{chicago living room}

Since moving into our place in Chicago, I have shared our dining room, office/2nd bedroom and black/gold bathroom.  I wasn't sure that we would ever get to a point where I would want to share our living room since  it just hasn't felt quite finished for months.  After returning from a two and half week vacation, we promptly decided to start moving around all of our living room furniture which included un-mounting and re-mounting both our tv and fauxdenza.    It's clear to me after this re-arrange that previously we were simply not using our space in the best way for our lifestyle.  This new set up gives us more usable space surrounding the living room and lends itself perfectly to what we do most which is entertain guests!

 {our bar set up is now front and center instead of our TV which is now mounted on the 

wall to the right in this photo}

 {coral ottomans, throw pillows & floor lamp from Target, rug from Pottery Barn, sources for other items can be found in our previous home tour right here}

 {vintage table that used to belong to my grandmother topped with fashion books & a terrarium 
from Urban Outfitters}

 {Tom Ford book + faux succulent since real succulents aren't real happy in Illinois}

 {view into the dining room}

{tray from CB2, matchstick holder from Jonathan Adler, Laduree books}

 {custom matchbooks from our wedding now sit on our coffee table}

 {gold rimmed glasses which were the best Salvation Army find in my life}

 {blurb photobooks that live under our TV}

Like I said in the beginning of the post- our fauxdenza has been moved and now lives in our entryway which I promise to share along with photos of our master bedroom just as soon as those rooms are 100% done!

{apartment therapy house tour!}

I am so excited that not only is today a GIVEAWAY day on the blog, but Apartment Therapy is featuring a tour of our loft!!!!  You can see it right here.  Apartment Therapy is by far one of my favorite sites for home inspiration and the house tours are the best part since you get to see how people really live! Here are links to some of the posts that relate to things you see in the house tour:

{bubble chandelier tutorial}

{industrial dress bar}

{diy upholstered headboard}

{before & after shots of the main area}

{swan artwork}

{CB2 side table}

{nightstand makeover}

{outdoor deck}

{love print from madebygirl}

Last year Chris bought me the "I love You, Blogs & Coffee" print from Made By Girl and ever since then I have wanted one of her "Love Candy" prints. We had pretty much maxed out the space for art in our previous house, but the loft has abundant free wall space which is because there are only windows on one wall (check out some of our other artwork here).  After the engagement, my mom surprised us with the Love print in gray.  We framed it with this Ikea frame and it now hangs on the wall outside the kitchen which is basically the first wall you see when you walk in; the photo below is from that vantage point.

Made By Girl has  many other beautiful and affordable prints. Since most of them are sized 16" by 20", they fit perfectly into the pre-matted Ikea frames which makes them great for gifts since you cut out the high cost of custom framing.

{chevron rug: blue v. grey}

 Ever since we moved, I have been on the hunt of an affordable chevron print rug for our bedroom. Finally, Urban Outfitters stepped up to the plate with their printed chevron rug for only $69 for a 5x7 (you can find a similar rug here).  I was having a really hard time choosing among the colors, so we purchased two of each the grey and the blue (also colors can be so deceiving online) with the intention to return whichever color we did not like. The goal was to take two of the rugs and put them side by side to create a 10x14 rug for only $140!!! That idea was too good to be true as I soon discovered when I received the rugs that the printed chevron stripes do not match up. The picture below is the best combination of two rugs side by side and the print is still an inch off and a bit wonky!

So now I am stuck with the decision to either go with the blue and live with the one inch difference between the two rugs or only use one 5x7 rug under the bed and choose between blue or grey...

The grey seems much more versatile in the long run if I ever want to move the rug to a new location. And the color lends itself well to other changes we might make in the room like painting the walls or getting new bedding.

The blue is just so pretty and has a lot more of "pop" against the travertine floor, but I am afraid I won't like the color sometime in the near future.

Decisions, decisions...

{some new additions}

Last weekend we picked up a few fun things for our place, the most exciting of which was the Smart Marble C-Table from CB2. I absolutely love the clean look of marble, we even briefly considering pricing it out to use for the top our kitchen island. This table is so affordable for how it looks and I love that you can also slide it over the couch for a middle of the couch tabletop perfect for a glass of wine or your laptop. Sidenote: how desperate does that couch look for throw pillows!?!? Don't worry though- I'm workin on it!

We also picked up two of these white porcelain berry colanders from Crate & Barrel. I have been coveting the bone china farmer's market baskets from Jayson Home forever (here), but could never justify the steep price. These berry colanders from Crate & Barrel are practically free at $5.95 each!  So I bought two- naturally. I also picked up one of CB2's flat iron creamers for only $1.50 which is going to make weekend coffee much more fun!

{outdoor deck: before & after}

By far the best part about our loft is the deck; coming by outdoor space like this in downtown Los Angeles is incredibly difficult and that's how we knew this unit was the one for us. Luckily, we already had the outdoor sofa and chairs from our previous house in Silverlake. The synthetic grass (I promise it's not astro turf!) was a great find at Lester's carpets near The Grove in LA. I highly recommend them for turf or large area rugs. We also found a collapsible teak table and three white patio chairs on Craigslist.

{Ikea table, Ikea Urban Chairs}

{trio of glazed pots from Joann's fabrics}

Since our dog would be out here during the day we decided to build the wood planter boxes for the entire ledge since it was only 40 inches high and Muji is a very curious dog.  After extensive calculating and recalculating of all the planks of we would need, we were able to make these boxes relatively quickly (and by "we" I mean Christopher and his dad).  I am mildly obsessed with succulents so this feature is one of my favorites and is still a work in progress as I am currently on the hunt for some more yellow/orange colored succulents to bring some warmer colors into the boxes.

{BHG outdoor sectional, Target outdoor throw pillows}

{Home South Bali chairs, Target tilting umbrella}

This tree was a housewarming gift from my mother, it is a "salad" citrus tree which has 5 different types of citrus on it: Bearss Limes, Valencia oranges, Minneola tangelos, Eureka lemons and Washington oranges. It should be bearing fruit this spring and we are so excited to stop buying citrus for cocktails at the store every week. 

  {deck at night}

{fish bowl terrarium}

Since the gloomy weather this past weekend ruined my plans for some gardening, I decided it was the perfect time to re-plant an indoor terrarium that did not fair well in the move.  The large fish bowl vase was a TJ Maxx find, but you can find vases like these in the LA Flower Mart or at Home Goods.

What you need:

• vase - fish bowl shaped ones work best
• small rocks or gravel
• potting soil
• moss (my favorite is Super Moss' Reindeer Moss)
• various small succulents (Home Depot has a great selection for $1.50)

1. place a small layer of gravel or rocks in the bottom of the vase, for a vase the size of mine (12 inch diameter) I used about an inch worth. This allows for some drainage.
2. top with a couple inches of potting soil 
3. loosely plant succulents in desired locations, you can support them with some of the leftover small rocks if needed.  I recommend working from front to back as you plant the succulents, and then plant the one in the center last.
4. fill uncovered dirt with moss and rocks (this is optional but I think it looks much better with the additional color)
5. lightly water until soil is moist
6. place in area that gets a good amount sunlight and lightly water once a week.

I find that my terrariums will last 3 to 4 months before needing to be re-planted.  I imagine this time period changes based on how much or how little sunlight you get indoors. Our previous house had very little natural light and the terrariums could make it a few months. The loft gets TONS of morning sun so I am hoping this terrarium is going to stick it out for at least 6 months! Terrariums make easy inexpensive gifts as well. You can purchase 5 inch diameter fish bowl vases, fill it with three small succulents and then attach a cute gift tag (like this).

{mid-century chair make-over}

One of our old neighbors in Silver Lake was getting rid of these chairs and we took them with the intention to refinish them as soon as we moved somewhere with more space.  Right before moving into the new loft, we finally got to give them the attention they deserved! We removed the old varnish, lightly sanded the entire chair and then finished them with one of Varathane's wood stains in "American Walnut."  The old yellow cushions went in the trash and we made brand new bottom cushions.  I created a paper stencil from the wood inside the original cushion and used that to cut a brand new piece of plywood using a jigsaw. Then I attached 2 inch thick foam with spray adhesive to the top of the plywood. The foam was then covered with batting that was staple gunned to the back of the plywood. The grey wool fabric was another Micheal Levine Loft find! The fabric was attached in the same way as the batting except with about 10 times as many staples holding it on so that the fabric was smooth. Instead of making new back cushions we bought simple white cotton pillows from Ikea.

{flea market finds}

On Sunday we headed over to the monthly Rose Bowl flea market in search of a few different things including book ends, serving trays, and glazed planters. Although we didn't find anything on our wish list, we didn't go home empty handed. I purchased two bright vintage dresses for $12 each which I can't wait to wear once the weather warms up. We also found a small vintage filing cabinet that we figured would be perfect to house our spices. We used to store our spices using velcro on the inside of our cabinet doors, but the cabinets in our new place are too shallow so we have been in search of a new solution. The spice containers are from Specialty Bottle and the labels are from Cost Plus (similar ones here).