sf sunday

If there is any question about what my Sunday was like after 4 hours on a party trolley, I'll spell it out for you here: f-o-o-t-b-a-l-l. on a couch. food from delivery boys. no moving.  We were pooped after our full Saturday and were happy to rest.  The great thing about California is that football starts at 10am.  This fact, combined with the time change (for me it was 3hrs. different than east coast time plus another hour change due to DST) made for a very relaxing Sunday.  We emerged for an early dinner at a delicious French restaurant on Union St. called Gamine.  I ordered the Warm Goat Cheese and Arugula Salad and the Moules Mariniere (mussels with white wine, parsley, and garlic) and was in H-E-A-V-E-N.  So good.  The restaurant (plus a few bottles of Malbec for the table) was a little bit of a splurge as far as SF on a budget goes, but because it was the only real meal of the day, I was totally cool with it!

After dinner I was lured across the street by this store, where I wish I could have purchased furniture for an entire house.  I'm obsessed with eclectic antiques mixed with newer pieces.  And this store was exactly that. Of all the things I saw, there was one piece in particular that caught my eye, and now I think I have all the inspiration I need for my dresser project.

It had this rustic, distressed look with a modern punch, but it was still so beautiful and classic.  Gold and orange look great together, and it would go so well with some natural accents and my favorite color: navy blue.  What do you think?

Photo dump and a SF walking tour (guided by moi, who had never been to San Francisco before last week) coming later today!  I saw so much in a day, and I really surprised myself.  And now, you can do it too.

tour of our pad

As promised, I've completed an apartment tour.

Some disclaimers are probably necessary.  We love our apartment.  It serves the two of us so perfectly, and we finally feel a little bit like grown-ups.  That being said, it's not the newly remodeled house of our dreams, nor is it perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  It has radiators that clang and hiss (the heat just started to turn on around here, and this was a nice little surprise in the middle of the night).  The building is OLD and the floors creak, which also means that our neighbors above us have creaky floors, which we hear constantly.  And the bathrooms and kitchen leave much to be desired.  As in, when my boyfriend saw my bathroom for the first time he said, "It reminds me of college."  Which, at least in our cases, is not exactly what we are nostalgic for when we remember those times in our lives.  The floorboards are uneven, the walls are cracked, some tiles are missing from our bisque-tiled (barf) bathrooms, etc. etc.  It's a mess.  But it's our mess.

And, again, let me make it sooo so so so clear.  We love it.  I don't mean to sound ungrateful.  I am so lucky to have gotten to this place in my life that I can afford to live on my own and support myself.  I am healthy and happy, and my cup is full with abundant gifts.  I look around everyday and remember all the hard work it took (and still takes) to keep all of this a reality.  And I am happy.  This is great.  I breath a little deeper.  Then I remember to stop day-dreaming and get back to work.  Like my dad always said, "The bills won't pay themselves." (Did anyone's dad not say that?).

And, with that said... Please, come in.  Enter our cute, little home....  It's a work in progress, and you're coming along for the ride, right?  RIGHT!?  Ok, phew.  Thanks.

View to right from front door:

Entryway

View straight ahead of entryway: 

My roommate's bathroom

View to right from front door:

Living room

Enter the door next to the bookshelf in the living room: 

My roommate's bedroom

Other side of the house: 

Down the entryway hall to the left: 

Our tiny kitchen 

(we say we have two bathrooms but only half a kitchen...priorities!)

And straight through the doors at the end of the entryway hall: 

The large anti-room I haphazardly described here

The door in the far side of the "office-throw-all-dressing-room": 

My bathroom 

(which is so tiny that getting a picture of it is impossible, so please bear with me!)

And, the door on the far left of that same room, which lines up with the entryway hall, etc: 

My bedroom

And there you have it!  That's all she wrote.  Thanks for stopping by!

project: old dresser

I've always been interested in interior design.  When I was young, I would insist that my babysitter help me rearrange my bedroom furniture before my mom got home.  I had this weird thing about not getting my mom involved, but I'm pretty sure she was unphased.  You see, I'm the third child out of four in my family (which you can read more about here) and my mom might be the most laid back woman there is....  For instance, I used to wear every single layer of long underwear that we owned (three girls in different sizes= lots of long underwear) at the same time all winter long with a tutu on top.... ANYWAY, my nanny, unlike my mother, was an OCD cleaner, who insisted on making each of our bedrooms immaculate.  She would vacuum under the beds and other furniture, dust, and do an overall disinfecting deep clean while we were rearranging, so it was actually music to my mothers ears to hear that we had done some decorating while she was out.

Later, in boarding school, I would budget my (very small) allowance/savings to buy linens and towels and odds and ends for my dorm room.  At 14, this was not "normal" behavior as far as my roommates were concerned, but it always made me so happy!

And that trend continues today.  I subscribe to a wide variety of home goods and home improvement magazines, and I receive oodles of  catalogs each season.  I save my money for side tables while all my other friends shop for clothes and read about the Kardashian marriage headed to splitsville (ok, clearly I'm not slacking in the rumor-reading department, but you get the picture).

I said in my post yesterday that I was excited to share some bits about me improving old pieces I already own.  Remember, I'm in my mid-twenties and I'm on a budget, and this is all in the name of creating beautiful things for functional spaces, so bear with me.  I'm about to get creative!  This is jawsie taking a bite out of life:

Project #1: The Dresser

Yes, that blue sticker is from the van lines that moved my parents furniture to a new house six years ago...
Mom=laid back 

I am well aware of the following:

cons: 

• missing 2 knobs (hope to find some great replacements for the whole piece at anthropologie!)
• some old tape/sticker damage to the middle two drawers (a sander will do the trick)
• uneven tones throughout (I'm going to paint, seal, and embellish this puppy!)
• holy moly, what a disgusting top you have.  (the better to urge you to fix me with, my dear.)

pros:

• solid wood!
• beautiful lines 
• mucho potential!!!!!
• free!  (this is a Mom and Dad's basement special.)

They sure don't make them like they used to...

It's going to be a big job... I'm off to find a sander! 

one bit on my mind

One bit of my life I want to include on this blog is my home.  Specifically, I would like to document my journey to improving parts of my home step-by-step.  As a renter, this journey can't involve a kitchen or bath reno (phew!) or even a paint color change for that matter (boo, lease agreement), but I hope to improve, recreate, and up-cycle some terrific new and old pieces I own.  I love beautiful pieces and functional spaces, and I believe these two ideas are not mutually exclusive.  I have been collecting inspiration for eons.  Now, if only pinterest would send me an invitation like I requested, so that I could keep track of all of those ideas...  (edited 10/27/11 : They did! I'm on pinterest!  Check me out!)


Here is the place I should be adding a huge disclaimer in bold lettering: I've never DIY'ed anything in my entire life.  I can't draw a straight line to save my life, and I've never painted anything except for an over-sized piece of paper on an easel when I was 4-- and yes I was wearing a "smock" that had had a previous life as my Dad's work shirt when I did that.  


Ok, that feels better...

Beacon Hill photograph courtesy of FayFoto/GBCVB

I live in a 2 1/2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in a beautiful, historic neighborhood with one of my oldest, best-est girlfriends.  There is nothing "new" about our apartment (I said historic), but it has solid construction and there is charm out the wazoo!  (My mom always says that... I understand it, but this may be one of those times when I lose my audience... stick with me!)  We have solid hard wood floors, terrific molding around the windows and doors, spaaacccceeeee, and a great floor plan.  In short, we love it.

Some of our favorite parts of our apartment.  (These are the little things you enjoy as a renter, because you know you can't add them yourself!):

Swoon!

Note the paint splat from the previous tenants, which adds to the character...

Did I mention 2 bathrooms?  Can I tell you that this is the first time in my life I've had my own bathroom?  Yea.  It's amazing.  And, to explain the "1/2" business in the bedroom description, honestly we are still trying to figure it out ourselves.  There are 2 small bedrooms-- actually, one I would categorize as teensy-- and one extra space/anti-room (in addition to our living room) in which there is a humongously large closet.  We are currently using the room as an office (I work from home occasionally)/ dressing room/ dining room on the occasions we find ourselves "entertaining"/ throw-all-kitchen-drawer-type-room.  It helps to separate the two bedrooms and make the apartment feel open, airy, and private.

Here's another "original" we are blessed with in. every. room. of. our. apartment...

Floor plan and house tour and the first exciting project coming soon! And if you're like me, and you've learned to become a great site stalker researcher over the years, you might be trying to get a sneak-peak from old photos I've posted like this one.  You're welcome.

cheers!

Hi! I'm Jawsie (like the shark).  Or, at least that's what my family calls me.... How does a relatively "normal" mid-twenties girl from the north east get the nickname to match that of a man-eating shark? Good question. 


I am the third girl in my family and it's fair to say my parents fully expected me to be a boy... Doctors word and everything.  (I guess sonograms were fuzzy in the 80's?!). No matter!  A few reassuring comments later (a la "she won't remember her nursery was built for a boy or the fact that her receiving blanket is blue"), they were happy to have me!  As I became more mobile in my toddler years, I was a bit different than my two older pink-and-princess-loving sisters-- I liked to tackle, destroy, and wreak havoc on everything and anything in my path.  The Jaws theme song, play it in your head, became something like my theme song-- a warning sign for destruction.  My mom would sing the tune (dun nun, dun nun...)  as I left the kitchen on my hell-raising path for my sisters wooden block castle in the playroom, or as I escaped the bathtub and was now "loose" running down the hall in my sopping wet birthday suit.  I was Jaws, but the name got "cuter" by making it "Jawsie." Sound strange?  You'll get used to it.  My sisters would scream, assume knight-like positions, and box me out, protecting their precious world. I learned to be quick, sneaky, and a little bit naughty just to get around their defense. And here I am today.

I like to think that I've grown into the name.  I'm a fighter, though not of the physical variety, and my determination has gotten me to a great "place" in my mid-twenties.  I work hard, play hard, fail hard, and always, always dream big. My experiences pushing my way through barriers and past so-called limits have allowed me to find myself.  This blog is a showcase of that person; a bite out of my life shared in bits and pieces.  Hence the title.  

Oh, and my parents finally got a boy.  It just took another try!

Thanks for visiting!

p.s. Edited by demand, I have included this video, which is completely gratuitous...