I moved into my new place last week and have since devolved into a complete lunatic. Well, a decorating lunatic. I spent multiple hours searching online for drapery hardware the other day, ordered seven different linen swatches from Restoration Hardware, and I'm pretty sure I broke my rotator cuff painting my room—6 hours to go from 'burnt custard' to 'lustrous white' (but it was worth it!) God bless the discovery of a Home Depot in my backyard.
The building is five blocks down from my last place here in South Slope, Brooklyn. It's not my dream location, but beggars can't be choosers and the price was right, plus my roommates are great and the apartment itself isn't half bad. I can already tell this space will have a much different vibe from my last apartment (seen here and here.) I feel relieved to have only one room to work on and an actual budget. I'm here for a year, so my goal is to get everything pretty much perfect within these first two months and then sit back and relax. Unless I decide to redecorate, but that's neither here nor there.
I'm looking for a few key pieces of furniture that I'm dubbing "baby investments"—pieces that are pretty well always desirable and that I'll either want to keep or be able to sell for just as much as I paid for them. The layout of the room is pretty simple as it's not particularly large. I'll have a full-size bed and a desk with a chair. There won't be room for much else, save a small bedside table tucked in between the bed and the closet. Window treatments are a must as my view really isn't spectacular, to put it mildly. (My room looks out onto an active auto garage, a small lot littered with abandoned cars and a kinda rundown residential building.)
In the meantime I'm sleeping on an air mattress (I needed something I could fold into my closet while I was painting!) and typing away in the kitchen. But this post is called 'Decorating With Pinterest' for a reason, so let's delve into that, shall we? First, the desk/chair situation inspiration:
The desk will pretty much be in a corner just like that, except I'll have mine facing the window. There won't be much room between it and the bed, but I don't think that will bother me. I guess we'll find out. I know the desk I'm getting already; it's a midcentury number I saw in Strawser & Smith some months ago. I took a picture for good measure and emailed it to them last week, just to test my luck, and lo and behold they still have the same desk! So now I just need to find the perfect chair, with the two above serving as my initial inspiration. I love the wood with the black leather, but that seems fancy and expensive, so then I considered the Eames dowel-leg chair:
It looks great, no? But I Googled it and while it was easy enough to find one from DWR, it's totally out of my budget. Blergh. All is not lost, however, because I love love love the idea of a floor lamp beside my desk and didn't really think of that until I saw this picture, which I found on the DWR site. Synergy! So now the plan is to get a floor lamp to sit to the left of my desk (the window is on the right-hand side) while the main contender in the chair department is now the Thonet bent plywood chair:
I mean, how gorgeous is that? No black leather, but those lines! (All of this chair mania occurred in my head in one afternoon, FYI.) So that's the desk, less details about the lamp, for which I've compiled a few inspiration images below:
I'm really into the industrial-chic vibes here, not to mention the hats on the wall above Jessie Webster's desk (top-left image.) This kind of lamp could also look awesome in the bedroom:
The t-shirt hanging from the wall is maybe something I would try, but I also think it'd be cool to get a great vintage hanger and drape a vintage textile from it...something like a boro textile, but less rare and expensive. I've already started my collection of another décor must-have and if you're a long-time reader of this blog, I'm sure you can guess what it is.
It's a potted succulent and oh. my. god. It's so cute I could literally die. It's Ora Ceramics from Nightwood in Williamsburg, a gorgeous shop I'm totally in love with where I couldn't afford anything—except my little pot! And here are some other decorating with candles/plants ideas that are so necessary:
I have a pretty good windowsill for grouping ceramics full of mini cacti (or should I say cute-ti, hardy har har!) and succulents, so I'ma be all about that life.
While I'm sure I'll have something framed or hanging around my desk, my dream for the space above the bed is some sort of grand fiber art piece, as seen in my blog post about Morgan Satterfield's wicked awesome abode. I'm particularly fond of these specimens from Brook and Lyn:
These babies run up to like two grand, though, so it'll never happen. But I can dream! Other unconventional wall hangings that are currently inspiring include this guy and this dreamcatcher from Totokaelo. And then these are some other cute ideas for decorating that I got from Kim Ludy's Flickr feed:
Ceramics and art, obvi, but I also have a pair of antlers back home off of which I'd love to hang jewelry (maybe that can go over my desk?) and while I'm into the idea of incorporating a really beat-up antique Persian rug in the room, I'm not sure it'll fit. Maybe a runner in front of the closet? We'll see...
This has been a loooot to digest, so thanks for taking this crazy trip with me (really, kudos if you got to the bottom of this post!) Needless to say, I'm excited about finally having a personal space to make personal once again. I'm on a lease and unleashed—BAM, tagline to my new thriller, which is also a romcom. Stay tuned for updates, especially on the IG. The final product should be up just before September, I hope!
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