I’m not sure what started this but suddenly today I am finding myself obsessed with vintage floral sheets. Perhaps it’s the onset of spring (and then the snow, hail, and freezing temps we’ve been having this week again…thanks Pittsburgh!), or the cleaning of the house, or the end of another school semester, or the fact that when I showed people the video project I did around my house they said it looked “like a grandma’s house” and I said “thank you”…whatever it is, I’m in love. We’ll be in the suburbs for a bit tomorrow morning…I think we’ll have to hit up our favorite thrift store to see if we find any for ourselves! For now, here’s a pinboard of eye candy.

Vintage Sheets, by Kelsey Lynn on Pinterest

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Thank goodness for daylight savings time. To come home at 5:30pm to a brightly-lit house and hours of daylight left in which to do things — feels like a gift. And this week there is almost-warm rain in between sunny warm days — “weather for the birds”, as my grandma calls it.

I rearranged some furniture and tried to clean up a little around here. I like it a little bit more now. Still, though, we continue to house (rental) hunt.

We’ve realized that settling for less is not the way to go — we know exactly what we want and we’re going to wait until we get exactly that. Home buying is not in the cards for us for a while, so wherever we rent next will be our home for a while. We want to get it right. But it just feels so bleak, sending email after email, making phone call after phone call, seeing house after house, and finding nothing. I found the most gorgeous, perfect house today, but it was listed ages ago, so who knows if it’s still available. Here’s hoping…

I wasn’t going to do this until I got a chance to tidy up a bit, but most of the tidying I have to do hinges on installing more shelves, getting the un-stored stuff off my desk so that I can put the actual stuff that belongs there where it goes, and putting stuff in the basement, all of which won’t happen until tonight/tomorrow when Jason is here, I have off work, and we can actually do stuff. And in that process we’ll be (hopefully) finalizing everything so there won’t be a chance to take “befores” tomorrow…thus, here are my messy, horrible, lived-in before shots. Please don’t judge me :)

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I just spent the past 3 1/2 hours searching high and low for an area rug. I finally just said, screw it, and went ahead and made a mood board without one.

So here’s the new mood board. My two requirements were that my grandma’s retro orange lamp fit in (I will have to post proper pictures of that lamp for you to see, but the one in the mood board is a pretty accurate representation), and that I could hang my great aunt’s lace curtains. After that the rest just sort of came together. Minus the area rug.

I wanted something colorful and vintage-y without feeling too uncoordinated or girly (Jason does have to live here too, after all). And I wanted it to be comfortable and cozy, someplace we could hang out and watch Cosby, eat pizza and play Scrabble, or have some wine with friends. On the other hand I wanted it to be somewhere calm, where I can have a cup of tea and sit by the window and read or crochet. I also wanted the “base” to be neutral so that I could switch up accessories and put whatever I want in the room without stressing over whether it will “go”.

We don’t own any of the actual pieces in that board, but I tried to do an accurate representation of what we do have, because we don’t have the budget right now to buy a whole lot of new pieces. The biggest splurge items will be slipcovers for the couch and recliner (they’re navy blue now, we want them to be a lighter neutral like in the board), and that damn area rug.

Here’s where you guys come in. What kind of area rug would you suggest? Colored? Neutral? Patterned? Solid? Flat-woven? Piled? Shag? We’re totally at a loss. Our budget is under $150 after tax/shipping, and we need an 8′x10′ or thereabouts. Help!!

Hi blog, I’m still here. I’ve been so busy lately, all of my free time has been taken up by projects, interviews, and trying to find a rhythm in the new house. I’ve worked both Saturday and Sunday every weekend since we moved in (something that, when I got the job, I was promised would never happen…ha!), and worked one double shift every week as well. Needless to say I’m exhausted, and I haven’t done anything exciting or post-worthy in the new house, and to be honest I haven’t even had time to take any pictures of anything. I don’t even know where my camera is right now.

This weekend I have both days off for the first time in I don’t know how long. Jason and I are having a date day one of the days (we’re going to Phipps! I’ve never been there before), but I also have some projects I want to tackle while he’s here. I want to:

-Hang the coat rack
-Get all the basement stuff actually put in the basement (this is the biggest hump we have to get over right now…it’s been impossible to clean or decorate around the piles of junk we have sitting around that we just haven’t had the chance to put in the basement yet)
-Vacuum the dang couch
-Purchase a hammer and hang art on the walls (this will eliminate another 2 boxes)
-Fix the curtain situation: hang rods for the sheers inside the decorative rods, and hang our decorative panels in place of the old tenant’s hideous tab-top panels.
-Clean off the kitchen table by putting all the junk that’s there in its proper place

I’m also going to spend a little time today putting together a few mood boards for the living room. The bedroom already has a color scheme/feel that we both like, but the living room needs some major work. I have a few ideas in my head, and at least it’ll give me something to post about until the weekend when I really, really hope to be able to share pictures of the house with you here.