home sweet condo. part 1. seeing gray.

so, as we all know i am a cali girl now. well, slightly more bad ass and uptight cali girl, but a cali girl none the less. i have lived in 6 homes. 5 states in the the past 4.5 years. and one thing that i have found about myself is that i CANNOT live in a space that doesn't feel like home. i don't care if i'm only renting. i must have pictures everywhere, my books must be out and displayed, and it just needs to feel like a space where people say ooooOOOOOoooo... soothing and pretty and cool. always gotta be cool. we have the brilliant 2 bed, 2 bath penthouse-ish space in downtown san diego. the first room i'm going to show you is my guest room/office. at the past 6 homes my office has been a separate room than the guest room and neither of those have been "decorated." they were both just junk rooms. when we moved to cali, i had to figure out how to make the 2 rooms 1. keep reading to see what i came up with.






blurry iphone before shots:

 painting at 3 o'clock in the morning: 

 frustrated...

 starting to loose it...

make it stop!!!!!!! why did i do this at 8 o'clock at night!?!?

she's so crafty:

 found this painting at ross for 15 dollars, so i just painted the frame to go with the look a bit better...

 i took the glass out of a frame added some cork sheets and some fabric and what do you know!?! a diy cork board. note, you need to layer those cork sheets at least 4 or 5 thick otherwise the push pins won't stay in.

 i needed a vase but i had already spent so much money that i grabbed a double old fashion glass out of the cupboard and added christmas decoration pearls in varying sizes. i wrapped an ivory grosgrain ribbon around the cup and added some silk peonies. i think that's a pretty rad floral arrangement created with all things i found around the house.

so i needed some art but i'm not a super painter, so i painted canvas with the idea from madebygirl's fancier site cocoa and hearts. i didn't have the dough to buy her artwork... and honestly, it is insanely easy to do on your own for very cheap. 

drumroll please........ the finished room!!!

 i have to say a giant thanks to my friend emily for helping me sew this son of a bitch cover for my ugly wire shelving unit.

 

all of the bedding is west elm. most of the accessories are from home goods or tjmaxx. the small white boxes are ikea and the large boxes on the ground are the container store. i painted all of the artwork and the i love you, blogs, and tea is by jen ramos of made by girl.