Step 1

Every time Travis and I move to a new apartment we swear up and down that this will be the time we put effort into decorating. We're both design savvy. We both love seeing our plans come together. Plus we love shopping. We came close last time with our East Falls apartment. It took about 1.5 years, but we did a pretty good job (especially considering we did it on a nearly nonexistent budget). When we moved into the loft, Travis was pretty set on making it into an amazing space. But once we priced out the cost of walls, rugs, and storage we realized it would be too much money to put into a space that we weren't going to stay at longer than one year.

This time is going to be different! And I mean that. We will have a house on a quiet street with nice landlords. And now that we finally have money, our design visions can be achieved (within reason). I've decided that the first step will be choosing paint colors.

After playing around on Adobe's Kuler site (which can be soooooo addicting!), I formed a few color pallets. Travis and I pretty much agree on everything except the bedroom. While our pallets are pretty similar, I think that each would totally change the feeling of the room.

Here's my choice:

The lavender/lilac color would probably be on all of the walls (although we might just do one accent wall with the other walls being the light grey). The dark grey would be the duvet cover, green would be used in accent pillows and probably some plants, and the pinkey/cream color would be used in the pillows, rug, and curtains.


Here's Travis's choice:

The blue would be the main color (although maybe just an accent wall with the light grey still going on the other walls). Same dark grey duvet cover, same rug and curtains. The red-orange would be the accent color.

Our bedroom furniture is dark brown, so really either color combination would work. But the colors would have to also carry into my office/dressing room. I guess that's the main issue. If the colors were just going to be for the bedroom I probably wouldn't care much, but they also have to go in my office space. I really could live with, and be happy with, either set. I'm just not sure...



But we do have the color pallet decided for the living room!

We wanted to have some of the same colors through out the house. I had originally wanted to do cream, but Travis changed my mind and we are going with light grey. The mustard yellow will be on the wall directly across from the front door, so it will be very dramatic. We've pretty much picked out all of the furniture and accessories. Travis is going to build us a lovely sideboard, and I'm really excited about that. It will be his first real woodworking project. Luckily his Dad is a bit of an expert. I just can't wait to start shopping and painting. I've been planning everything for the past almost 2 months, so it will be really fun when we can actually get started. I am not looking forward to painting, but everything should get done in a weekend. It's a small house afterall.

Maybe next time I'll have some inspiration photos to post.

Fail.

I fail at blogging. It's ok. I really won't attempt to pick up where I left off, but here's a bulleted list of my life updates...

• I quit my job at the hospital. I couldn't take the godawful hours of 11p-7a. I was tired of talking to the dying elderly and drunks. Plus I really can't stand working in a place where everyone gets all worked up over having to follow rules. Just do your damn job and stop complaining. I will miss most of the nursing staff and my other night crew pals. They really made the job worthwhile in the first place.
• Travis and I signed a lease for a house in Fishtown. You may scoff at the mention of this underrated neighborhood, but if you saw our block you might consider living there. It's a whole house with a basement, 2 bedrooms (really 1.5 or 1 and a dressing room), and a courtyard all for $950 a month. I am so stoked and have been counting down the days to move in (about 35).
• I've decided to apply to a MPH program. I don't like hospitals, I don't like sick people, and I don't like debt. So I don't think med school is really the route I want to take. I think I'd be much happier doing almost anything in Public Health.
• Travis has a full-time job at an advertising agency in the city. He started out doing a little freelance work, but the hired him within 2 or 3 weeks. He's officially a Computer Graphics Specialist, but he does many things including web design, some print work, and most recently illustration. This job has probably been one of the greatest things to happen for us. He's out of the house during the day, we can pay all of our bills, and we have a positive balance every month.

That might be it. I don't know, but those are the most important things I guess.

We finally had beautiful weather last weekend. I happily spent most of my time outside, and even more happily with a beer in my hand. On Saturday I went to my first Taco Night, which is hosted by one of Travis's friends from work. It was amazing fun, but the night ended on a strange note with someone getting shot in the head with a pellet gun. Our party was using a sling shot to fly squeezed lemon and lime halves around the neighborhood, and I guess a disgruntled neighbor decided to fire back with a pellet gun. It was messed up, but I've lived in this city long enough to know that you do not mess with your neighbors. No one was seriously injured, but it kind of ended Taco Night. I'm totally looking forward to the next one, although I doubt anything will be flying around the neighborhood.

Even the most perfect weekend has its flaws. Unfortunately this weekend brought my sister to the ER with a collapsed lung. She's alright, but still in the hospital. It was a spontaneous pneumothorax, and no one is really sure just why it happened to her. I feel so bad that she had to sit in a hospital bed all weekend. She loves laying in bed, but it's different when you're stuck there with no control over leaving! I just wish I could've been there to read her gossip magazines and make fun of old people or something.

This post was sort of boring. I think the next one will be better. I'm going to start posting all my interior decorating brainstorming sessions. I have one month to finalize everything that I've been working on for the passed two months. I love getting a new house!