I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends

Today, I need to ask you, dear readers, for some advice.  Unfortunately, this is not for my husband's eyes, so if you are married to me, do not read any further.  Thanks!

Via

So Succulent

So, I was trying to edit a post for Weddingbee, only to realize I drank a little too much wine to edit coherently.  I wisely logged off of that blog, since the audience is much bigger over there, and opted to write a post here instead.  You're welcome, friends.  Also, I love you all (no, that's not the wine talking).

About eleven months ago, this happened:

{That's us gettin' hitched in case you didn't know}

Photo by Jamie Grant

One of the many elements I had to have in our wedding day were succulents, I think they are such beautiful plants.

Photo by Molly

We spent a lot of time and effort growing these succulents to use as decor for our wedding, and I knew I wanted to bring some of these plants with me to DC.  My husband and I both brought a plant in the milk glass containers we used at our reception to decorate our work spaces, but I knew I wanted to do something more as well.  

What I really wanted to do was something like this:

Photo by piperaudrey

Can you say AMAZING!?!

Seriously, I'm in love with this succulent wall.  But, if you recall from my last post, our tiny apartment in a high rise is not very conducive to such a beauty.  So, I scaled my dreams down.  A lot.  I found this tutorial to make something similar on a much, much smaller scale and decided to half ass follow it.  

With the help of my husband, we made this:

And, from the side:

It's not quite a succulent wall, but it is a little part of our wedding living on with us.  And one day, when I have a succulent wall (I will have a succulent wall) I can add our wedding succulents and remember the beauty that was our wedding day (insert collective awww here).

Who else wants a succulent wall?

House Tour

Well friends, you are in for a treat.  Today, I am going to take you on a virtual tour of our apartment.  All 786 square feet of it.  Prepare yourselves for the greatness.  </sarcasm>

The real reason for this post is because my in laws visited law week and I cleaned the crap out of our place.  If there's ever a time to take pictures of your apartment and share them online, it's after you've cleaned for three days straight, am I right?

Directly inside our door is our kitchen, complete with the finest early 90's carpentry grade cabinets money can buy.  I am 90% sure these are the exact same piece-of-shit cabinets we had in our grad school apartment (confirmation, E?), apparently I cannot escape them, despite moving over 700 miles away.  Sigh.

A better look at the cabinetry, and, more importantly, just a fraction of my awesome magnet collection.

Beyond the majesty of the kitchen lies our living room.  We're one of the lucky ones in our apartment building with a fireplace, although we still have yet to use it, probably because it's less than a foot away from our couch and we prefer not to melt our belongings.

We used the bulk of the our money gifts from our wedding to buy our brown leather couch, which we desperately needed since that green lounge chair was our only seating until that point.  The painting on the wall is our only real 'art', which B's brother gifted him after a trip to Bali.  I love all the colors and how grown up it makes me feel to say we have art on our wall.

We purchased this buffet to place our dvds and other electronic equipment in.  I have grand plans to paint it in the future, but I'm torn on what color would look best, and until then it will sit unpainted.  I am open to suggestions.  

This little corner is kind of 'my area', I mean, it's all my area, really, but this is where the greatest concentration of my crap is located.  The only thing over here that's B's is the frame, which has my certificate from being admitted to the Illinois bar.

The picture collage is from our wedding (obviously it's not from someone else's wedding).  The collage used to be nicely centered over the desk, but B moved the desk over so he could get in and out of our bedroom easier.  I should be grateful because he did this to wake me up less in the morning when he's getting ready for work, but it drives me crazy.  And it's crooked.  My laziness outweighs my desire to fix it though, so it will probably stay this way until we move.

Just beyond our living room is our sunroom, aka our room of crap.

Why do I call it our room of crap?  Because the pile of crap that takes up an entire wall of our sunroom.

Our 'garden' is also in our sunroom.  Since this photo was taken, the top of our tomato plant has completely fallen over and is now resting on the top of my drying rack.  My drying rack which should be drying clothes, not supporting our less than fruitful plant, but oh well.

This was the first tomato to bloom.  B had high hopes for it, but the tomato has stayed the same size, while the bruise on it just keeps getting bigger.  It does not look good for the sad little tomato.  

Our, I mean, the tomato's view from 19 stories up.  Our apartment faces west toward Virginia (and home!) rather than toward DC to the east.  We do get some pretty awesome views of the sunset and storms from this altitude.

Through our tiny double doors is our bedroom.  This is B's side of the room, where his handmade desk, made from a tree that shaded his grandparents' porch, sits.  More importantly, under that desk is where our large cache of wine lives.

Just a few feet from the foot of the bed is a dresser we picked up after we moved out here once I realized that our closet was not big enough to hold all the clothes between the two of us.  On top of it are two very important things: our second tv and a fan that I use every night to drown out street noise so I can sleep.

The other side of the room has my stuff, including yet another dresser we picked up out here.  It was super ugly when I bought it, but a couple coats of paint fixed it right up.  Two of these drawers contain just my socks, which is still not enough space for all of them.

I failed to get a picture of our closet, because it's so small I can't get a good picture of it from any angle, no matter how hard I try.  You'll just have to use your imagination, but I assure you it is small and full of clothes and shoes.

Through the closet is our bafroom (any TGS fans out there?).  It is an awkwardly shaped room, so this was the only decent picture I could get of it.  Luckily, the fantastic cabinetry has resurfaced in here as well.

And, that's it.  All 786 square feet that we spend a small fortune on every month.  But, it is out first home as a married couple, so it will always be a special place to us.