Outdoor Living: Porch Reveal!

As a finale to insideway's plant themed week, I have a plant themed reveal for you! Welcome to Tim and my little outdoor space - our porch!

At 4x10 feet, we're not talking a wealth of outdoor space, but every little bit counts :)

In an ideal world we could pretty up the harsh steel grating on the porch, but any covering I've thought of would also block a lot of light. I'd rather more light over a slightly prettier railing. (If you have any ideas, let me know! Remember, it's a rental...). One of the best purchases we made for the porch... the humming bird feeder. It. Is. Awesome. And humming birds are out there all the time. So cute and pretty!

Both of our chairs were craigslisted (read more here and here) and are super comfy. 

The crate herb garden Tim and I made is working out beautifully and has become the pretty little center to a collection of small plants.

We keep almost all of our plants out here because, let's face it, plants are easier to keep alive outside! If you're interested, here's a list of our plants:

Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree
In the herb garden: Sage, Thyme, Oregano, Cilantro, Basil, Parsley
Spearmint
Wheatgrass (for our cats, it's good for their digestion)
About ten varieties of succulents
Air Plants

Oh and I don't want to forget my little orange watering can. It's actually a pitcher, but hey it pours water so it counts :)

What do you think? Is it a porch you could stand to drink your morning coffee on?

Grad Housing Apartment Tour

Tim and I have been living in our white box grad housing apartment for 8 months now, so I figure it's time for a full tour. I've shared all of the rooms as I've made progress, but I really wanted to put it all in one place for fun. Here we go!

PS if you want to start at the beginning, check out all of the before pictures here.

Living Room

The living room is probably the biggest transformation. Check out more before and after pictures here!

Bedroom

Yep, there's more - check out other bedroom pictures here.

Infamous Back Room

Boy was this room a doosey. If you want to experience the journey here are the posts in order (PS this one has all of the other pretty reveal pictures): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Bathroom

Decorating a renter's bathroom is so tricky. More pictures of what I did here. 

Hallway

Hey, when you live in a smalllll apartment like mine, the hallway totally gets its own reveal! Another tricky space, but I love how this one turned out. If only I had natural light for the pictures... More pics here :)

Porch

Another absolute favorite space of mine, the porch. For you diehard insideways readers - no this picture doesn't have Mr. Giraffe. Oh the price of constantly evolving decoration. You can look at him here and here though. Oh and more porch pictures are here.

And that's it folks. No kitchen. I mean we have a kitchen, but it's just an apartment kitchen full of our stuff. Unless you like purple/fleshy/baige cabinets there's really nothing to see there :)

So would you believe that we're looking for a new apartment? Since Tim and I both work from home a lot we're in desperate need of a little more space. This will really be it for reveals until we find one (fingers crossed SO HARD), but I'm sure there will be little apartment tweaks to share in the mean time. 

Does anyone else wish teleportation had been invented so you could all come over here for a proper party? No? Just me? Don't be shy, I know you want to teleport on over ;)

Green Thumb

I've become the kind of person who announces how many new leaves her beloved plants are currently growing whenever her husband comes home. Did you even know that kind of person existed? It's probably sad, but mostly exciting :)



After watching them from afar in a blog-photo love affair, I bought my first fiddle leaf fig tree in August of 2011. As you can see in the photo below, it was 14 leaves of amazing.



By February 2012 it had managed to perk up a little and had grown a few inches (as seen below from my little porch reveal)...



When we made the big move to our new place a little over a year ago (May 2012) my little figgie was doing pretty well at about 3ft tall.



Well... it loves the new place as much as I do. Commence super growth! Here it is about a foot taller and full of new leaves in August 2012.



Seven months later in March 2013...



And today (July 2013)!



So that's what nearly two years of tender lovin seems to do! I'm so grateful that this blogging adventure gives me the opportunity to look back at these things.

Are you ever shocked by how much things have changed when you peruse old photos?

Living Room Sneak Peek

Progress on my White Box Challenge has been promising these last few days.  Tim and I got a ton done our first weekend and, while I'm not ready to reveal the whole living room yet (still working on the couch situation), I thought I would give you a little sneak peek today.

This little guy got a new home and I made these mason jars into little terrarium bookends.

I finally get to use my owl light switch cover from anthropology!

Oh and we have a little porch.  New home for our rocker - first home for my new Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree (I didn't do the brown spot damage, but I'm working to fix it.)

Get excited for the full reveal - I know I am!

Little Spaces: the bathroom reveal

I've almost shared every room in my apartment with you lovely readers (my living room, bedroom, and spare bedroom, porch, and hallway), but I've been putting off the two trickiest rooms - the bathroom and kitchen.

Part of my procrastination is that I find these two rooms are difficult to "make my own." Any other renters feel my pain? Enough's enough. Time to share!



The biggest impact in this room has been hanging art. For some strange reason our shower is in a bathroom of its own. Strange, but it means I can hang whatever art I want in the toilet bathroom without worrying about steam damage.



Since I added string art to the spare bedroom, I moved the collection of orange framed art into the bathroom. I love how the size and color makes a big statement in such a small space.



(Yes, that's my failed drip art. I get to look at it every time I use the loo hah!)



Photo tips:
1. Bathrooms have a lot of reflective surfaces, so I made sure my flash was off. Never use flash in a bathroom!
2. Before I took any photos, I used custom white balance on my camera to compensate for the fluorescent lighting. Cameras see fluorescent lights as really yellow or green - yuck. Your camera might have a setting for fluorescent light, or you can often adjust white balance with photo editing software.
3. Bathrooms are often small, so be sure to experiment with tons of different angles. Finding the perfect one might be tricky!

So there's my bathroom! It's not glamourous, but I dig it. Hope you do too :)