{bathroom rug shopping}

Let's be real for a second....I'm typing this from an air mattress that we have been sleeping on in our empty loft for the past week or so.  Our moving truck was supposed to arrive somewhere between July 1st to the 5th and that clearly did not happen.  It is now slated to arrive this afternoon...thank. god.   In the meantime we have been putting together our rooftop deck which is pretty much done at this point (I'm not going to lie to you, I'm obsessed with it and it just might be the best work we have ever done- I cannot wait to share!).  I have also spent some significant time sitting on said deck researching odds and ends for our place on the internet (shopping on the internet might be one of my top three skills in life.)

Currently one thing I am trying to hunt down is a runner sized rug for our bathroom.  Our Chicago place and previous DTLA loft had reaaaaally tiny bathrooms.  Bathrooms so small that even regular bathroom rugs were a stretch in those spaces.  So while our new place's bathroom isn't that huge, it feels luxuriously large to me in comparison to our past spaces.  Since we aren't planning to get too crazy with this bathroom (such as painting it black/gold), I definitely want to bring in some color or interest with this rug.  I also do not want to get a traditional "bathroom" rug, but instead find a flatweave rug that will be able to hold up in a bathroom.  The space is sized perfectly to house a runner-sized rug so here are some options I'm currently exploring:

1. Rugs USA Savanna Lattice: I love this one a lot and the price is great, but I fear it's 

too similar to all our other lattice style rugs.

2. Crate & Barrel Diamond Harbor: The small pattern of this rug would be perfect for a 

high traffic area, but is it too boring?

3. IKEA Valby Ruta: I'm not sure why I think it would be kind of amazing to have this rug that feels like it belongs in a cigar room or old library, but something about it just seems kind of interesting if it was placed in the bathroom.  

4. Crate & Barrel's Dyna Grey  This one is a pretty solid option - especially the price, but I'm concerned an "outdoor" weave rug will be too rough on bare feet. 

5. Vintage Kilim Style I'm kicking myself for not buying 45 more dugs just like this one while we were in Morocco because they are about 12 times as expensive to buy them here, but I love the bright colors of this kilim rug from Ebay. 

{new dtla loft lease + patio inspiration}

Last week we officially signed a lease on a loft in downtown Los Angeles and will be moving in at the end of this month (so long as all our stuff makes it safely across the country!).  Searching for a new place was somewhat stressful and completely painless at the same time.  I was incredibly worried I would be disappointed with whatever places we found since our last loft was such a lucky find and I loved it so much that it was likely nothing would measure up.  Outdoor space was one of my top wish list items for our new place (especially after living in Chicago weather for the past two years!), but it is very rare to find affordable units that actually have substantial areas of outdoor space in dtla beyond the ridiculous penthouse units.  Many of the converted buildings in the historical core will have maybe 7 or 8 units out of 200 to 300 that happen to have an outdoor deck just based on the odd architecture of the building which was the exact situation with our roof deck last time

I almost couldn't believe it when I got a call about a unit that opened up with almost as much outdoor space than interior space.  We put down a deposit on the newly available unit within 24 hours of that phone call! Our new place has about 820 square feet inside and while I was hoping for a bit more interior square footage, the fact that the deck will be almost 750 square feet more than makes up for it!  The big reason I wanted substantial indoor space was so that we have more than enough room to entertain and we are hoping to put a lot of work into the deck so that we can use it as a additional living space.  Here's some of the inspiration I have been gathering for the new outdoor space!

I absolutely cannot wait to get into the place and start putting it all together!  I promise to share progress along the way via Instagram and all the details once things are finished here on the blog!