The Rug Hunt Ends

Much to Tim's delight, I do publicly declare that I am finished hunting for rugs!*




*for this apartment, at least temporarily...

After months of hunting on Craigslist for beautiful rugs that now live in the bedroom, dining nook, and kitchen, then more months of being madly in love with West Elm's Souk rug for our living room, but being too thrifty to pull the trigger, well... I pulled the trigger. 

And it is super great! Here's a picture of the rug we had in there before.



It's a great rug, but its lovely orange was just a little too much with our blue couch and yellow chair. Now it lives in the bedroom (which I might add is starting to look pretty cute).



Mr. Souk is luxurious indeed. Tim loves how soft it is and I love its texture and large, but not busy, pattern.



One of the surefire reasons I know it's perfect for the space is that it makes all of the things I don't like about the room look worse! I'm looking at you peachy tan walls and you peachy pink chair!

You can bet I've already chosen a paint color and am on the hunt for an upholsterer.

What have you been working on? Link me to your projects in the comments below - I'd love to check them out!

A Grateful Moment

It's lunch break time in Jen land - emphasis on "break" (a habit I'm trying to incorporate into my regular routine) - and I'm feeling grateful for sunshine and music. So, I thought I'd share a few quick snapshots.



How's your day going?

Small Changes and Perfect Plants

Over the past several months I've been embracing something a little unnatural for me: the slow down. Contrary to my "I can do anything and everything," efficiency-high loving, ultra productive tendencies, I'm getting to know the value of recognizing and being happy with taking a little more time to enjoy my day in a quality instead of quantity type way.



In terms of decorating rooms in my apartment, that has meant slow adjustments instead of blitz finishing a room in one weekend.

Which brings me to my lovely new plant: a gorgeous Staghorn Fern (from Serendipity in Old Town Temecula) perfect for the empty corner in my dining nook.



So here's how the slow-changes went down... That corner started with a 6 foot fiddle leaf fig tree - a set-up that ran into some problems:
1. The kitchen heating vent was right next to the tree - Mr. Fig hated having hot air blown on him and lost several leaves in protest.
2. The size of the tree made the dining area feel a little cramped.
3. Tim and I want to add a small bar cart to the dining room and Mr. Fig was taking up prime cart real estate.



So, Mr. Fig moved out and Lady Philodendron moved in. She was wild, curvy, filled the space beautifully and... oh... toxic to cats. Dangit.



Don't worry, the cats are fine.

In the end, I'm glad Lady Philodendron didn't work out because look at this Staghorn...!



That's one sexy fern.

Next up - find a cute bar cart! Fill it with cute glasses and yummy liquors! Live like beautiful people straight out of Mad Men. Well, maybe that last one's a little ambitious...

What do you think? Are you digging the fern? How do you like to decorate - slow steps or all at once?

The Power of Paint

Remember when I shared the five gifts under $5 I brought to a gift exchange? Yeah, you're right, that was forever ago. As promised, today I share the potential of one of the goodies I ended up winning in the exchange.



It was the ceramic paper bag!!



My sister thought I was a little crazy for loving this random ceramic bag, but with a fresh coat of high-gloss white spray paint, she's looking as quirky and modern as one of these Brandt crinkle cups (for a lot less).



Because she lives on our coffee table, I also hot-glued some felt to her bottom so I won't have to worry about the rough ceramic scratching up the wood.



What do you think? Still crazy or crazy adorable?... see what I did there? Shameless ;)

Taking the Plunge: Photography Investment

In the past couple of months I've been feeling a little limited in the photo taking department. I really like how my photos have been turning out, but I want to push myself a little further :)

Time to invest.



After a little research (particularly these two blog posts by Under a Sycamore and A Beautiful Mess), I decided a new camera lens was the next step! An Amazon purchase later, and I've got a new Canon 50mm f.1.4 lens. Yipee!

So, what does this mean? Basically two things for my photo-taking purposes: A nicer picture quality and a smaller aperture than any of my other lenses can achieve (more of the pretty burry stuff around the part of the image I'm focusing on).

Enough talk, here's an example...
Old Lens...



New lens...



See the difference? I like it :)
These two photos (both taken with the new lens) show how I can play with the focus.



Fun huh? Oh, don't worry, It's great at kitty photos too...



I'm definitely feeling inspired to take more photos and discover the full capabilities of this lens!
Have you ever bumped into limits from your equipment? How did you get through them?