Gallery Wall

Still trying to pull together my new apartment but thought I'd share my most recent project for a sneak peek.  KTW was given the task of helping me hang a gallery wall in my kitchen.  I laid everything out on the floor the way I wanted it hung and then sat back, ate bon bons, and watched tv while he did the rest.

Not really, I handed him nails and gave directions like "a little to the left."  But he was definitely the master of this project and I think he did a phenomenal job!  I smile each time I turn the corner and walk into my kitchen.  Big thanks to my favorite dude!

Mapping out the plan and measuring each frame.

All done!  The items hung in black frames are some of my grandmother's embroidered hand towels.  My mother cleaned and ironed each one for me.  I truly treasure them.  I painted the Le Sueur Peas can and bee.  My mother painted the flower.  The green framed picture is of Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach.  This photograph is particularly meaningful to me because it's one of the moments I decided I must live in California!  The shell sketches I bought in a gallery in NYC, they've lived in many apartments with me over the years.

Umami Burger

I hope I don't lose any friends with this statement...

....I do not love hamburgers.  There. I said it.  It's out there and I can't take it back.  It's not that I won't gladly eat one if it's in front of me, but I definitely never crave burgers.

That was until I tried an Umami burger.  One recently opened on Union Street and KTW and I checked it out last week.  O   M   G, so super yum.  We got the pickled plate because we're sooooooo healthy like that, an order of cheesy tater tots (not smothered in cheese though, the cheese is very subtle and baked into the tots, mmmm,) and we each got a burger too.  KTW got the Cali Burger with butter lettuce, slow roasted tomatoes, Umami's own house-made cheese, carmelized onions, and house dressing.  I went for the Umami burger with shitake mushrooms, carmelized onions, roasted tomato, parmesan crisp, and Umami ketchup.  The parmesan crisp was my fave part.  You can see it peeking out of my burger in the 2nd pic.  Drooling yet?

Update: I now crave burgers.

Spex Club

Yo! I've been having super crazy problems with my contacts lately and decided I should wear my glasses more.  Problem is, my glasses are about three prescriptions old and crooked.  And so has begun my quest for a new pair.  I started with Spex Club (now known as Lookmatic,) mainly because they are cheap!  $88.00 covers prescription eyewear and shipping with lots of fun styles.  I also had a discount code from InStyle bringing the price down to $77.00!  You can virtually try on the glasses but ultimately, I'm going to end up taking advantage of their free returns.  First, specs to arrive were the "Jesse" style in tortoise-shell.  I sooooo wish I could pull these off.  However, I'm just not hipster enough to make it happen, baby steps...

So these are getting returned, on to the next the ones!

At Home in Hayes

That's right folks, in just 10 days, I'll be moving to uber-trendy Hayes Valley!  I finally found an adorable little studio that suits my needs.  Although, compared to my NYC apt, it feels much bigger than a studio because it has a huge, separate kitchen!  With room for table and chairs, and more than one person at a time, amaze-balls!  For the past few months, my stuff has been in boxes so it will be so fun to finally truly unpack and see what I actually have.  My guess is not much.  I got rid of so much when I left NYC, thinking it just made more sense to start over when I got here rather than pay a thousand + dollars to ship it all out.

Ever since seeing the place, I've been daydreaming of how I will decorate and make it mine.  I've decided on a color scheme of mint and navy, so soothing and so fresh!  Below is a preliminary sketch of how I envision the room laying out, we'll see what parameters I have to work with when I actually start measuring stuff...I've also included a few inspirational images that led to using these two lovely colors.

I dream of having dinner here, Cecconi's at Soho Miami Beach.  The decor is perfection.

Image from Habitually Chic

Desk and Chair are exactly what I'm going for.

Green walls with gold frame, great combo.  Also love the Lucite chair,

Unfortunately, I cannot reference the owner of these images, but they can be found on Pinterest.