Another year wiser

This past year has been a whirlwind. I took a minute today to sit down and think of everything that has changed for me in my 33rd year of life:

Charbeck.net

~I became a Registered Nurse

~I lost my beloved dog Jasco whom I had for 13 wonderful years

~I moved out of a 1700sq ft. house that I lived in for 9 years in Huntington Beach

~I moved into a 1000 sq ft. house in Sacramento down the street from my two beautiful nieces

~I job hunted like nobodies business!

~I faced a lot of rejection in my job hunting

~I got the job of my dreams (it just didn't look like what I thought I wanted)

~I moved into a 500 sq ft. apartment in Huntington Beach

~I made great new friends

~I caught up with great old friends

~I went to Napa for winetasting several times

~I rocked my niece to sleep at night

~I started this blog
~I sold most of the furniture that I had collected over the past 10 years.
~I realized that selling my furniture was a good thing because my style has changed and now I have a clean slate.
~I developed a new passion for cupcake decorating
~I am sure I am missing some major milestones with this list, but it's what came to me when I sat down at the computer. 

So, now I am off to work at the hospital and ring in my 34th year but I thought I'd leave you with a bit of my birthday wish list!

McCoy Designs

Hermes

Doggy Heaven

Jonathon Adler

 

Lamps Plus

Decisions

Seeing as Thanksgiving is a week away, Christmas will be here before we know it. I have been bombarded with Christmas decorations in every store I've been in this week. Didn't it used to be the stores would wait until after Thanksgiving to start selling holiday decor?  So here it is November 16th and I am trying to decide what kind of tree to get this year.

I have always had a real tree. I love everything about them. Picking them out at the tree lot, setting them up, decorating while drinking egg nog, etc. But this year I am torn... I live in a teeny tiny apartment, so I have to get a teeny tiny tree. Real teeny tiny trees aren't that fun, and I am kind of in love with the idea of a retro white tree. I feel like if I don't get a real tree I am somehow "cheating" on Christmas. But these pictures have been with me all year and I really want to have one of these trees to look at for the next month!

Maison21

I had a fun yet busy day yesterday. I had a nice long stretch of time off and I enjoyed it by doing design stuff! 
A new home store opened in the SOCO design center so my friend and I went to check it out. Here are some pics

Me with a giant Holiday wreath. Inspiration for my front door, only I'm going to do the super miniature version.

Next up we had a yummy lunch and then hit up Crate and Barrel and Z Gallerie. When I got home I was feeling all inspired so I jumped on Etsy.com and ordered this pillow from one of my favorite sellers Nena Von

Then I went out to dinner and a movie with friends and came home to organize my still completely unpacked apartment. Instead I surfed the web and found these lovely pics

Walker Zanger tile

Wallpaper from Ballard Designs

Fun gifts from Shopten25.com

Rookie Mistake

You know the old saying "measure twice, cut once" Well, I measured once, got excited, pulled out the drill and installed my new knob on my new nightstand.


And guess what? It's off by 3/4". Can you tell? I can, and it bugs me. I'm pretty easy going, but when it comes to design, I have serious OCD. Now every time I walk by, I look at that wonky knob and get frustrated.

I have thought about what options I have. I can try to fill the hole, paint and re-drill, however, the drawer is press board, so I am not sure that will work. Secondly, I could call the lovely 800 that came with the packaging and see if they can send me a new drawer front. Or I can just live with it, which is probably what will happen considering it only cost me $35.00

Next up, pillows. I've ordered the fabric and having it sent to my mom's house... hee hee! Guess what we will be doing for the Thanksgiving holiday? And then onto lampshades. The cone shades on my lamps just won't due. They are begging for these.

Shopping

While I should be spending my days off unpacking the heaping mess that is my new apartment, I've been shopping instead! Yay, I'm excited to start decorating, but don't want to pull the trigger on anything yet until I have the space unpacked and the layout set. I did purchase this nightstand because it was on sale for $35.00 And then I had to get this knob, because it would look so cute on the nightstand. See where this is going?!

So now I'm back to work for a few days, but my next stretch of time off I'll post a pic of what the knob looks like on the nightstand. I also am looking for a basket (preferably seagrass) to go on the shelf under the drawer. That way I can keep my stacks of books, magazines, catalogs hidden from view.

I also popped into Joann's the other day and I'm liking these fabrics. Although I will be ordering them from fabric.com because they are about 50% cheaper there and have a bigger selection to choose from.

almost back

I'm excited to announce that I finally found a new place to call home and have been trying to consolidate my life into 500 sq ft! Needless to say, I have way too much "stuff" and I've been crawling over boxes for days now. I just got my internet up and running a few days ago so I am happy to get back to blogging... right after I work the next three days.

Brown and White weekend

In my previous post I showed the brown/white bedding that I purchased from Overstock.com. I am in love with it and having searching the internet for inspiration to decorate my bedroom. I still like the idea of adding some blue/grays into the mix. Here are some of the photos I've been loving as inspiration this week.Source: Alice Lane

Source: Z Gallerie


Source: Shelter
Source: Target



Source: L'Auberge

Have a happy weekend. It's going to be a hot one here at the beach!

Fashion Night Out

Last week was Vogue's Fashion Night Out. I knew it was happening up in LA on Melrose, but to my surprise it was also at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. My friend and I were killing time before our movie was starting and stumbled upon this fun event. All the stores were staying open and most of them were serving "Two Buck Chuck". Because both of us are designers, we skipped the clothing stores and headed straight for the home stores. First up was the new Kreiss store. They have re-invented themselves recently. I always remember them being more Caribbean inspired, but now they are all dark wood, modern lines, etc. Sorry for the bad iPhone pics, but I'm still carting around my 1st generation phone:(

Kreiss's store window.


Next up was Room Service. I had been in their LA store before, when it first opened. I was super impressed by this store. It was right up my alley, and gave me so many great ideas for my new house.

This chair has always been one of my favorites. And covered in cream mohair it was spectacular!

And of course there was a Saarinen knock-off. This floor model was on sale for $795. I desperately wanted to plunk down my credit card, but I showed some restraint.

Instead I went home that night and trolled Craigslist for a comparable table. The Ikea version would do, but I still didn't want to pay $179.00 for it. I'm going through a frugal decorating phase which is proving to be fun to see how close I can get to the designer version for cheap. I am not kidding you, I found this table for $25.00! It has a few scratches but that is ok because I plan on putting it out on my covered patio, so I am going to re-paint it and poly the heck out of it.

Ok, back to Room Service. This bedding was divine! It is from Dwell Studio. I have attached another pic, that shows the pattern of the duvet better.

As you can see from the top picture, the bedding retails for $280. But... because I am a super shopper, I found a very close replica for $39.00!! Actually with a 10% off coupon and shipping it came to $42.00. Yeah baby! Here is the picture from Overstock's website. I haven't gotten it on my bed yet, but when I do, I'll post a pic.

Loss

I haven't felt much like blogging lately. The day after my last post I had to put my dog Jasco to sleep. It was the hardest decision I have ever made, yet I am comforted knowing he is not suffering. I was blessed to spend 13 incredible years with him and will miss him forever. There has been a lot of change in my life the past two months, all of it leading to something great I am sure of. So sadness aside, I am starting a new routine and will be back to blogging next week, because it brings me joy. And joy right now is a good thing!

In with the new

I started my new job last week and am staying with friends while I look for a new place. I have been living out of a suitcase and boxes for the past two weeks and in desperate need of something to put clothes in. So late last night I decided to troll Craigslist for a cheap dresser. Most of what I found were ugly old Ikea dressers or something from the 80's laminate heyday. Then I found a gem! Emailed the woman selling it and picked it up this morning for 40 bucks.
Now I need to decide what to do with it. I had my first inspiration idea before seeing it in person. Something like this below by Tobi Fairley. I would probably use a dark charcoal gray paint instead of black.


But then I saw the dresser in person and it has a great burl wood pattern on the front, so I am a bit hesitant to paint it. Maybe I should just touch up the finish and do a high gloss poly like below? Then paint the hardware a satin nickel finish. Now I'm confused as to what direction I should go.... suggestions?

Update: Day 1 mini makeover- found some silver spray paint out in the garage and did a few quick coats, and some poly. Then used some dark wood polish to give it some life back.