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As you may recall from my post about beach inspired interior decor, we were asked to be in Florida for an interview the week before last. Mr. D has been talking to this company off and on for the last year about this job position – it was supposed to be the meeting that determined whether or not we were going to stay put in New York City, or relocate to Southern Florida. Par for the course, the interview was never scheduled. We’re still waiting with baited breath.

We’ve been living without a cocktail table in front of our sofa since early December. Finally, we broke down and requested time at our storage facility in the Bronx. This past Friday morning, we liberated our glass table from storage. Hooray!! The addition of one simple piece has kicked me into nesting mode! I am totally dying to fill this spot on the wall over our Ballard Designs Terrific Table.

I’d like to put the Eagan Mirror from Pottery Barn in the empty spot on the wall to the right in the photo above.

source

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(image source)

Back in the day I subscribed to the now-defunct design magazine, Domino. I religiously tore out inspirational pages and glued them into scrapbooks or slid them into clear plastic binder sleeves; I never saved the entire issue. Then I got lazy. I stopped cataloging my favorites and just started stacking past issues on my bookshelves. In retrospect, I’m glad I decided to keep a year’s worth of Domino. It’s fun to flip through them to see what strikes my fancy now.

It’s not practical, however, to keep every single magazine I’ve received, and I receive quite a few of them: Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Glamour, Lucky and Body + Soul. I also buy several on occasion, including Women’s Health and Psychology Today. When an article piques my interest, I end up setting aside the magazine to return to at a later time… which rarely happens. I’m wondering if I should start saving specific articles again, and, if so, how. I could paste them inside a notebook, file them in folders, store them in binders or scan them into the computer, as this post from Unclutterer recommends.

Do you save magazine articles for future reference? If so, what strategies do you employ to keep everything neat and organized?

The first to-do on my list is to was to find new chairs for cheap – and I mean cheap. In the heat of the moment at our garage sale, I sold part of our “collection” of hand-me-down dining chairs. After that we were stuck using half folding chairs, half wooden chairs. After the garage sale, we took a trip to IKEA, where I picked up these two white slipcovered chairs. I highly recommend them if you are in the market for a basic Parsons style chair. That solved part of our problem, but I still wanted to replace the mismatched chairs and go back to using the folding chairs for their real purpose – extra seating.

{author’s personal collection}

My dream chairs are the Thonet Bentwood Chairs, featured below in the now-defunct domino. Growing up my grandmother had a version of these chairs with caning seats and I have always wanted a set. I found a source for them at a reasonable price ($99 per chair), but they are not in the decor budget just yet – other pieces of furniture are higher on my want list. (Like a new sofa to replace the plaid one and provide us with an extra bed for guests.)

{left: from domino, photographer unknown; right: from domino May 2007, photographer Dittie Isager}

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Greetings from Washington, DC! You might remember that after a topsy-turvy fall, we landed in our first choice city. Why, then, haven’t I been blogging my heart out about all the fantastic nesting we’ve been doing in our new city? Well, there are a few explanations for why this move hasn’t exactly been routine:

1. We moved here during a blizzard. Snowpacalypse, Snowmaggedon, Snow-Over-It, take your pick… This was our view when we pulled into our new apartment, days before another storm hit. What a mess!

2. We moved here with only a carful of belongings. We thought we’d be doing a little urban camping for a few days, so we packed the car full of just what we needed: an air mattress, one pot and pan, one set of dishes for each of us, a few clothes, and some travel-sized toiletries.

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Cozy spring decor may sound a bit like a contridiction, but it’s perfect for this time of year.  It’s still chilly outside, but you’re craving spring!

I love seeing light and bright interiors, with a touch of warmth from a cozy blanket or throw.

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{source}

The week before Christmas Mr. D got a call from a guy who is hiring in Florida. (He has been talking to this guy off and on since last March!) With this revelation in the job search, I’ve put settling into our new little NYC pad on hold until further notice. It’s kind of a drag because we don’t even want to bother going back to the storage facility ~ until we know if we are staying in NYC or not. I have a lot of bare spots on the floors and walls that I am dying to decorate!

{source}

I have been biting my tongue as I watch Mr. D sift through Florida real estate listings. Finally the other day he said “I think it’s against the law to have good decorating in Florida.” It gave me a chuckle. But then it put me on a mission to sooth my nerves and find good beach design. Look no further than The Daily Basics who posted this lovely Miami home. It’s a little fruit punch for my color palette, but completely modern. I love the white, glossy floors and those gold lamps on either side of the bed are dynamite!

{source}

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Have you ever had that feeling that you just have to paint your place?  And that you wanted it done yesterday?  Our apartment had been painted a trendy dark blue color scheme and this winter it had begun to feel like a cave.  This trendy dark blue might look amazing in a wide open loft that has a floor to ceiling windows but in our standard 2 flat building it was not quite having that effect.

{Image left, right}

So I have been craving light, bright, and airy for our home.  When I was growing up my mother kept our house to white walls with decor in light gray and blue; for the first 31 years of my life I said that I would not pick out white for my walls.

We just repainted our entire apartment with light blue and a shade of white.  Our apartment is on the top floor and has a relatively good number of windows but it is still a Chicago apartment on a city lot so it is fairly narrow and has buildings just over a foot away on two sides.  So to get that light, bright, and airy feel it had to be Fresh Day and Bleached Linen with a fresh coat of white for the trim.

{Image from personal collection}

Expansive is not exactly an adjective that I would use to describe the square footage of our place.  So I thought that it might help keep that airy feel going throughout to have less transitions in the color scheme.  So I limited myself to two colors.  The living, dining, bedroom, and office are all in Bleached Linen.  The kitchen, bathroom, and closets are in Fresh Day.   Now I get what my mom was thinking will all those light colors.  The lighter colors have completely transformed the place.

Revolutionary?  Of the moment? Not quite.  But comfortable, light, and airy for sure.  It is amazing what a difference 6  gallons of paint can make!  I think that maybe spring cleaning hit me a little early this year.  Anyone else find themselves getting antsy to start lightening up the home to help usher in a spring like atmosphere?

I have been crushing on patterned floor tiles and graphic stone flooring for some time, but have not determined if I could be swayed into this sort of carpet.

{Apartment Therapy}

{Country Living}

{Ann Sacks}

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I’m a huge fan of color, but my favorite color for the bedroom is white. I like my bed to look like a fluffy white cloud that I can nestle into.

{bedroom styled by Eva Lindh via This is Glamorous}

{House Beautiful via Apartment Therapy and The City Sage}

{Black & White Home}

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I think we can grab inspiration from all around us, especially from nature.  When things are kind of bleak outside as they are now, it’s nice to recall the colors of green grass against the blue sky.  I think blue and green go so well together, from aqua and olive to kelly and sky blue!

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