Holidaze

Look at me, posting two weeks in a row. Impressive, I know.

I’ve been getting into the holiday spirit, which means decorating, overeating, non cheesy Christmas music, and wine. Good times!

tree

Although she won’t remember this holiday season, Avery will be able to enjoy it at least a little bit, as opposed to last year when she was pretty much just a lump. In holiday experiences thus far, she was pretty into the cookie I let her sample. I think we will skip the Santa photo ordeal this year because I really don’t feel like dealing with it, but we may go check out the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton.

Yum

Yum

Back to the cookies: if you like ginger, these are amazing. I made them and then ate an embarrassing number of them in one day. Then I tried to get my husband to take the rest of them to work, but he wouldn’t, so I hid them in the pantry to protect me from myself. #issues.

In other news, Avery is now napping once a day in the afternoon, which means weekend brunch is back on the agenda. Including brunch at Fat’s Chicken and Waffles, which we can walk to from our house.

Hell yes

Hell yes

Look at that amazingness. Highly recommended when you want what our household refers to as fatbrunch. Avocado toast/brunch salads/green juice = not an option here.

tea

To combat the cookie binges/superfluous gravy consumption/excessive wine drinking going down as of late, I’ve really upped my tea game and have been trying to swap wine and dessert for tea several evenings a week. These are all pretty delicious and as a bonus, I can take them to bed without risking crumbs and the wrath of my husband.

Nursery Decor

I had a lot of fun planning and decorating our nursery. The photos aren’t great because I kind of suck with my iPhone and should probably invest in a real camera at some point or at least read some tips online or something. But, hopefully the calm, gender neutral, somewhat globally influenced vibe I was going for comes across.

Glider

Paint: I went for a soothing, light-ish gray (Valspar Reserve in Gravity). Based on Pinterest stalking this is the trendy nursery color these days so hopefully my child is grateful that she is super on-trend. Also gray goes really well with pink which I am sure like most girls my daughter will demand we incorporate at some point.

Changing table

Crib: Babyletto. I liked the midcentury modern look of this.

Crib

Glider: Land of Nod. I thought this, and the crib, were worth investing a little more in. All of our shelving, some of which isn’t pictured, and the dresser we are using as a changing table, is Ikea.

Shelf

Rug: Wayfair. Tons of great, affordable options. This was made in India and I love the bold pattern.

Art: Society6. Many delightful art options for kids/babies.

A Little Home Decor Upgrade

The whole “nesting” phenomenon is most definitely real. Just look at my living/dining room! Who decides to paint a giant space on their own while almost 8 months pregnant? Me, I guess. It was super stark white and it was irritating me in a way that I could no longer ignore, so to Lowe’s I went. It totally sucked to do, but was worth it. It’s now a much more appealing light taupe situation, as you can see in the below photos.

Couch
The space was looking cluttered so I remedied that by undergoing a major art reshuffling in addition to painting. To improve the situation, I:

1. Pared everything down (mostly keeping only one substantial piece per wall space where before there had been multiple smaller pieces on each wall)
2. Stuck to black and white images only
3. Created a gallery wall in the dining room.

These things helped a lot.

Gallery Wall
The gallery wall was slightly stressful to put together as it required more effort/precision than comes naturally to me. Tips that worked:

Lay the pieces out on the floor and measure the overall space it takes up, then map this out on the wall. I used post it notes to mark the rough borders.

Start hanging from one side and work your way over (if you are centering the arrangement around one large piece, maybe work out from that piece).

Using a variety of different art shapes but all black frames and a black/white palette make this way easier to execute well, in my opinion.

The level (as in the tool) is your friend.

Chair

In addition to Ikea, which I will probably never stop frequenting for home needs, a couple of my favorite places for home furnishings in Seattle are the Kasala outlet for modern pieces (our couch, lamps) and Tirto Furniture (our side table, wooden deer heads).

Tirto side table

Tirto side table


Tirto is awesome-they do mostly Indonesian inspired, sustainable wood furniture and have a ton of great decor items in addition to larger investment-y pieces. It’s a really fun place to wander around if you’re into home design.

This is Horace. Boris, his twin, flanks the other side of the window.

This is Horace. Boris, his twin, flanks the other side of the window.


Next week, a nursery post. I am pretty proud of the nursery. I kind of wish I could live in there. Babies can be such spoiled jerks!