{goodbye chicago!}

The movers packed up our place on Monday and today we are headed back to Los Angeles after a whirlwind two years living in Chicago (Evanston near Northwestern's campus to be exact).  We moved to Chicago for Chris to attend Kellogg for his MBA and in the back of our minds we always knew we would be heading back to sunny southern California after his graduation.  Friends had told us we would love this city and fall in love with the experience of Kellogg even more, but we truly had no idea what a life-changing two years this would be when we arrived.  

Chicago is a truly vibrant city (besides the winter) that we had the chance to fully explore over our time here - mostly through unforgettable dining and cocktailing experiences.  The past two years also created tons of travel memories including our Kwest trip to the Dominican Republic, two costume filled ski trips in Colorado, 3 months living in Paris and a spring break trip to Morocco, Spain and the south of France.  But even more dear to my heart than the Chicago foodie scene and our travel destinations has been the lifelong friendships and traditions we created here that will follow us long after we start a new chapter in LA.  I won't ramble on about the sappy feelings that go along with moving away, but I will say that the past two years will always be a source of happy memories...crazy nights out, hilarious costumes, late night dinner parties with close friends, once in a lifetime travel and a million moments that when I think of them I find myself uncontrollably smiling at just the thought.

Here's a little look back in photos of the past two years in Chicago and beyond!

{2nd anniversary art}

We will be celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary next week and in keeping with the tradition we started last year we started searching around for another piece of art to add to our collection.   We chose to go with a large photo print from our wedding day for our first anniversary which you can see see right here.  This year, I came across these amazing palm leaf watercolor prints from The Aestate and thought one of them could be perfect!  The more I tried to decide which of the four variations of the Beverly print series was the best the more it occurred to me that it could be amazing to grab up three of them to create a sort of large triptych piece.  I also briefly entertained the idea of having them print us one extra large one like this, but the custom framing cost behind something that large is atrocious (over $600!!!).  We picked up white frames for these from Ikea and depending where we move to we could always switch them out for the walnut finish frame or even paint them!

{new office rug + layout}

A few months back I bought these lamps for my office, but they didn't quite fit underneath the shelves in the previous layout.  I loved these lamps so much that rather than return them and find something a few inches shorter, I decided to re-arrange the office to make it work.  You can see the original layout here.  I actually like this layout much better especially since my desk now looks out the window, but the room still didn't feel "finished" yet.

RugsUSA offered to send me any rug of my choice and this completely solved the uncompleted feeling I was experiencing with this room.  It's crazy how much a rug can pull together a room in an instant.  After agonizing over which rug to choose, (see those options in this post) I went with the safe bet on a trellis pattern in creme and deep navy.  This rug is 100% wool so it has a plush feel to it, but it's not too fussy to be inappropriate for the office.  I also figured that if we ever move to another place without a 2nd bedroom then this rug will easily fit it with our decor in other areas of our place (navy has clearly become one of my favorite colors to decorate with after all).

Right now RugsUSA is offering 65% most off their rugs so you can scoop this guy up for less than $200!

{vintage milk glass and frame from Target} 

 {acrylic note cube from The Container Store & Russell + Hazel tape dispenser}

{quick change headboard}

You might remember when we first DIY-ed our headboard back at our old place and then you can see how it fits into the bedroom at our new place in the first photo above.  Turns out our bedroom walls (which we aren't willing to paint) and our headboard are the exact same color which actually wasn't going to be a big issue since I had my eye on one of these beds to replace it.  But then we started taking some real measurements and realized this new bed frame would be just a few inches too big for the room if we wanted to keep our nightstands (which we most definitely do!).  So I decided I would just live with the old headboard until we move to a new place, until I realized on a recent trip to Joann Fabrics that a few yards of fabric could fix this situation in about 30 minutes!

I picked up 3 yards of deep navy duck cloth and this past weekend we simply re-covered the headboard by wrapping directly over the old blue/grey fabric.  While we could have fully removed the old fabric, that would have forced us to also re-do the batting and quite frankly I was just too lazy to do that. I love how it turned out so much that I might actually take some time to research an upholstery shop in Chicago that can make some matching buttons for the headboard out of the leftover fabric that way I can tuft it!

 {those holes on the back of the board are to allow for us to tuft this headboard if we ever get around to it!}

 {the headboard itself is much taller than it appears in these photos, but as you can see the ceiling height in our Chicago place paired with the larger pieces of artwork above our bed force the headboard to remain somewhat lower.}

Have you ever DIY-ed a headboard or even a bedframe before?

{office rug shopping}

I recently went on a little shopping expedition on RugsUSA specifically looking for a rug for our 2nd bedroom which serves as my office/closet (and if we are being honest- I take up way more than just the closets in this room- it feels good to admit it. thats all.)  I recently moved around the whole set up in this room, but you can see how it originally looked in this post.

This room happens to be on the corner of our building and is consistently 10 degrees colder than other rooms in our place which can be an issue in the winter so rug would definitely make it a bit more cozy. It took me months to finally decide on a rug for this room- mostly because I don't think we will have a 2nd bedroom in our next place so I wanted to choose a design/color that could work well with our other furniture.  Here are a few of my favorites that I debated between and be sure to check back next week to find out which one of these I eventually chose!!

clockwise from top left: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 

{new touch faucet from Delta Faucet}

Today I have the third and final post in my Inspired Living series with Delta Faucet.  Over the weekend, Chris and I installed the new Touch2O faucet that Delta sent over to us- and if it was already clear... when I say "we" installed it what I mean is Chris did all the work and I "supervised."  Faucets are actually surprisingly easy to put in- especially this one since it doesn't need any plumbers caulk.

While the before and after photos might some not seem that drastic, our daily interaction with the sink is significantly improved.  I cannot even explain to you how nice it is to simply touch anywhere on the faucet and have it turn on.  When we are prepping for dinner parties at our place we always make sure the kitchen looks somewhat presentable by the time guests arrive, but in the time leading up to the party it gets pretty messy.  Having the ability to turn on the faucet by tapping the side with my arm or the back of my hand when my hands are dirty from cooking is pretty amazing.  I am also pretty in love with the dramatic profile of the new faucet in comparison to our previous one- I feel like it elevates the look of the entire kitchen!

Click here to check out the initial post where we selected our faucet design and right here is my dream kitchen inspiration.

Delta Touch2O Technology for your kitchen and bathroom is precisely in tune with your every touch. Take the quiz to learn which faucet style best describes you at deltafaucet.com

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Delta via Glam Media.  The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Delta.

{new sofa console table}

A couple months ago, we purchased the Malm Occasional table from Ikea intending to use it under our wall-mounted TV in our new living room set up, but once we placed it there we decided it looked absolutely horrible and not how we envisioned.  Since the table wasn't that pricey and was already put together, we opted to try it out in other spaces in our place rather than hike it all the way back to Ikea (which is quite the trek from our place!).  It lived in our guest room/office for a while, but a few weeks back I tried it out behind our large sofa and absolutely loved the result! The reason that behind the sofa wasn't the next place it went to once it didn't work in our initial vision was that I was concerned it would cramp the feeling of the room, but after living with it for a little while I felt that the ability to have a place to display some items and give guests and additional spot for their drinks to rest was worth the loss in space (about 14 inches).

The best part about this table is that it is so versatile in different spaces so I know that it will have a home even in future apartment set-ups. I particularly love when its more visible as a sofa table like in this space plus it doubles beautifully as a party table!

 {read all about our gold coffee table here & our bar makeover right here}

 {trophy bowl from ZGallerie}

{muji clearly loves it}

{affordable Slim Aarons artwork}

I have been obsessed with the fabulous images captured by Slim Aarons for what feels like forever. He captures another time and place in a way that makes like you are sitting right inside the image.  Adding a Slim Aarons print to our art collection has been on my wishlist forever, but for the size of print I would want the price is pretty steep.  Also on my wishlist for a while now are the Slim Aarons coffee table books which I had never actually seen in person.  Recently I found out the books are pretty massive (as in 11" by 14"!!) with a lot of full page photos in them that are void of text or captions.  I thought maybe if I could find a used version of the Poolside book for a good price, I would be willing to cut it up and use my favorite pages for a little Slim Aarons gallery shelf in my office.

I purchased a used version of the book for only $25 that had some dust jacket damage, but was otherwise in perfect condition!  After spending almost an entire evening enjoying the gorgeous book, I took note of some of my favorite shots and then picked up some corresponding frames.  All the frames (except for the one on the far right and very middle which are vintage) are from Target right here.  I would have preferred to have them all in white, but Target doesn't make the larger frame in white so I figured I could buy the black and paint it later on if it bothered me (for now I sort of like the contrast).  You can find all white frames in practically every size at Ikea right here- I was simply not willing to spend half a day going all the way to Ikea for 4 frames.

Besides the time I took selecting my favorite images, the most time consuming part of this little project is to use an exacto knife to "cut out" the photos from the book.  In order to use the full page photos in an 11" by 14" frame you will need to cut the pages as close as humanly possible to the binding.  Using an exacto knife, a ruler and a cutting mat makes this entire process relatively easy. Simply push back the book binding as much as you can, place the cutting mat under the page and then place the ruler close the binding.  Slide the exacto knife in between the ruler and the binding while using the ruler as a guide for the knife you can easily cut out the pages.

I am pretty obsessed with how this turned out and love that I have such beautiful images to get lost in while sitting at my desk!

 {slim aarons poolside book available used here}

 {exacto knife and cutting mat will make this project significantly easier}

 {it was so difficult to narrow it down to only five choices!}

 {frames from Target: smaller one here and larger one here}

 {displayed in the office on shelves from Ikea}

{target lamp from right here}