The weather was beautiful today. It was warm and sunny this morning. In the early afternoon, it rained lightly for a few minutes while the sun was still out. I picked up some flowers for mother’s day, ran some errands, and was delightfully surprised to see a couple friends who came over for a quick hello. I’m feeling grateful for this very normal-nice day. That’s exactly what I needed after an extremely abnormal and intense work week. I haven’t yet taken my transcendental meditation class yet, but I feel like I need it more than ever and hope it helps because life is not getting any easier.

Back to this outfit. I probably wear this sweatshirt at least once a week. Sometimes I wear it inside out. Usually I wear it untucked, sometimes front tucked, but today I decided to front and back tuck it with the sides untucked. I like the way it casually drapes when it isn’t fully tucked circumferentially. I’m also wearing new almond colored sandals by Vince. I’d been stalking these sandals, and similar styles from ATP Atelier for a while, but when I tried the Vince ones on at the store, I was really impressed by how comfortable they were. The slight heel and toe ring hug and stabilize the foot nicely. The flat versions were not nearly as comfortable.

In other news, we finally finished up the den room in our apartment. It was the last room in our apartment to come together. It is a real luxury to have an entire separate room to use for work and recreation. I wanted it to feel a little more private and personal than the other rooms. We had a little more fun with the decor.

The sleeper sofa is from Joybird. The painting and rug are from Target.

The two body cushions are from Muji. They are covered with throw blankets that have been gifted to us. The cushions conform to your body when you lay on them. It’s nearly impossible to get up once you’re in. It’s a trap!

Sorry about the bad lighting here. Almost everything on the walls were gifted. The macrame wall hanging was a hand me down, originally from World Market. The boat oars above the window are from the BF’s late grandfather’s lakehouse, originally belonging to his great grandfather. The tennis rackets are hand me downs from his dad. The shelves are from ikea. We bought two shelves and pushed them together to look like one wide shelving unit. It’s the perfect size for storing records. We purged many of our hard copy books. I moved most of my remaining books into my office.

This rug was also from Target. It was only about 100 dollars. Really high quality and beautiful for the price, I think. And the biggest splurge in this room is this desk chair by Steelcase. It is fully adjustable in every direction, and in the BF’s opinion, it is far superior to the Herman Miller Aeron chair.

My favorite thing about this room though is this little door sign that we picked up at the Graduate, a dog friendly hotel in Virginia. It’s a nice memento from our road trip back to California and adds a tiny pop of color to the room.

In decorating this room (and the rest of the apartment) I thought a lot about color, and tried to eliminate as much black as possible. I think for example, that if the desk chair was black, the room would not have come together as it does now. I am a lover of black and very often dress in all black, but I didn’t want the space around me to feel dark and heavy. The piano used to sit on top of a black metal stand, and it was such an eye sore. We replaced it with this unfinished wood table; the kind that goes behind the sofa. It cost nearly nothing from Amazon. It was a bit too high for piano playing so we sawed off a few inches from the legs. Swapping out the metal stand for a solid wood table made a huge difference. The BF who didn’t initially see a problem with the metal stand commented on how much nicer the room looked once it was removed. I should have taken a before and after photo, but you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

This might be my favorite room in the apartment now. It feels very cozy and personal to me. We made a few mistakes in the beginning by buying too much furniture for the room. We originally had two desks in here, but it became much too crowded. With the second desk removed, the feng shui is much better. There’s more breathing room and the energy is much more laid back than it was before.

But anyway, that’s all I got folks. I hope you all are hanging in there. Would love to hear your thoughts and please share any home decor ideas or home projects you are working on right now.