the cozy apartment

Ikea Love....& big news!

First of all, the Big News, which I'm sure you suspected, we closed on the house today!!!  We're homeowners!  It is SO WEIRD, I feel like I'm actually an adult now, though I've been driving and drinking for years (though, um, not at the same time, of course).  It was a completely surreal experience, I kept looking around the room thinking, "This is what I'll remember when I look back at today...weird, the escrow agent has an ape on her travel mug".  We get the keys on Tuesday (ak, Monday is a holiday!  I need to start working at a bank) but I won't be able to go to the house until a week from today b/c of a business trip!  GAHHHHH!  Ok, Jess, pull it together.

In other news, Ikea has a new slew of fun stuff up for grabs!  Woo hoo!  The thing that caught my eye though was this fabric.  I HAVE to have it.  The little fox?  What?!  HOW CUTE!!! And the bird fabric?!  This line of fabric is SO much better than what they've offered in the recent past.

 

Also love the Alpine pattern and the crab is definitely going in my bathroom (ak!  My bathroom.  I don't have to share anymore!!!)!

 

(all images courtesy of Ikea)

As you can imagine, I have TONS to do to get ready for the move (on the 19th!), so I probably won't have a chance to blog for the next week or so.  I'll be back soon, though, with lots to show and tell! 

incidently...

Did you see the post over at design*sponge about decorating like the movie The Godfather?  What an awesome idea!  That movie is epic.  There's nothing that could ever really compare.  I don't know if I'd want to live with that kind of drama, but I wouldn't mind living with the bench they featured:

(all images from Pottery Barn)

In fact, I've been drooling over the entire Benchwright Collection since my Pottery Barn catalog came in the mail.  I love the comination of the wood and metal together, it gives the softness of the wood a hard edge...or the hardness of the metal a soft edge, whichever take you prefer.  LOVE the bookcase!!!

Drool.  Heck, if Pottery Barn wants to come over and decorate my whole place, far be it from me to object!  Esp since the bookcase above is $800.  $800 for a bookcase!  Wow.  Lately I've been balking at $80 for a bookcase!  But....don't you love this (sans rocking horse...)?:

When I first saw The Godfather as a child, I LOVED the whole Corleone, Italy scene so very much.  Who wouldn't want to live there after seeing that movie?  And I was convinced that when I grew up I would have a little grey cat who I would name Apollonia.  Love that name.  Then reality arrived, I'll probably never go to Italy, but, heck, it's HOT there!  And little grey cats in this apartment get named Ivy (aka, Fluffini, Fluffertini, Fluff).  But at least there aren't any horse heads in my bed.  Wait...is that in the second movie?...

it's official!

it's finally fall!!!  How do I know?  Well, folks, I had to put on slippers today!   

and I needed a second cup of coffee...

on my little hand made coaster!  Yep, I do still sew.  Not lots lately, this project is from a little while ago, but it still counts, right?  I chose a bunch of brown fabrics to hide the inevitable coffee stains.  However, there really haven't been any, since you can toss these in the wash!  Woo hoo!  Even did some quilty stitching on them, see?

So, yep, I still make things!  And soon I'll make them in my own crafty room!  Things are all coming together with the house and soon we'll be moving!  We'd had a few kerfuffles (as we call them at work) along the way, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, after all!  It's all good, though, and it looks like we'll be moving in October.....which is, um, in a few days!

Posts are likely to be scarce around here for a little while, but rest assured, I will be back!  Especially since it's cooler outside and I can spend more time doing the things I LOOOOOVE!  I can't WAIT to sew more!  I have several quilts planned and probably will need to paint some walls and order furniture, oh, and we'll need a washer/dryer, fridge, sofa, movers, change our utilities over, move in, have parties... lots to do.  LOTS to do.  Of course, all I want to do is take a nap!  Good thing Iris is helping with the packing!   

just where have I been?

where have I been?  Good question.  Pretty funny that my last post was about how I love summer mornings, because, ya know what?  I'm done with them now.  Done.  That week was 100 degrees.  Yeah, the whole week!  And this week in the 90's!  I wilt in the heat, like the dainty flower that I am (ahem).  My plants are doing ok with it, except for my Japanese maple and the tomato plant.  The tomato plant didn't get the blight that's been going around, though, so that's good!  It just couldn't cope with the intense heat and my, errrrr, irregular watering schedule.  We did get 3 pints or so of good little cherry tomatoes from it, though!  They were very flavorful and Mr. Cozy Apartment made an excellent chi chi bean/rice/tomato dish with them!  Yum.

But, just where have I been?  Well, folks, we are in the process of buying a house!  EEEEEEE!  That has basically been taking up all of my time/energy that isn't related to work.  Buying a house is NOT what HGTV told me it would be!  Shame on you, Suzanne Whang!  It's basically a lot of limbo!  Lots of paperwork, then some more paperwork, oh, and did I mention the paperwork?  It's worth it, though.  I can't wait to PAINT!!!

(image courtesy of Benjamin Moore)

It will be GREAT to have some color on the walls!  We've lived in white-walled apartments since 2001, 8 YEARS of white!  Almost a decade!  Now, however, I'm spoiled for choice.  I stood in front of the massive paint display with those color graded cards in a complete daze!  I don't know where to begin!  What a great problem to have!

Lately, I'm loving Pottery Barn.  Just not their pricing, it's a *touch* high.  What I love is that their furniture is a mix of modern/traditional, which is perfect for setting off all of the great thrifted items I've been collecting for years.  My plan is to turn my Ikea finds into a Pottery Barn look/feel.  I think I can do it, you just have to be really selective about what you find at Ikea.  We're definately getting this daybed, which pulls out to a double bed for guests.  :

It's very comfy and really sturdy (uh, which is not something you always find with Ikea furniture, as we well know!).  It's going in.....(wait for it!).......my new craft/sewing ROOM!  YEAH!  I GET MY OWN ROOM!!!!!!!!  I cannot WAIT!  No more sharing the spare room with Mr. Um-You're-Going-To-Smell-Something-Burning-But-Don't-Worry,-It's-Just-Saulder.  WOO HOO!  Don't get me wrong, he's been a great roomate, but it will be AWESOME to have our own spaces!  AK!  My brain goes off into 1,000 directions on how I'd like to set my room up every time I think about it.  Of course, I get jolted back into reality once I realize that we haven't packed a thing and our appraisal hasn't been done yet, heh heh heh. 

The townhome we're buying also has a sweet little backyard and a great dining area.  3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 30 years of mortgage payments.  But it will be all ours.  We can paint anything we want, we can put up anything we want on the walls, we won't be throwing money down the drain every month when we make out that check.  It will be worth the wait....I think I like this color.  Oh, and this one.  And this one...

summer

If you know me, and/or know this blog, you know my feelings on coziness.  I like it to be cold.  Yeah, that's right.  Cold, possibly damp and certainly involving some sort of blanket/slanket/cat to keep me warm.  Summer, eh, it's not for me. 

But...summer mornings.  Summer mornings are wonderful.  It's 6:30am and I've been sitting on the couch, reading blogs, thinking about sewing, thinking about what I'll do when eventually I have my own room to sew in, thinking about why the heck the cat woke me up at 5am (even though there was food in the bowl).  I'm watching the sun come up over the apartment building across from us and since it's not up entirely just yet, everything is touched with mist and a bit of pink.  My tomatoes are ready for another great day of growing, the trees are still, there's no traffic on the road and the fans are humming around me. 

Summer mornings smell fresh, they smell like memories of being a kid.  Going to the pool club, running through the sprinkler and getting blades of grass all over my legs from dad mowing earlier, watermelon on the back deck, 'laying out' as a teenager on beach towels that weren't quite long enough, flip flops and those twin popsicles that never stayed on the stick.  Living in my bathing suit, playing in the basement when it was too hot to do anything else, summer salads, the hot vinyl on the seats of my parent's 70's Dodge Charger.  Reading in an apple tree, reading in my bedroom, reading for days and days. 

Sigh....it's going to be about 100 degrees for a week.  Remind me about summer mornings when I'm exhausted from the heat!