First of all, three-day weekends are amazing. (In fact, I think it’s high time we made them mandatory.) With an extra 24 hours to burn, we made some serious progress on our to do list, lounged in the sun, listened to some new records and ate really well. To jump-start the festivities, Kyle and I met at Velocity Art and Design on Friday during lunch to check out their warehouse sale. There were so many goodies and with everything 40% off, we had to consciously restrain ourselves. But, we did pick up a few things.
Like this throw pillow from Dwell Studio. I am a magnet for mustard yellow.
Oh, and this!
We bought a larger Boskke planter for the living room! We don’t have a lot of free floor space (or wall space for that matter) so hanging things from the ceiling really is a good solution for us. For this planter we wanted something sculptural and more substantial and orchids are apparently the go-to plant for chillin’ upside down.
Oddly enough, there is an orchid store in our neighborhood so on Sunday afternoon Kyle walked over with the Boskke under his arm and came back home with a really beautiful orchid, planted and ready to hang. The planter doesn’t come with its own cable, so we scrounged around in our bin of miscellaneous IKEA hardware and came up with a similar set-up to the basil planter in the kitchen. We centered the planter on the wall behind (and between two joist bays) and simply attached the cable to the MDO ceiling (which is also the subfloor for the loft above).
In short, we love it. It’s elegant and simple and doesn’t conflict visually with the basil on the other side of the house…
…which by the way, is not only alive but prospering! The little basil stems have curled back up towards the window and if I give it a little water every other day or so it’s happy.
We also bought two sets of Normann Copenhagen rocking glasses. After picking up some smaller, stemless wine glasses a few summers ago in Austin, we’re all about this style.
I believe the Velocity sale has been extended through this week so if you’re a local go check it out!
In other decorating news, we finally christened the art wall. These wood block photographs were taken by our friend Todd and were part of a showing at architecture firm Mithun a few months ago.
Todd and I used to work together, but he has since started his own firm called Syndicate Smith and now practices architecture, furniture making, art and photography.
We really love the simplicity of the wood blocks (which are actually from Todd’s childhood!) and richness of the black and white photos (though I’m sure my own photography skills aren’t doing them justice). We picked these three from a larger collection and were drawn to both the composition of each individual print and how they read as a whole. If you like what you see, there are still prints available for sale on Todd’s website!
(The aluminum frames are IKEA and were $18 each.)
Finally, we also finished the loft! After my post about duvet cover options (by the way, thank you so much for all the awesome ideas and suggestions!), I ended up ordering the West Elm cover. I did scope out the IKEA options but the ones I liked were mostly white and I was worried that the darker down comforter would show through.
To make things feel a bit more complete (and functional) I picked up this “nightstand” from IKEA. It’s actually a step stool, but I didn’t have any luck finding a small table and was intrigued by the two tier idea. So for $15, I brought it home. It comes as unfinished solid beech, but in our ongoing attempt to inject more color into our home, I painted it the same mustard yellow as our kitchen window jamb.
To make people feel more comfortable going up and down the loft ladder in the middle of the night, we installed a switchable outlet behind the bed that is wired to a switch at the top of the ladder. The lamp is now plugged into this outlet.
The loft will continue to evolve over time, but for now we needed a space for guests to sleep and we wanted to spend as little money as possible. So here’s the breakdown:
Aerobed: already owned
IKEA sheets and down comforter: already owned
Yellow pillow: already owned (purchased at West Elm earlier this year)
Lamp: “vintage” IKEA, already owned
Duvet: $60
Nightstand: $15 (painted from a quart of leftover BM paint in the color “luminous days”)
Not bad for $75, huh? The above photo also shows the roof window in action. It was a warm day when I took these photos and the breeze up there was quite pleasant. I foresee lots of napping up here.
In less pretty news, we’re making headway on our exterior projects. In fact, when I got home from the grocery store tonight Kyle was standing in a waist-high trench with a shovel in hand. Stay tuned.