Monday

Monday is my most favorite internet day because it's "Sneek Peak" day at design*sponge. It is my favorite after-work treat on a Monday.

covet, love, get inspired.



photo reposted from design*sponge

Home is wherever I'm with you

This weekend was:

-Bon Iver concert at the Wiltern. Great, great, great. I was moved. It's so lovely so witness something so hauntingly beautiful, played by people who want nothing more than to be there performing it. A special night. You should buy Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago (remember, I told you to buy it back in December? Go get it!)

-major house decorating/organizing/cleaning/work. I bought some furniture at the amazing Hotel Surplus Outlet in Van Nuys, did some furninture painting, house cleaning, and major organization. The place is still a major wreck, but one step closer to being home. I now have some great sitting chairs (before and after to come when they're done), a marble topped oval coffee table, 3 new lamps, and a gorgeous full length floor mirror with silver molding. And every piece of clothing is unpacked and in my closet. And all my jewelry is organized in my new cabinet (pictures, again, to come later).

-Sunday night- riding my bike down to catch the end of the Abbot Kinney Street festival (and possibly a cold) and the tail end of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' set on the mainstage. The new wave of "hippie-sters" at their best- LA's folk rock scene in full force- adorable and gorgeous and tragically hip all at once. Fabulous. Then, a lovely dinner at Axe with Nell and Chandler (wine, heirloom tomatoes, goat cheese, olives, candle light, and venice). It was a good night. I bought the Edward Sharpe album- it's fantastic. My favorite song is "Home." Damn, I love Venice.




Ahh Home. Let me go home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home. Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is where I'm alone with you

(they are embarking a tour, by the way, so you should go if they come through your town...I wish I'd seen more than just the end of their set)

Now I am home sick with an evil cold, that I either got as an allergic flare-up from all the cleaning and dusting, from the foggy chill in the air last night riding my bike home from Abbot Kinney Blvd, or from Nell (and her children she teaches). I hope it's not the swine flu. I don't think it is. Seriously.

Aces

This weekend for my birthday Nell & Whitney took me on a weekend trip the the Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs. It was fan-fucking-tastic in every possible way. We brought Stan Lee (creator of Spiderman, Beagle Extraordinaire) and we were a hit with guests and staff alike. The Ace was like Urban Outfitters, but a hotel. With amazingly nice staff, and a pool. Amazing people-watching (hipsters! crazy people! normal people!), fab decor (um, there was a hiking stick in our room, no joke), and spectacular food and drinks. All the drinks were made from scratch (no chemically mixes) and I was in a constant state of fresh blackberry mojito buzz for 24 hours. It was a true celebration and made me feel so loved, and so excited to finish my 20's with style. Hello 29.

Garden Update

I am making a lot of progress on the garden. I am a bit too tired to write a true chronicle right now, but the long and short of it is my Mother came to visit for Labor Day and we made quite a bit of headway. All the beds are marked out, I flattened and semi-leveled the open area in the middle which will eventually become the dining/lounging area. When I was digging up the center area, we found all kinds of ancient bits of glass and porcelain that had been in the dirt for God knows how long. I started a collection on the windowsill- it's tripled in size since this photo was taken. The Station fire was raging that weekend- all the sills (and some of the plants) collected ash.










We visited a few of LA's gardening treasures over the long weekend, including Rolling Greens of Culver City,Roger's Gardens of Corona Del Mar, and Country Roads in Orange. All fantastic places- my favorite was by far Rolling Greens. Hidden in the hills of Culver City, it stretches upward on three terraced levels of outdoor plants, indoor plants, garden accessories, and generally beautiful treasures. They had one room that was all amazing silk plants and home decor (not cheesy at all, who knew?). The outdoor nursery area has amazing plants, and a spectacular view of the city since it's perched on the side of the hill (which I failed to capture on my iphone camera). You'll have to see it for yourself!







We made a major score and got two giant glazed ceramic pots at half price (Rolling Greens has a little hidden sale section!) and they're going to be focal points in the garden when it's done. The color is somewhere between moss and grey, gorgeous and textured. I want all the containers in the yard to be shades of grey, green, blue or white. But of course I'm picking crazy pink plants so there goes coordination out the window. It'll still be cool.

The one MAJOR change in my life since the onset of this garden is I now wear foam gardening clogs (some might say they look like crocs) when i'm mucking around back there. You may or may not know, I despise crocs as a fashion statement. I understand and allow their use for children, the medical profession, and gardening. When they arrived in the mail at the office, Lindseybee declared I was not allowed to wear them outside the backyard. And I concur. If that happens, I'll know I've really let myself go. Eck. (But I kind of love them, the red atrocity they are)

WANT

WANT. I've wanted one of these for AGES. They are so beautiful. Who would believe these porcelain stool/side tables run like $400? I saw one exactly like this (photo from design*sponge post today) at Tuesday Morning (yes, really, that dungeon of a store is fantastic) for $150 but it still seems like too much money. WANT. want. want.

A Slow Transformation

I am making some serious, albeit slow, headway in my apartment design. It was a dumpy little place, a good location, an okay price. I am putting a lot of work into it, in the hopes that I will be here for awhile and reap the benefits of investing a little elbow grease into my living space.

When I looked at the place back in June, it had no enclosed yard. As part of my lease agreement, I asked the landlord to put in a 6 ft high fence around the side yard, in order to make it a private garden.



While I was in France, the fence was installed. It was a glorious day when I returned to find them just finishing putting it up (although, still leaving the old gate with white paint on it). Then, a few days later, I realized I had beautiful, dead, dry, dusty piece of dirt. The grass was dead. The dirt was compacted and dusty. A nice space, but a dustbowl of death. It was going to take so much work to make it beautiful.

During this "thoughtful time" (also known as "what the hell have I gotten myself into" time) I also entertained the idea in my little head of renting a roto-tiller and tilling the yard myself in order to make it suitable for planting.

A few days later, I attempted to plant four (yes, only four) plants in the front on the house, and realized, "holy shit this ground is hard." It took me 3 hours to plant four small lantana plants in the forlorn-looking front yard. How the hell am I supposed to roto-till a 350 sq foot side yard? Panic. Panic.






Thankfully, there is Craiglist. I found a really great guy, Mike, of Rototillerguy.com, to till my yard. For a good price, he and his team pick-axed my yard, removed some really nasty ancient juniper, tilled, mixed in compost, and tilled again. I had previously tried to remove the juniper myself, to no avail. Mike's team had it gone in 5 minutes. The juniper was ancient, harboring roaches and crickets, and full of disgusting trash bits from the last 20 years of being exposed to the passerbys on the street. It had to go. Nell described it, rather nicely, as "garden pubic hair."



All the tilling happened last weekend.









I have been reading up on gardening and trying to make sense of it all. Garden books make it sound really complicated. But, how hard can it be? I guess the worst that could happen is I kill everything. Armed with copies "The Pruner's Bible" and "Grow Vegetables" from the LA Public Library, I am forging ahead in total ignorance. Well, not total, since I've learned some things from the afore-mentioned fine books.

This weekend, I built two raised vegetable beds with the help of Nell & Dan.


I pruned and attempted to attach my jasmine (which was practically dead, by the way, a survivor from my old apartment that I revived when I moved to a place with SUN) to an "espalier." "Espalier" is french for wood-thingy from home depot for $5.99.



Things are coming along nicely. My mom (orchid-growing prodigy, gardener extraordinaire) is visiting for Labor Day weekend and I hope to get some late-season veggie seeds planted and some flowers in the ground, with her expertise. Fortunately, California has the longest growing season so I can get a few things going before winter sets in(you know, winter... 50 degree days! HA! east coast suckahs!)
I have purchased organic seeds from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply and a low-flow irrigation system for my veggie beds from Lee Valley Tools & Garden. Hopefully they'll arrive in the mail this week!

Only time will tell how the garden grows! I am excited for what is to come!

Craigslist Furniture Stalker

I moved into my new place in June and I am starting the task of decorating and furnishing my apartment. I am hoping to have some great before and afters for you on here eventually. I have painted both the kitchen and the bathroom, and those two rooms are coming along nicely. My main problem these days is, "Why the fuck do I have so much stuff??" Yeah, stuff stuff stuff. Stuff can be so overwhelming. Yet, I am in the market for more. Things I could use less of: random bits of paper, old artwork (I know, I have to save it). Coats and sweaters, slide projectors & various ancient appliances that can't be parted with. Things I need: actual furniture. I am getting a new-to-me couch soon, which is very exciting. I am painting some old pieces I have so they are not so yucky. My aim- to furnish my house with things I actually like, not just things I get because I need something to fill the space.
I have gotten rid of a few things. For example, last night in an amazing "LA Moment" I sold my portable drafting table to a man who wanted to use it for a push-up contest. Like, a contest where he would use the table to prop himself up on it and set a world record for push-ups. I kid you not. He wanted the table because it was adjustable. Well then. These are the kind of strange people you find on craigslist. I have become one of them, scouring the "free", "furniture" and "farm & garden" sections for those desparate souls who are moving in 48 hours and need to get rid of their mid-century lamp for $10 or that great bedside table they bought at westelm for $20. Or free plants! or any other various treasures. Like, Lindsay Lohan's armoire. I. Kid. You. Not.