Our Apartment

I absolutely loved our place when we first saw it, but having our stuff in it makes me love it even more. It just feels so cozy and a real reflection of both mine and Brad's personalities. Since we’ve lived here for over six months (which is absolutely insane to think about), we've gotten almost all the furniture we need to make the space more than live-able. I'm sure we will continue to acquire smaller home items over the course of us living here, and I will continue to update you on those sorts of things, however I think the layout we have now will be the same for the foreseeable future, so I figured now would be the best time to finally share our place with you all!

Desk: Floyd Table, Chairs: Poly and Bark, Bench: IKEA

By far my favorite room in the apartment is the living room. We have super big windows that look out to a bunch of trees, which is super nice considering we live in a major city and coming across views like that are few and far between. The room itself is so cozy and really feels like the center of the place (easy enough when you're dealing with a 700 square foot place). Because we got so lucky with the living room being so spacious, it doubles as my and Brad's office. We ended up getting a Floyd Table for our desk, because it was big enough to fit both of us comfortably, and when we move (although I don't think that will be for awhile), we can always repurpose the table as a dining table. 

Bookcase: IKEA

One of my favorite parts of the living room is our bookcase. I had a ton of books left over from all of my classes in college and because I had spent so much money on them I wanted to make sure to keep as many as possible (granted I found them interesting at the time). It’s definitely not the most instagrammable bookcase, mainly because it’s not organized in rainbow order, but I wanted it to look real and like it actually gets used, rather than it just being a fixture in the room. I will say though, I organized it in alphabetical order when we first moved in and it took me forever, but it does make finding a book so much easier than having the spines be in a certain color order.

Couch: Interior Define, Coffee Table: West Elm, Throw Blanket: Tweedmill, Rug: NuLoom

The couch was probably our biggest investment piece and one that we ummed and ahh’d over for a while. Luckily when we moved in we had a couch to use, however it wasn’t totally our style and it looked too heavy for the space. A lot of our furniture is very mid-century modern and it did make sense to continue that trend with the couch, but I didn’t want our place to look too matchy matchy or like it came out of a furniture store catalogue. I also love the look of mixing styles of furniture! I’ve always loved the look of traditional English roll arm sofas and they are simple enough that they can work easily with other styles of furniture, especially more modern furniture. I found the perfect one at Interior Define, and we are so so happy with it! Its a very formal looking couch because it’s very overstuffed couch, but it has already started to soften up quite a bit and adding throw pillows and blankets helps it to look more casual.

Media Unit: IKEA

The kitchen and the bathrooms were definitely the easiest rooms to put together just because they are such small rooms and they don't really require much in the way of decorating. Luckily our kitchen has just enough room to house our IKEA little table that we had at Brad's old apartment. Because we don't have much counter space, the table also doubles as extra work space. The chairs are from Poly and Bark, and were a complete steal, I think we got a set of four for $120! I am absolutely obsessed with our bathroom; it's so outdated, but there's a certain charm about it. Luckily, even though its outdated, it's been well-kept over the years so it doesn't look too worn out. 

Dining Table: IKEA, Dining Chairs: Poly and Bark

Last but not least is the bedroom. Our bedroom isn't all that big, so we don't spend a lot of time in here besides sleeping, however I still wanted the space to be comfortable and relaxing. Brad had bought the bed last year from West Elm and it definitely is the focal point of the room, mainly because it takes up most of the room. We got our bedside tables and dresser from Living Spaces (and they are almost an exact dupe for a set from West Elm, but came to about 60% less than we would have spent on the West Elm version). One thing that I would 100% recommend if you are either moving or are redecorating is investing in good linen bedding. There’s just something about linen that always looks good, even when it is wrinkled. It also just keeps getting better and better the more you wash and use it. Because we live in such a temperate climate, we don’t need super warm sheets, so the linen also works as year-round bedding for us.

Bed: West Elm, Bedside Tables: Living Spaces, Bedding: Parachute and West Elm

What I've Read This Winter | 2019

Although I somewhat neglected reading back in the fall, mainly down to being far too busy to read loads during my free time, I have taken advantage of this slower period of the year to really focus on reading more rather than just turning on the TV or watching YouTube endlessly. I have to say, although I’ve always been an avid reader, I haven’t enjoyed reading nearly as much as I have in the past couple of months. Technically some of these books that I mention in this post were ones I read during the fall, but there weren’t quite enough to warrant writing a whole blog post on.

A History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund ~ This book is all about a young teenage girl, named Linda, who is somewhat of an outsider at her school. The story is written from Linda’s perspective, as she is looking back on her adolescent years and the events that would go on to radically alter her life as an adult. The major plot line revolves around Linda befriending a young family who lives across the lake from her family’s home, which so happens to be on an abandoned commune. As she gets to know the family more, she uncovers secrets about the family that end up having serious negative consequences. Although it sounds like a thriller, this book is an amazing blend of genres and is definitely worth a read!

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani ~ After hearing some rave reviews of this book I decided that this would be the perfect book to get my 2019 reading challenge started (I’m trying to read 30 books by the end of this year). The book is loosely based on a true story about a nanny in New York City who murdered the two children she had looked after. The Perfect Nanny is set in Paris, France and follows a young family who is going through growing pains. The mother, Myriam, decides to hire a nanny after making the decision to resume her career as a lawyer after taking a few years off to take care of her two young children. While the topic is incredibly gruesome, the majority of this book is spent exploring the dynamic of the family, the relationship between Myriam and the nanny Louise, and the complexities of being a mother trying to “have it all”. I read this book in about a day and it is a great one if you want to have something easy, yet compelling to read.

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates ~ After reading quite a bit of fiction, I was ready to break things up by reading non-fiction, specifically essays. I had read some of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essays in The Atlantic, but had never read any of his books. We Were Eight Years in Power is a collection of eight essays, each one written during the eight years of the Obama Administration. While all of these essays were written during the Obama Administration, they are not all about Obama, but rather racial inequality and institutionalized racism in general. As someone who majored in history and who spent a great deal of time studying the various Civil Rights Movements as well as the structure of institutionalized racism within the framework of US History, I found this book to be incredibly well-written and researched. This is not a light or easy read by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an incredibly important book about a topic that requires so much more attention than it gets.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan ~ After watching the movie, Crazy Rich Asians, I had to read the book! Part of the reason why I put off reading the book (and watching the movie for that matter), was because there was so much hype around it and I was skeptical if it was really that good, especially considering I’m not usually one to read romance-based books. I will definitely be reading the rest of the Crazy Rich Asians series in the next few months because the first book was so fun and so easy to read. It is definitely not a “romance” novel, but rather a story about family, relationships, money, and cultural differences.

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou ~ Last but certainly not least is Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, which is a book about the ill-fated blood-testing startup Theranos and it’s founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes. I have been fascinated with the story of Theranos, and since I live in the Bay Area, the buzz about the company was definitely palpable here. There were constant news stories about the company potentially revolutionize the health care industry and raising billions of dollars in the matter of a few years. Not surprisingly, it was all far too good to be true. The book was written by the journalist who wrote the Wall Street Journal article that began to create a lot of the speculation regarding the legitimacy of the company and its claims. The lengths Holmes was willing to go to make her company work are incredibly disturbing and make for a page-turning read. Although I know almost nothing about biotechnology or blood testing, the book was incredibly interesting and Carreyrou makes industry jargon easy to understand to the average reader.

My Month In Film | January 2019

Here we are back on our regular scheduled programming for my Month in Film posts! January felt like the longest month ever, as it usually does. It’s always such a weird month because, on the one hand, the start of the start of the new year always invigorates me and gets my creative juices flowing again. However, on the other hand, January can also be a pretty dreary time of year because the holidays are over, and the novelty of winter can begin to drag and wear on you. Despite the fact that I am excited that January is over, the overall slower pace of last month did give me a lot more time to recharge and to thing of content ideas and just generally make me feel more introspective and creative. Before we know it, spring will be here so I’m trying to make the most of all of the wintery things I won’t be able to do later on this year.

Currently Listening To | Winter 2019

I have to admit, for the past few months I have been in a funk with music. I have, since early childhood, always loved listening to music, largely thanks to both of my parents incredible taste in music. While I love a wide array of genres, I have a tendency to discover new music to listen to, listen to it to absolute death, and then get sick of it. I’ve also found myself listening to podcasts more and more during my commute than music, which has made . Right before Christmas though I took a long walk and put on my Tastebreakers playlist on Spotify, which is essentially a playlist that Spotify makes at the end of the year compiling any music from artists or genres that you usually don’t listen to, and it was honestly one of the best playlists I’ve listened to recently. It also made me realize how much I missed discovering new music and seeking out new music to listen to. So in an effort to do so, I have posted my favorite songs as of late below! Hope you all enjoy!

My Month in Film | November & December 2018

I’m back with another catch up film post! As I mentioned in my last film post, I fell a tad behind during the last quarter of the year with my month in film posts, but after this post I will officially be caught up and the month-to-month posts will resume starting with my January month in film which I will have for you all in about a week’s time! November and December were probably the busiest months of my year, as work is always especially busy during that period. Despite the busyness, however, I was able to really hone in my ability to feel recharged on my days off, which is a huge feat for me considering I spent the majority of 2018 feeling burnt out and depleted. I largely credit this to taking long walks, generally being more active, and spending less time in front of screens (although this is still definitely a work in progress). As you will probably notice, most of these photos are direct results from those long walks.