Elissa and her Sweets' Pastel Pastiche

A month or so ago, I mentioned that my friend had taken pictures of our house as part of an Apartment Therapy reporter-audition.  Well.... the post is finally up there so I'm free to put it on here... welcome, all-- you can check out the Apartment Therapy post here, as well!


"White house, red door". Could be a shop at the mall. To the right, a little 1960's serving cart on wheels that our mail normally ends up on in the winter; in summer, I intend to put a pitcher of cucumber water on it. Up above the cart is a large chalkboard on which we normally write "Welcome" and then if we expect anyone, their name underneath-- "Welcome Jenny" for example. Usually when these folks leave they end up drawing boobs and things on it. I'm sure the neighbors (old folks, a pack of drag queens, homeless people pushing shopping carts) love us.


Herrrrre's the living room! The couch we got on Ebay, and I have to admit that I hated it when I first saw it-- being much more a Hollywood Regency kind of gal, I recoiled at its rectangularity, it's lack of... velvet upholstery. But in the context of all the other colors of the room I've grown to love it. Whenever it needs reupholstered, I'd like to keep the color, but maybe do it in suede. Almost everything else was gotten at a thrift or antique store, except for the rug (Ikea) and the Frank Lloyd Wright-style lamps at either end of the picture (Home Depot).


The main difficulty with the living room is that because of this fireplace (semi-nonworking), it's hard to find a good place for the TV. Putting a TV on a mantle almost seems like sacrilege, but there it stays, and, like Republicans to the plight of the poor, I have turned a blind eye. We temper its harsh newness with the cat's chair, which is ONLY the cat's chair. It was picked up off the street and reupholstered with faux fur.


She LOVES this chair.


One of my favorite things about the house is looking from the living room into the dining room. I just love, love, love these colors (which are Dutch Boy's "Green River" and Valspar's "Rainwater").


My Sweets formerly had a pretty good-sized collection of these types of buffets, or record players that looked like buffets. This is the one that remains, and it mostly holds records, DVDs and mail we'd rather ignore. The chairs and dinette I picked up off the street and reupholstered.


From the dining room to the kitchen, here we have a rotating display of our favorite glassware, which would be our biggest indulgence, if you could call spending $7 on a set at the thrift an indulgence. But nevertheless, we have a hulking collection of glassware. These are our current faves, resting on a cutting board we got from Canoe in Portland.


A cooking book with rad illustrations, skewers we use for parties or to grab a bit of what we're cooking out of the pan to taste it. The vase comes courtesy of housewarming gift we got from a friend, originally filled with daisies.



We have two sinks in our kitchen. This is the original one; a newer one is on the opposite side of the kitchen.


I love the built in wooden cabinets... don't love the holes in the floor from where the previous owners removed a swinging door. I didn't choose the valance, it came with the place, but with the blue, I don't mind it. I fantasize about replacing it with a white one that has lemons on it, or better yet, bananas.


A view of the pantry... above which my sweets hung a couple of love birds he found at the thrift...


Here's where the cat takes prandial refuge, in front of a portrait he did of her. Perhaps we're projecting our desires onto the cat, but who wouldn't like a large portrait of themselves in the dining room?


And continuing our journey, up the stairs which are currently decorated with a Tord Boontje garland...



This stained glass window was a gift from my parents for our wedding... it regally presides over the top of the stairs.


Now, I'll be the first to admit that all of the upstairs rooms need help. We worked on the downstairs first, because when people come over, it's usually all that they see. So much has happened since we moved in 3 months ago, that proper attention has not been (able to be) paid to all of the rest of the rooms, but a couple of things, nonetheless, are going right. In the bathroom you see above, the magazine rack and a picture of an ice cream cone hanging out on the door of the non-functioning laundry chute. The ice cream cone belonged to the same swinging-door removing folks who have a top-notch ice cream joint in town. The infamous window is where Stella the Cat spends most of her days, and our most recent addition, a mobile of little ships that we got in San Francisco.


Here, a little detail shot of the top of my dresser in the bedroom..



And here, a closeup of one of a pair of mid-century bedside tables which are both generously huge, being nearly 2.5 feet on each side, and insanely cheap for $30 apiece at my favorite antique mall. We seriously need to get to work on getting the bedroom just right. Til then, just know that it is incredibly white.


And, last but not least, the office, in its undone state. I plan on painting it in the next couple of weeks, and maybe finding a red (or cheetah!) slipcover for the pull-out couch where guests spend the night. The table is huge, but amazing-- we got it for $25 and repainted it.


As you can see, the surface of the table is amazing, and what originally drew us to it. Since the office is mostly "my room" (his is in the basement) this is where I keep my girly accoutrements, like a bowl-full of nail polishes as a centerpiece on the table. I painted my nails today with the L'Oreal one to the far right. Fleur de Lis, is what it's called.

Well, nuff of that-- now I feel naked, but I really loved the photos my friend took for us and wanted to share them... they'll definitely go in a memory book for sure.

Even if you know where you are is not where you are going to be, it's worth the time to make the present digs livable and lovable. What do you love about where you live?

Yours,

Elissa.