writing desk redo

One day my employer told us that the furniture in this one office was up for grabs, and because I believe in hoarding furniture whenever possible I ran upstairs to take a look. It’s a law firm that has been around awhile, so there is a lot of old furniture sitting around, including this old writing desk, which I grabbed because it suited my plans for a new but cheap home bar area. I’ve been collecting pictures on Pinterest of bar carts and wine racks and figured I could use it in those plans. It’s not 100% ideal, but it was free, so good enough!

The table had a green leather top that appeared to be ruined – I considered stripping the leather off and replacing it, but then when I looked up the cost leather samples, cutting tools, etc., it seemed like a lot of work and money for a free table.  Then I looked into some examples where people used milk paint on the entire piece of furniture – I guess the milk paint sticks pretty well to leather, according to the internet people who may or may not be reliable, but I wasn’t sure and I am not ready to try using milk paint just yet.  After a little more research I found this video online of a redo of an ottoman with Fiebings Leather Products.  I gotta tell ya, they may want to consider editing that bad boy. It’s ten solid minutes of wet and wild leather refinishing fun. However, despite the fact that I know how to fast forward I did watch the whole damn thing and proceeded to purchase their products on Amazon.  You won this round, Fiebings.

The drawer in the table was cracked and a little gross looking.  Ideally at some point we will be putting some bar accessories in this (wine stoppers, swizzle sticks, a weird looking miniature cocktail whisk that I didn’t know I needed until I saw it but then needed it desperately so now I have it and am thrilled, etc.), so I wanted to somehow get that functioning and a little bit cleaner.

I sanded the desk a little and filled in some of the larger divots on the top, drawer front, and legs.  Then I used those Fiebings products to do my best to clean up that nasty leather top.  The first step was to apply some coats of “leather deglazer” as the video suggests.  I will have you know that it would behoove you to click directly on the link I have provided above, instead of doing what I did, which was to forget exactly what the stuff was called after watching that awesome Fiebings video, and Googling “leather stripper”.  The results I got were interesting, but they sure weren’t gonna get me anywhere near fixing that writing desk.

I also got Fiebings Leather Dye in Black and the Acrylic Resolene Dye Top Finish.  After deglazing the top, adding a few coats of the leather dye with a paintbrush, a day’s dry time and several coats of the resolene, the top looked a million times better! It’s not perfect but that’s okay – way better than I anticipated it would look.

I also found these Mission Style Satin Nickel Ring Pulls on ATG Stores.com for only $4.73 each, with free shipping. I had not heard of ATG Stores but I was impressed – apparently Lowe’s owns it and there is free shipping and the prices are great and the selection is huge. Good deal.

 

We had some leftover paint that we used to paint our Ikea patio furniture a few years ago (you can see that in the background) – it is a dark grey color.  Before I did that I liquid nailed a sheet of wood to the bottom of the drawer and clamped it together to dry.  So far, that appears to keeping the split drawer bottom together and it’s much more stable – we shall see. Then I used a layer of Minwax Special Walnut stain on the inside of the drawer.  I was then going to do a coat of Rustoleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Weathered Gray on top, but it is pretty opaque, so I mixed it with the Special Walnut and did a second coat.  I finished it off with a coat of Wipe-On Poly.  It is now smooth and shiny and pretty and something that isn’t gross to touch.

So that’s where we’re at – we have a few more things to do to fully execute the home mini bar area…come back later for that!

Christmas decor pt. 3 ~ Stockings

 

 

 

I needed somewhere to put our stockings that looked good and could support the weight, since the stocking hooks on the shelf would not hold up when the stockings had anything in them.

I saw a commercial for 3M Command hooks, which made me wonder why I hadn’t thought of that myself a long time ago – I use those things all the time! So, I headed to Target and got three of them for about $4.50 each.  Done!

They no longer sell the monogram stockings I got at Target for my boyfriend and me, but I wanted a stocking for our doggie, Ella.

Luckily last week Pottery Barn was having a free shipping/free monogramming sale on some stockings, so I got her this Channel Quilted Velvet Stocking.

Christmas decor, pt. 1 ~ “NOEL” banner

Hello everyone! I hope your holiday season has been carrying on merrily.  We have these target stocking hooks that we put on our shelf/mantle every year, but unfortunately, they don’t really seem to hold any weight.  They work fine for empty stockings, but if you try to put anything in the stockings, they flip right off the shelf.  No good.  Anyway, I came up with another spot to hang the stockings, but I figured the hooks would work perfectly for hanging a banner on the shelf.

I enjoyed making my Thanksgiving banner, and with all the crafty materials I had laying around, including a lot of leftover twine from the last banner, I figured I’d try my hand at a christmas banner.  I might try something more involved in the coming Christmases, but for this year I thought I’d start with something short and simple – “NOEL”.  We also got a printer recently, so instead of stenciling letters, I took a much easier route…I made the banner on Adobe Illustrator and printed them on card stock.

(Sidenote:  Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator can be prohibitively expensive, at several hundred dollars a piece, but once you learn how to use them they are seemingly invaluable.  Luckily now you can get these programs and a bunch of others for a monthly subscription rate rather than paying the full amour for creative suite which is like, a couple thousand bucks….totally worth it in my opinion!).

I didn’t want the outline to show through so I did a mirror image of the text.  I chose Gill Sans Ultra Bold as my font – I was trying to keep it simple with some thick, block letter text.

My cutting mat is nowhere to be found so I used a stack of newspaper.  I cut out the letters with an X-acto knife.  Scissors would work, too, but the X-acto knife is MUCH easier.  BAM – there you have it…NOEL! 🙂

Then, yes, I cannot seem to get away from glitter – I decided to try my hand at glitter once again.  I sprayed each letter with spray adhesive, let the adhesive get tacky for exactly 2 minutes, and then i covered the letter with glitter.  I tapped the bottom of the tray all over the place until the letter was evenly coated with glitter.  DO NOT touch it! It will totally make it smudged and horrible looking.  I learned this the hard way.

After they dried, I flipped the letters over on some newspaper and lined them evenly with the twine.

Then, I took a glue gun and put glue around the entirely of the twine to hold it on…

There you have it!! I think the letters could use some dimension, and maybe next year I will do a different word/words, different font, or add some extra layers or other trim, but for now, this is a good first try! 🙂

Thanksgiving decor, pt. 2 & Friendsgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  Ok we’ve got a few more days but I got my Thanksgiving started early when we had our first “Friendsgiving” yesterday.  It was a great time.  I think it’s the first time we really had a party at this apartment.  We got to break in our new Ikea table, eat lots of food, play games, and hold a very high-stakes pie contest.

I completed my Thanksgiving decorating prior to Friendsgiving.  First we made and hung the Thanksgiving banner, and then I decorated the “mantle” (i.e. floating shelf over the TV), and table, and some other areas. I got these turkey salt and pepper shakers on sale at Michael’s for a couple dollars.  We certainly did not need any more salt and pepper shakers, and the print was sort of obnoxious, so I decided to cover them in…something.

Against my good judgment, I decided to cover the first one in gold glitter. As always, that was a messy and frustrating disaster.  I continued down that path until it was all the way covered, but decided to NOT USE GLITTER EVER AGAIN after that (ok, I have said that many times and I cant seem to dump glitter completely, except for all over myself). 

I had this gold nail polish I got for free in something, so I decided to cover the second turkey in that.  MUCH better. It took a couple minutes, no mess, and I also think it looks better. Lesson learned.

Much to my delight, I found two of these concrete Smith and Hawken turkeys at Target in the clearance section for $6 each.  They would be perfect for the table! 

I sprayed them with a flat paint to brighten them up a little bit, and then decided to try my hand at gold leaf. I don’t know if it’s because gold leafing is difficult, or because gold leafing an uneven concrete surface is difficult, but I got as far as gold leafing the beaks and gave the hell up. Good enough!

Then I went to Trader Joe’s where I had previously obtained a whole lot of small pumpkins for my Halloween decor.  Unfortunately, finding pumpkins AFTER halloween is no easy task.  All they had left were some medium-sized “tiger” pumpkins that were cream colored and striped with either green or orange…not exactly matching my decor.  I got some high gloss white spray paint and painted them all and put them in the hurricane. tada!

The next thing I did was decorate the shelf over our TV.  I also decorated this shelf for Halloween a month earlier. I was kind of at a loss as to what to do, and honestly I have no idea what I am doing with artificial/dried flowers/plants. Michael’s was having a 70% off sale on the fall-themed dried and artificial flowers by late October, so I grabbed a few in yellow, orange, and purple colors and figured I would figure something out.  I also got a 5′ strand of battery operated “Starry String Lights” in amber from Restoration Hardware.  Don’t you just love these?! I may get more in the silver color for Christmas.

I also held on to a few of my Halloween Trader Joe’s pumpkins that were still in ok shape, got a roll of burlap at Michael’s, put some stuff in my apothecary jars and also added the painting I did at Cheers to Art recently.  Do you have a place like this in your city? Basically you and a bunch of your friends go paint a painting according to step-by-step instructions by someone while you drink wine. What a great idea.  Anyway, so the colors sort of matched the decor so I threw it in there, too.

I am really loving burlap as a “trend” right now.  It’s neutral and cheap and you can use it for a million different things.

The other day I was wandering around Ikea and saw these little square fall-colored Fyrkantig candles and candleholders at Ikea. 

I also loved these Thanksgiving Printables from TomKat Studio.  I have Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, so I made my own “Happy Thanksgiving” sign similar to the one they have available, and bought some super-cheap 3- and 4-packs of plastic frames at Big Lots.  

Much of what I found to decorate the table and the buffet table, just like everything else, was decided based on what I already had and what was cheap and/or on sale at places like Michael’s, Big Lots, Home Goods, Ikea and Target. I just wanted everything to have the black, white, gold, silver, purple, orange and golden yellow colors that I put on the shelf.

I found these great serving ware dishes at Big Lots for I think maybe $9 each, and three 4-packs of the white placemats for $6 a set.  I also found this burlap runner at Michael’s – a few yards for less than $10…I could cut it to the length of the table and it actually fits, versus all the table runners I found which were upwards of $40, $50+ and not even remotely long enough for the table. NO THANKS! I found the napkin rings and napkins at Homegoods, and got a bread basket at Ikea and used some black and white kitchen towels from Target that I’ve had for a couple years and haven’t ever used for anything.

I made a couple different deviled eggs recipes and they were pretty good. I got these deviled eggs with goat cheese and proscuitto recipe from Food and Wine magazine (also available online), but took out the sour cornichons.  I got the Paula Deen’s loaded deviled eggs recipe here.  I also got the apples on horseback recipe from Food and Wine (here).  They were really good and super easy! I wrapped 16 slices of Manchego cheese/Fuji apple with panchetta, stuck them on some metal skewers, sprayed some foil with cooking oil and grilled them on the grill for a few minutes on each side.  I wanted appetizers that you could make without using the stove or oven since my boyfriend was busy with the turkey and other things…they were so easy and very good! I took them off the skewers and stuck them with toothpicks.  I got the roasted garlic and rosemary pumpkin hummus recipe here.   I made more labels, also inspired by the TomKat Studio post.

I got a crockpot mulled cider recipe here.  It was so good and smelled even better! I also found this cute Pilgrim Rum picture online and swapped it out for the Bacardi Gold label…I didn’t want to make the cider alcoholic, so if somebody wanted it to be, they could just add as much rum as they wanted…and had cinnamon sticks as the stirs. 🙂

And finally, I bought a couple chargers and a few candles at Michael’s and decorated them with some leftover twine.  My boyfriend really likes to go all out with things (for better or for worse, haha!) so his turkey was no exception.  We got a fresh turkey from the local Tewes Farm and did a dry brine on it for two days.  Then he wrapped it in bacon on Friday night and slow-roasted it at about 225 degrees for over 12 hours.  He had to get up every few hours to baste it.

If you can’t tell from these pics, it definitely turned out delicious. The only problem was that with the bacon fat in the turkey drippings, the homemade gravy didn’t really turn out. It tasted good, but the consistency was sort of clumpy.  When we make the turkey again on Thanksgiving for my family, we’re not doing the bacon!

Last but not least, we held out First Annual Friendsgiving Pie-Off.  There were five entries.  I attempted to make some gluten-free, low carb “crustless pumpkin pies” in cupcake cups…Ugh! Haha.  I don’t recommend it (not that I thought they’d turn out great).

We got this medal online for $5 with free engraving, plus shipping. Not bad!! 

Overall it was really fun.  We are looking forward to doing it all again next year! 🙂

Thanksgiving decor, pt. 1

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!  I can’t believe it’s already November. Halloween was uneventful for me this year. There wasn’t a trace of Halloween present in my office, I had no costume, I attended no Halloween events or parties, and did not have one drop of candy. I did, however, decide at about 10 pm that evening to pull my old dog Jenny’s Old Navy bumblebee costume out of storage and put it on my dog Ella just long enough to point and laugh at her and get a picture…it’s so funny how sad and catatonic dogs get when you put them in a costume….lucky for her, she was only in it for a couple of minutes:

Despite my deep, burning desire for a reclaimed wood dining table, I figured I wasn’t going to throw down $1000 or more on a new dining room table any time soon, but at the same time, our small blonde wood 4-person table was too small for the space, looked a little too yellow in that room, and wouldn’t get us through the holiday season.  I ended up getting the Ikea Bjursta table in black brown.  At $250, and seating for up to ten people with the leaves inserted, it is a bargain.  I also picked up some Ikea Soaré placemats since they are cheap and very fall-ish.

We are having a “Friendsgiving” on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and then having some of my family over for Thanksgiving, so a decent table was a must.  We had 6 chairs already that matched our small table, so we’re holding on to those for the time being.  The cost of chairs can add up, especially when you want 6-10. We also really can’t decide on a style of chair…SO, in the mean time, we will just use the ones we have.

I’ve also been picking up a few decor items at Homegoods lately. AHHH I love that store! Everything is so cheap. I got a couple leaf dishes and apothecary jars on my last visit. I really don’t know why you’d go to a department store and buy an apothecary jar for $35 when they always have the exact same ones at Homegoods for $12.   This is my first year accumulating fall/Thanksgiving decor…hopefully in a few years I’ll have enough for a decently decorated house!

One thing I’ve seen a lot of on the PInterestsphere is fall and Thanksgiving-themed banners, such as these and this one and this one.  Back in the day when I thought that I might possibly enjoy scrapbooking, I accumulated quite a bit of crafty stuff – papers, lettering, etc.  I went to Michael’s and got some large letter stencils, glue sticks and some jute twine and for just a few dollars made a banner (well, banners) with the items I already had.

It was fun and easy to make! I was having flashbacks to Kindergarten with my construction paper and glue sticks.  I made a template from some green card stock and pretty much went from there.  I chose the colors, layout and size based on whatever I had lying around.

THE “Holiday Season” and Modern Halloween Decor

I am back!!! Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted.  Summer was fun and busy, yet devoid of any notable shopping purchases or interiors projects – so no posts.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Summer!

So first off let me start by telling you how special this “Holiday Season” is to me.  BTW, I defined “Holiday Season” as pretty much October 1 through January 1 – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve – we’ve also got Hanukkah, Kwanzaa….and if you’re silly and love Seinfeld like me, let’s go ahead and throw Festivus in there 🙂 OH and for my Italian family we cannot forget the Feast of Saint Martin (November 11th – a.k.a. Veteran’s Day) and my boyfriend and me will be celebrating our birthday on November 1 (four years!!).  Some shopping enthusiasts at this point may even consider Black Friday a holiday by its own rite.

To make a long story short, there are a lot of holidays and things to be celebrated during this period. What makes it even more special for me is that this is the first time in many years that it will be a relaxed, fun, and happy time for me.  2007 wasn’t fun for many reason. By 2008, I was in law school, so this time of year, every year, was marked by classes really ramping up, the beginning of buckling down on papers I had to write and exams I had to study for, and exams…this past year, none of December was a break, as I finished my class stuff by Thanksgiving (managed to schedule classes in the fall that didn’t have exams, only papers) and by the day after Thanksgiving I hit the ground running from then until the end of February with studying for the bar exam.  On Christmas Day last year, I went out for a brief period for dinner but ended up spending most of the day by myself studying. Since I was working full time in a situation where most people study for the bar exam full time, I needed all the free time I could get. It sucked!

Since I haven’t had a holiday season with no school or other big stressors since 2006 (7 years!!!), I am pretty excited about this one. This time of year in Ohio is time to switch to wearing scarves and boots and break out all the smelly candles I can handle – decorate the apartment and keep the Food Network running constantly. I don’t know why, but fall and winter make me want to cook and eat and think about cooking all the time.

I decided to celebrate my freedom this season by decorating for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I’ve got my Holidays Board on Pinterest, and a Michael’s just opened by my house. Whoop!  Ideally some day I will have a fireplace with a mantel, but for now I do not.  My boyfriend hung an Ikea Lack floating wall shelf in our living room above the TV as the main focal point, and for the time being it’s our makeshift fireplace mantel. Since we’re 16 stories up, carving pumpkins to put outside wasn’t really a great idea, so I got some artificial pumpkins at Michael’s.  I don’t know who this “Michael” fellow is, but my god he loves glitter…I got a few shades of Martha Stewart glitter as well. Why? I wasn’t sure when I got it but I do love me some glitter.

I also got some black feather boa’s to use as Halloween “garland” and a few other items such as a ceramic owl (I AM OBSESSED WITH OWLS!!) and some resin skeleton parts.  I tried to stick with all reusable items so I can start to build a collection of Halloween decorations to use from year to year.  It doesn’t take more than one measly trip to Michael’s to realize you have only started to collect decor but have already spent $150 or more dollars.  I DID give in a little – I got some tiny pumpkins from Trader Joe’s for 69 cents a piece.

 

Christmas decor

I hope everyone had a great week and a good Thanksgiving!  I’ve eaten way too much, that’s for sure. I think I finished decorating for Christmas this week…I never got any glass jars/hurricanes for luminaries, but I am mostly finished otherwise.

We painted the living/dining/entry area in August.  It was so nice to replace that pink-beige/baby blue flat paint combo with a satin grey.  We got this Threshold Criss Cross Fleece Rug at Target.  I love the pretty grey and cream pattern and it’s really soft.  I REALLY wanted the Moroccan Souk Rug from West Elm (or a similar style as you can get this style in many places right now), but it was definitely price prohibitive!  The Target rug was $130.  The West Elm rug of similar size is much flimsier and $500.  NO THANKS!  The Target rug sort of reminded me of that pattern and was a great price.

I got the live cedar/white pine garland from Lowe’s.  It was $11 for 20 feet.  I only needed two spools, so that was a pretty good price. I went last night and they had TONS of it left, and only a couple of the Fraser Fir garland left.  That one was $5 for 15 feet, but I just dont think it is as pretty.  Well, it is more traditional I guess, and I thought the cedar worked better with more modern decor. I don’t know why the fraser fir garland is so much more popular! I’m wondering how well the cedar/white pine will hold up through Christmas. I guess we’ll see!

We got the lack shelf at Ikea a few weeks ago.  We don’t have a fireplace, so it’s as close as we’ll have to a fireplace mantel for awhile!  We TRY to stay away from Ikea stuff, but I swear it’s so hard.  Every time I want something, I see what I like at Crate and Barrel, West Elm, Target, etc., and nine times out of ten, there’s a very cheap same or similar option at Ikea. We looked at the same white shelves at those other stores for $50-100+, and then they have the same darn thing at ikea for $20. How can I say no to that?   And just for fun, check out this cute doggie….a blue heeler by a blue tree 🙂

happy Friday ~ the holidays are here !!!

Long time no see! I cannot believe it’s November already.  This time last year we were putting the deposit down on the new apartment.  It really doesn’t feel like we’ve been there  for a 10 full months.  This has been a very crazy, busy, and difficult year, but the past couple months have been quite enjoyable.  I haven’t had any free time unfortunately, but overall, things are going smoothly and guess what…FIVE more classes and I am FINISHED with law school!!! I cannot believe it.  I started August 4, 2008. It’s been a long road.  I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the past 4.5.  I am not complaining, though.  I have no regrets as of yet and am just so thrilled to have my life back.  I am sure I’ll find plenty to worry about soon enough with studying for the bar exam and finding a job, but really, the worst of it’s behind me.

With all that said, I did not get to enjoy my beloved Halloween “season” because I’ve been really cramming in all my work early.  It all flew by in a blur – not one pumpkin or costume or spiced cider to be had by me. But with that over and my homework all but finished for the semester, I am definitely getting into the holiday spirit IMMEDIATELY!!!

At my old apartment, the living room was too small for our full-sized Christmas tree, so with a larger living/dining area at the new place, I am eager to go all out with the Christmas decor this season. I have an artificial tree…and I am also thinking of decorating with some live cedar garland.  It’s so pretty, but it only lasts about 3-4 weeks and I may have a bit of an allergy issue…have you ever used live garland in your house?

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I am also thinking of decorating with some luminaries – I love the lighting of the candles and it’s a cheap and easy way to decorate….

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There are just too many pretty holiday decor pictures on the internet!!

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new beginnings.

Hello, all! I hope your summer is going well.  As has been the theme this 2012, I have been distracted by many things and neglecting my blog.  I can’t wait until I can really get back to it.  About a week and a half ago we got a new puppy.  That’s her in the pics.  She’s maybe a year old, or close to it – and about 22 lbs and fully grown.  We named her Ella.  My plan was to wait until after the bar exam to get a new dog, but of course I couldn’t resist.  She’s been so wonderful!  She is a an Australian Cattle Dog mix that we got from All American Dawgs rescue in Newburgh, Indiana.  Someone in Jessup County, KY left her for dead behind a chinese restaurant in late February – she was partially hairless because of mange and very sick.  The animal shelter in that county contacted the rescue because they thought she was a senior dog, so between that and how sick she was, they’d have to put her down.  They could tell she was a cattle dog mix and that All American Dawgs specialized in cattle dogs, so Sharon, the lady in charge, came and got her. Once she took her to the vet they found she was not a senior dog but in fact still had her puppy teeth.

She’s been the sweetest dog and is so very smart.  It’s so hard to believe that someone would treat this dog the way she was treated.   It also makes you wonder what happens to so many great dogs out there.  The shelter found her “unadoptable” and were going to put her down, but she is the best dog.  She is fun, smart, well behaved, and so loving.  We are looking forward to many happy years with this puppy!  She is spoiled already.

I also turned 30 a couple weeks ago.  I don’t like getting older, but the age thing also doesn’t bother me.  Turning 30 had me thinking a lot about my 20s.  I remember my 20th birthday vividly, and all at once it’s amazing how fast it went by, but also seems like such a long time ago.  So much happened in those ten years.  I really enjoyed my 20s.  They were definitely a roller coaster of emotions. I faced a lot of new challenges and had a lot of great new experiences.  I also would not do it over again if I had the chance…I am looking forward to my 30’s!!!  Lots of exciting new experiences to be had.  I just need to get this schooling finished and pass the bar so I can feel like I can move on!

Speaking of new beginnings, 8.5 months after we move in, we’re FINALLY getting around to painting our living room/dining room.  I will be doing that this weekend and will post pics soon!

I also went on an accidental shopping hiatus this year.  We bought a lot of things for the new apartment in January and February, but then life took over.  I know I am busy when I don’t have the time or energy to think about my wardrobe!!!  I did not think that was possible.  I don’t think I’ve gone this long without clothes shopping since before my first job at 15.  What I have found is that I have a whole lot of super worn out clothes and shoes.  As much as I see shopping as a vice, now that everything I own is tattered and worn and looks crappy, both work clothes and otherwise, I am realizing that adding and deleting a little to the rotation each month is what keeps things looking good and keeps the wardrobe supply at a financially manageable level.  Now I feel like I need new EVERYTHING and that’s overwhelming!  Oh, what I would give to have an open-ended budget and a stylist 🙂

Well that’s what’s up with me at the moment.  Have a great weekend, and wish me luck on my painting project !

outdoor rooms…

Lately we’ve been spending a lot of time on the balcony. It’s definitely my favorite “room” in the apartment right now.  It’s about 7.5′ by 20′.  Our gas grill and Ikea Applaro set (table, bench and two chairs) are out there and that leaves plenty of room for me to lay out and take outdoor naps 🙂  So far, the bugs have been nonexistent.

In the late fall right before we moved we sanded and re-painted the Applaro set a dark grey/black color.  I should have had it covered for the past 3 years since the old patio wasn’t covered, but hindsight is 20/20.  That’s ok…we really like the dark color and it looks great on the new balcony.  Another plus, which I didn’t realize until we moved in, is that condo rules say you can only have dark green, dark blue, or black furniture on the balconies (I guess to blend in with the building).  Some days it can get very windy out there, but it’s mostly pretty pleasant.  This past weekend I slept out there on a beach towel one day, and the next day we spent several hours out there, talking, eating, having drinks, and watching the boats and other watercraft on the river.  I now REALLY want a boat but that is not happening! 🙂

When we were moving, I felt really bad to be giving up the fenced in (albeit small) backyard that we had before, since my dog Jenny loved hanging out there so much.  No worries! I don’t know what she can see or smell 16 stories up, but she loves the balcony as much as we do!  Only problem is that I clean a LOT of dog snot off glass these days.

There aren’t any lights out on the balcony, but I LOVE string lights so you know where this is going.  I found these Smith & Hawken patio lights at Target and I love them!!  I took 3 strands and hung them on the glass under the balcony rail with S-hooks. They’re more heavy duty and nicer looking than normal strand Christmas lights. Also, I was afraid that, being at waist level, the bigger-bulb patio lights without covers on them might get broken, so these are perfect,  They look VERY bright from oh, a mile away even, but in person they give off a pretty nice light.

Even though we’ve got the patio furniture, grill, and lights in order, the balcony is looking pretty bare.  I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it look a little homier and softer this summer. I like the thick cushions and lights in this picture…

I also kind of want some tea lights or other candles to set out for outdoor dinners…..

Here’s an Applaro table like ours with the leaves out – luckily the balcony is big enough that we can extend them if we need to for more people…

I think some textiles would really soften up the space.  The balcony is covered and even in most downpours, it stays dry, so we wouldn’t really have to worry about bringing stuff in and taking it out every time we use it. There are so many pretty patio cushions, rugs, etc.!!! I cannot decide!

…and don’t forget plants!  Right now I just have a tiny cactus on the table.  I am seriously lacking a green thumb, so I am unsure what plants would look good out there that I could also keep alive all summer!!  I go back and forth between just getting a few small succulents, some potted flowers, or some sort of evergreen tree/topiary that’ll stay green year-round.

I am too indecisive!  Even with unlimited funds I don’t think our apartment would be “finished” to my liking any time soon.  I feel a little more hurried to get the balcony in order since this nice weather won’t be here forever!