The Garden
Welcome back to our kitchen. I know, this blog has been a bit kitchen-centric, but it’s the only thing we have semi-together yet. We’ve spent the last few weeks collecting plants, framing art, and searching for the perfect hanging lamp, and it’s starting to brighten up even more. I love how everything in this nook centers around plants, flowers, fruit, and animals. The Winter Fruit print by Claire Nereim is such a gorgeous, large 10-color screen print.
Future plans also include adding a large woven rug to cover the hideous tile floor, and installing shelves in the right window, to stack more plants and disguise the burglar bars as much as possible (I hate them, but we can’t them out).
I also purchased this painting from Becca Stadtlander recently. All of her work is beautiful, and it’s so nice to see the texture of the paint, and its true color away from a computer screen. It hangs over a little shelf Dylan built to house more plants, a candle, and a drawing of a rutabaga I did a while ago.
Kitchen Junk Curtain: Hot or Not?
Like many of our fellow city dwellers, our apartment has very limited storage (and not a single closet). As a result, things/appliances/boxes start to get put in strange places. At some point, we looked at each other and got all excited about making a curtain to cover up all the junk we store on top of the kitchen cabinets. Leah put together a quick illustrated surface pattern that matched the color of the sea foam green tiles, and we ordered the custom fabric. I bought a simple shower curtain rod and we put the thing up there.
As soon as I installed it we took a few steps back, folded our arms, and glared at it for a few minutes… I does its job nicely but we honestly couldn’t decide if it was cool or if it was a little too ‘Grandma’s house.’ It’s definitely growing on me, but what do you think?
SIDE NOTE: Check out the flat black spray paint job i gave those cabinet knobs! I think it’s a total upgrade. Also our kitchen tiles are the worst… we’re going get a rug to put down.
New Shelves, New Bathroom
Hey, I put up our new String® System Pocket shelves! Leah bought them for me for Christmas (probably because she wanted them too). What do you know, they look great. The installation was super easy but it didn’t come with any mounting hardware so I had to use my own. NO PROBLEM.
PROTIP: color the screws black with a Sharpie paint pen.
The bathroom is really starting to come together. The first thing I accomplished, when we moved in, was tearing down the disgusting old bathroom mirror cabinet and putting up a new IKEA LILLÅNGEN (the obvious cheap non-offensive choice). The white cabinet looks great alongside the black shelves with the black and white tiles. The Cochran and Perry nudes add some nice bright color.
Morning Light
The kitchen has become the center of life around here. The office is still a wreck and our living room chairs don’t have cushions, so after breakfast we just set up computer camp at the table. The kitchen gets beautiful light every morning and we’ve filled it with plants, fresh flowers, and our favorite candles. A painting by my mom (titled “Bootsie at the Egyptian”, a cat that lived at the Egyptian apartments with her in San Diego, well before I was born) hangs on one wall.
Other stuff, mostly plant-related: A few Boskke hanging planters hang next to the best plant-printed mirror we found at the thrift store. And tons of little plants in pots and jars. I love vintage milk-glass jars as mini planters (there are a ton for sale on Etsy). My mom made the ceramic goldfish planter. We also recently replaced our terrible temporary Ikea chairs with some great old Thonet-style bentwood chairs.
Today
I tidied up and then I did some painting.
P.S. The bows print in the first photo is for sale here. The leaves and flowers print in the second photo is by Karolin Schnoor and the cat painting is by Chelsey Pettyjohn.
Girlified
I took some photos of a new tote bag I made with the black cat pattern, and just had to turn this corner of the living room into an Internet Girl haven at the same time. Dylan is going to hate it. You can buy the tote here.
