways to conceal the bike, but to instead use it at a decor item in the room while it is not out on adventures.

The Search Is On

For a while I have been hoping to find a new living room rug which is cheap, but not as cheap-looking as the one I currently have.

My living room has evolved quite a bit in the past several months, here is a picture of it taken in late July, complete with party decorations:

And, how it looks currently:

changes include replacing the coffee table with the one I refinished here, getting a new couch, and loosing the blue and white couch and papasan chair (one was sold to a friend, one left us when a roommate moved out), and then simply rearranging what was already there (also, clearly the fiesta themed decorations were put away). I think it is looking a lot better already, but I keep wondering what a difference a new rug would make, especially given that the current rug (a $40 target find) sheds every time we vacuum, and is looking pretty scuzzy.


So now I find that I spend a lot of time looking online at rugs. I am hoping for something similar in size or a bit bigger than the one there currently (which is 4'x6'), but not too much larger- hopefully 5X7 or so. Since there is already a bit of the feeling of too much furniture in too small a room, I want to stick with a rug that is toned down, and somewhat neutral. It's also important that its colors work nicely in the room. A few that have caught my eye so far:

The story about THE WINDOW

I found this old chippy 6 paned window on a curb in Kenmore square. I saw it and instantly wanted it, the only problem being that it was under a pile of other renovation refuse, bricks, wood scraps, sharp broken pieces of glass and tile... and I was on my way home from work wearing a hard to move in pencil skirt and heels! I managed to dig it out from the pile though (I got a lot of strange looks as I did).

Once I removed the heavy items on top of it, finally able to get to the window I was digging for, I had to pause for a moment, as I came eye to eye with a tiny gray mouse, who had apparently just been hanging out chilling on top of my window under cover from the other pieces of trash. He looked terrified, he completely froze in place on top of my window. We stared each other down for at least 30 seconds, my not wanting to try and shoo him for fear of getting bitten, and he perhaps thinking that if he waited long enough I would leave. We both stood our ground. I saw his body trembling, quick mouse-breaths and the whir of mouse-y heartbeats were almost audible to me, as I stood suspended, unnoticing of anything else happening around me. Eventually someone walked by on the sidewalk, and their movement seemed to snap the mouse out of his mouse-y trance, and me out of mine. He ran from the window, and down under a root of a nearby tree. I tried not to think of mouse-y germs and diseases as I picked up my window, and proceeded to walk it home. And let me tell you- it was terribly heavy, and the day was terribly windy, and as I mentioned above I was truly not dressed for the task, so I had a hell of a time. And yes, the first thing I did once i got it home was to wipe it down with disinfectant, and wash my hands for about 10 minutes straight.

in which I go temporarily insane and wrap the fridge with patterned contact paper

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 

also, I kept the postcards, pictures and magnets collected over the last year; they now live on the side.

September is...

September is an exciting time of year. For many a new school year starts, vacations end, the trees start changing colors, and the air grows the tiniest bit brisk. In Boston, September is moving season. All the rentals turn over at once in a massive flurry of moving trucks, which cause traffic all over town on the first of the month. I, luckily, did not have to deal with the stress of moving this month, as my roommates and I have decided to stay put for another year. In fact, I have never had to move on September first, my last few apartments have had odd lease start dates that left me in the only moving truck on the street (November 1st, January 1st, November 18th- the last was a fluke related to delayed renovations). So instead of September equaling moving month in my mind, it is instead merely "sidewalk shopping month"- a time to take advantage of the discarded items left behind by those that moved. And this year I celebrated Sidewalk Shopping Month heartily. In the last week I have focused most of my energy on restoring the objects and furniture I picked up, and in turn, had very little remaining energy for cooking/baking.

A few of my finds

In the last week I did make a somewhat disappointing nectarine cake, and a few basic loaves of french bread, so it is not that I have not been producing food at all, simply that I have put less time toward it than usual.

There are many good food related holidays of note in September: it is National Honey Month, as well as Better Breakfast Month- plenty of potential for great recipes there! Single day holidays of note include Sewing Machine Day (September 10th- I have been contemplating picking up a used sewing machine I keep seeing at Goodwill, is this a sign? Should I go ahead and buy it come the 10th?) National Apple Dumpling Day (17th), and of course, the always amusing International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Ar- th' 19th). I think this month will require at least 2 little-known holiday posts.

As it has been keeping me quite so busy though, I do think I should show some pictures the finds/work I have done related to my very own celebration of "Sidewalk Shopping Day".