Living Room Tour

By Cate

Guess what guys... our living room is CLEAN.  So you know what that means: it's time for a living room tour!  Let me start by explaining that Caleb and I live in a studio/ loft apartment.  As you can see in the floorplan, basically this means we live in one big room that's a whopping 863 square feet.  

Nevertheless, we are very proud of our newlywed nest.  I'm proud that I managed to make my extensive collection of roadside rescue furniture and DIY decor work for a small space.  And Caleb is proud that he found us an apartment that, although minuscule, still has more than one bathroom {1.5 to be exact} and a flight of stairs.  Now with that said, I don't know if this post will actually qualify as a tour since you can pretty much grasp our tiny living situation in one photo:

Yep you're looking at it.
That's the whole living room people and pretty much our whole apartment.
Tour over.

Just kidding.

Even though the photo taken from our lofted bedroom space pretty much covers it,  I'll still do my best to walk you through the things we have that define our living space.  

Alright, let's take a closer look at some of our decorative items. 

 

First we have our extra storage in this faux-front apothecary chest from Kirklands.  Above it hangs another engineer print that was converted to a faux pull-down chart.  Quick tangent: after I made my first pull-down chart in this tutorial, I was inspired to make another by this exquisite architectural alphabet print.

I did a little digging and learned that each letter was taken from a famous architectural publication by Johann Steingruber circa 1773.  Talk about vintage.  I tried DESPERATELY to get my hands on a reproduction image of the whole set with no luck.  But what I did find was a high resolution blueprint of the letter H.  H for Henderson - score!

Ok still with me?  Let's get back to the rest of the tour.  For those of you attention-to-detail CG readers, you might notice a couple of previous posts sprinkled through out the room...

   

{Geometric Lamp Copycat provides extra task lighting}

{Steve the Stag still stands on the credenza}

{Extra credit if you spotted the roadside rescue from Chelsea's suitcase table post last September}

Confession time: when she first made those tables, I was immediately smitten.  At the time however, they were promised to another project.  So when that went in a difference direction, I was ready with the rebound plan and Chelsea graciously let me inherit the pair!  

There are also a couple new-to-CG ideas in the room.  Continuing my suitcase motif, more suitcases on the wall provide extra hidden storage.

 

On our walls hang some original artwork - two acrylic paintings and one art piece made using a photo-to-canvas transfer method from A Beautiful Mess.

Behind the floating sofa is an old metal file cabinet that I spray painted aqua.  It provides a great place to hold all my tools since we don't have a garage.

Head up the stairs and you'll find the remnants of an old church pew from
my childhood church in DC.

 And on the window sill is an antique grate pulling double duty as a trellis.

You can kind of see in this photo that the white slip-covered sofa sits up against the kitchen counter.  What can I say... small apartment problems.  But it's great if you want to make toast without leaving your comfy spot on the couch.

The lofted ceiling does help the room feel bigger and the pops of red, marigold, and chartreuse mixed in with navy gives it a playful personality. 

I know what you're asking yourself... there are no dog toys littering the floor so where's Thor?

Snoozing through the whole tour of course...

And that concludes the tour of what is definitely the focal point of our little apartment.  Hope you enjoyed it and have a happy Wednesday!

~ Cate

Studio upgrade!

 ~All my pieces still available for sale can be found here~

Hey guys! I had the pleasure of taking a solo road trip to visit my beautiful sister, Casey, last weekend and help her with her new studio apartment!

The weekend started with a pitcher of sangria and pizza. That's how we roll.

There are still a few items we're on the look-out for, but we made some major headway in perking the place up with some color and pattern. She really likes blue. Like, a lot. And yellow. Our designer-at-heart Mom got the cute flower pillow for the bed, and then we went from there.

We found a flea market up the street where we were able to load up on some kitchen and bathroom storage essentials without spending much. Among those lesser interesting items we also walked away with this print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4. Great size as a focal point above the bed!

We grabbed a couple creamy yellow pillowcases from Target to punch out the yellow in the accent flower pillow and other areas of the space.

It was important to Casey to give the old nightstand that she used in college a fresh face with a pretty tablecloth. We found a beautiful blue and white stripe fabric at the flea market and cut it to size. Nothing fancy but oh, so cute! The lamp is a base and shade mix & match that Casey put together at Target. Isn't that shade so cool!? The floral blue curtain was also a Target find. 

Love that she keeps her fancy shoes out. They're like art! :)

Across from the bed we hung more curtains and used the same striped fabric from the tablecloth to make tiebacks.

She's had these shelves for a long time. Love the open storage!

Looking into the kitchen

Not really sure what this piece was made for but it sure is a fun spot to gather spices and seasonings.

Recognize this from here? :)

Casey has a great idea for a little sitting area with a comfy armchair and small coffee table, but since space is pretty limited the pieces will have to be just the perfect size. We'll all be on the lookout but in the meantime I think she's got a darn cute place to call home! Aren't studios fun?!?

Thanks a lot for reading! Check back in tomorrow to see an awesome transformation of a bug ridden dumpster chair, (which is in our bedroom now)!

~Chelsea