Evolving Living Room

I don't know if you noticed the new living room painting and pole lamp two posts ago.




The painting was a Palm Springs Dazzles find. We saw it one weekend and went back the next to get it! It happened to be the Dazzles rare half-off sale so it was a TOTAL SCORE.

The lamp was not nearly as thrifty but still, quite a find. It is by Maurizio Tempestini and Sergio drove down to Long Beach to get it without telling me. He had a cakepop on hand in case I flew into a flying rage when I saw it. Silly. I really do think it finishes off the room. Don't you think so?

A bed.

Remember our final goal for 2010? Here are the before and afters, as promised.


12.31.10


1.1.11 - We think it's dreamy.




Unexpected bonus: Our mattress is now magically comfortable! Turns out, that old box spring it sat on really wasn’t much support. I had always thought we simply made an unwise mattress selection years ago which has resulted in near daily morning backaches for both of us. The mattress now sits directly on the bed’s wood slats and coupled with the dramatic new height, bedtime is suddenly infused with fancy hotel bed-ness. We love it.

P.S. I'm very clumsy when it comes to IKEA furniture. um... Who am I kidding? I'm just generally clumsy all the time. So Sergio put together nearly the entire bed. I only helped hold up a couple boards. He was very conscious of my our goal to get it done before the new year. And he did it! My hero.

Bed me baby!

One final goal to accomplish before the new year? Get off the motherf-ing floor! Our "bed" has technically been on the floor since we moved in 2.5 years ago. Yes, years my dears, years. Our mattress sits atop a box spring so, deceptively, it appears like we have a bed. But we don't. And really, I'm 33. I'm, like, an adult. (Mostly.) I think I deserve to wake up in a real bed everyday.

I have been stalking the Edland bed from IKEA for years. Ever since it was yellow! Back then, it was called the Hemnes. I showed it to Sergio back then and said we could paint it white since I knew he wasn't into the yellow. He was not into the style either though. Since then, I made him accompany my visit with the bed every time we were in the IKEA showroom. Still no. Flash forward to yesterday. Young House Love posted about their Edland bed.

I forwarded the post to Sergio...and, drumroll....he said yes! yippeeee!

I purchased the bed today! (BTW, IKEA was ka-ray-zee today! I guess a lot of people need furniture for the new year.) We plan to assemble tomorrow when I get home from work. Or on NYE day before dinner. We WILL wake up in a new bed for the new year! We will, we will, we will!

I'll post before and afters, well, after.

Photo from younghouselove.com
(How cute is that little pup? Perhaps even cuter is that his name is Burger. That might beat out my favorite dog name!)

Dining Room Rug

I finally found the dining room rug I've been searching months for. We are not allowed to own any common area rug that's plush and lush due to the furmonsters' penchant for claw sharpening on exactly the newest (and usually most inappropriate) item in the house. So, this one is sturdy and rough and perfectly right. And I love the chevron pattern with slightly asymmetrical edge. We also moved the wine bar thing into the breakfast nook and it's such a relief to have the full dining room back!



And we put the sideboard and mirror back to where they were before.



The distortion on my little pancake lens fisheyes the edges. The room really isn't as big as it looks.

A Bar in the Dining Room

What's that? Is that another piece of furniture? Why, yes ma'am it is.

Spied this on Craigslist early in the week. Met the seller, fellow AT Scavenger stalker named Lisa Maria. She has amazing energy, great decor taste and lives in Hollywood in a fabulous apartment on Vine. She has a crazy friendly dog who is just so adorable.

Funny. She originally purchased this from the same gal I got the Robin's egg blue chair from in Highland Park. The piece didn't quite work in Lisa Maria's space, which is why she was selling it. Lucky for us, it's perfect in ours.

Also very lucky for us, B&J agreed to help us move it in their truck and we are so grateful.




We are so throwing a Mad Men party...

La Primavera has arrived!

Photo taken by Sergio of a backyard resident.



More evidence of Spring!


I am blogging from the desk right now, being careful not to lean onto the cheery Liberty of London for Target top still draped over the chair. It is one of the colorful fashion items I mentioned in a previous post. I wore it to my coworker's housewarming.

We purchased the desk this past Saturday at an estate sale. Dangerously, Sergio is on a mailing list and he is mildly addicted. Thankfully, it was the final day of the sale and we showed up an hour before closing -- everything was slashed another 50%! We plan to turn it into my "dressing table" just like in the old-timey days. When not in action, it looks like a four drawer dresser so it's stealthy like James Bond and just as stylish!

Credenza take three

Wow. We're good. Look what we turned that old credenza into!


Before After

Ok. I lied. We're not that good. We saw the second credenza at our favorite thrift store the weekend after we attempted to sand down the first one. And it was the same price! Total thrifty score!



Eons better, don't you think?

The plan for the first credenza? Well, we're going to finish our work on it (damn it), and then decide where it goes.

Oooo...still can't get over how wonderful it is to look through the kitchen to see our gorgeous new patio door in the dining room. Behold all that delicious glowy light!

Credenza in two takes, not quite

Here is the credenza we purchased the prior weekend from the nice Silver Lake lady, off of Craigslist. It's plain. But I really like the art deco shaped feet. And, it fits in the space perfectly. We made sure to get the sanding paper, gloves, masks and can of stain that same day so we'd be ready to rock and roll come Saturday.

However, instead of jumping right in like we were supposed to, we drove out to get $1.99 breakfast at IKEA, and to pick up a couple of knobs for the cabinet, and a frame for the Manhattan poster. Ended up losing a major chunk of the day. It was still lovely out though and with high hopes we dug in! Look at how happy Sergio is in the first picture below.

Take 1
Sergio removed the backing and cabinet doors before we went to town on the veneer with the sand paper. We had been told to sand just the very thin top layer and we should be able to stain. That's what we did.



Um. It didn't work. I didn't get any photos but trust me, the stain did not take. We needed to sand deeper and our paper was just not coarse enough. So we took a walk down to our local hardware store to purchase coarser paper and hopefully, an affordable sander. We also stopped in at a restaurant to sit and partake in tacos and a burrito. :) yuum.

Take 2
Sergio manned that sander like a pro! It was a lot easier and faster than the two of us hand sanding.
After Sergio sanded the entire top, he eagerly began staining again.

Um x 2. It didn't work again. See, the darker edge? That's where we were able to get the veneer off completely and where the stain was able to sink in. That's what we wanted it to look like but all over. The light part in the middle is where there is still too much veneer. Sigh. We should have sprung for the coarser, higher quality paper. Quality counts people, quality counts.

So....we called it a day. It was getting dark quickly and cold too. We'll go get coarse, stronger paper and start again the next day. Argh!!

Oh well. At least we got tacos.

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P.S. How crazy is it that it's February 2010 already? Slow it down!

Feeling Golden

It was a gold kind of weekend. Woke up ridiculously early on Saturday morning and caught a bit of the sunrise from our front yard. It was very pretty and the birds were just chirping hello to the morning light.

Please use the Italian Cypress as a reference point of where the image overlaps. I did a quick search for image stitching software but got lazy. Y'all will just have to fire up the ol' imagination synapses.

Bringing the BLING:

Earrings are from a yard sale a few weekends ago; Rings from another yard sale just last weekend. The sweet little swallow charm is from Sergio! He purchased it from a jewelry shop in town when we were last in Sutri. It dangles from two different chains I connected to make one long one, both gifted to me by my mom from years past. I was extremely tempted to tap into my inner Mr. T by wearing both rings at once. But I ain't tough enough.

Check out this nugget of shortbus awesomeness:

I wanted to put it into my pocket and take it home for Micio to drive. If only she weren't such a spaz.

Here she is bathing in sunlight, sitting dignified as Dr. Jekyll one second and then twisting like crazy Ms. Hyde quite literally, the next. Why are you so spazzy Micio? Spaz.


We are lucky to call the owner of this golden voice our neighbor and frequent visitor:

I did manage to stitch 3 videos here -- all recorded while Sergio was working on the credenza I had mentioned in my recent Living Room post. I'm saving those pics for my next post.

We ended the weekend with Avatar. Don't my moms and I look hott in our golden 3D glasses?

Living Room - almost there

Not sure if you all remember the tour of our old living room. It was super cozy and our favorite room in house. Thought it was about time to show off our current living room. Luckily, we didn't have to do much work to the room before jumping into the fun of furnishing and decorating.

BEFORE:



NOW:

Yes, our walls are still ALL white and it's fine, for now. It's not quite finished yet...maybe it never will be judging by the furniture/decor near-frenzy we've been on lately. (Did I mention that including the one in use now, we own a total of four coffee tables? Yes, it's a sickness. We plan to sell them...) We intentionally stuck with a stark black and white base and are slowly picking out shots of color. Plus, I need to unpack some of the family photos. And I need to unearth a few of the many little ... tchotchke treasures I've got squirreled away.

Still, we're pretty proud of what we've done so far. Mostly secondhand pieces and if not, then on sale or from a pretty affordable store.

• Couch: Craigslist (thank you AT Scavenger!)
• Chairs: Reupholstered roadside purchases ;Fabric from Home Fabrics in Downtown LA (see the chairs before at right)
  
• Lamps: Estate Sale in the Valley
• Coffeetable: Secondhand from Revival Furniture
• End tables: Estate Sale in Pasadena
  
• Green Ceramic Garden Stool: Marshall's!
• Ginko Leaf Sculpture: Pot-ted on sale
• Blue Boston Map Screenprint (Target frame): Ork Posters
• Manhattan city map poster waiting to be framed: IKEA
• "Macdowell" painting, small blue, wood frame: Gift from Nora Kersch, painter
• Blue curtains: Home Fabrics in Downtown L.A.
• White curtains: IKEA
• Pillows, black w/white stitching: IKEA

There is one last piece we've been aching to switch out -- the TV stand. In the photo, we are using an IKEA table we purchased from a family who was moving to Sweden, oh, about 7 years ago. egads. 7!!! Jesus Heh-soos. We met the family to purchase our beloved teak dining set -- the husband threw in the IKEA table for a small additional fee.

Anyway, we picked up another Craigslist find Sunday afternoon! It's a cabinet that I will henceforth refer to as the TV credenza because it sounds fancy. It's a bit beat up but it was cheap and the kindly Silver Lake girly who sold it to us also delivered it for free! Super super nice.

We plan to sand and stain it this weekend. Hopefully I remember to take a few "before" photos of it before we do. Hmm...maybe I will also finally paint the shoe bench in the entryway, henceforth referred to as the vestibule because it sounds fancy. :)