Just Visiting

A few years ago, TOWWAS and I took one of those epic long walks all over DC.  I don't even remember where we started...but I remember that we stopped to stretch periodically and that it ended with mini-burgers and girly drinks at Matchbox.  Mmm...  Anyway, at some point on the journey, she pulled me into this fabulous home decor shop to introduce me to a chair.  I don't remember the specifics about the chair (are you sensing a theme?  Memory by line drawings, I guess...), but I recall that it was ridiculously cool...and ridiculously comfy...and ridiculously expensive.  She wasn't going to buy the chair, but she'd stop by whenever she was in the neighborhood to visit.

Since then, I've started my own practice of visiting.  These days, since most of my free time is spent either studying for school or having phone chats with the Best Boyfriend Ever, my visiting tends to be internet-based.  I'm sad I can't go visit my mini-obsessions in person.  Although, given some of the things I'm visiting, maybe that's a good thing...

At the top of the list is Anne Turner Carroll's kitchen.  I'm not sure that it's exactly my style...but I love the openness of it.  One of the first things I noticed about my house is that there's a chunk of wall between the living room/dining nook and the kitchen that needs to be opened up.  I love the idea of having the two rooms joined this way...

I'm also a little covetous of the open shelves below the cabinets.  They raised their standard cabinets to almost ceiling height and then installed an 8 inch shelf underneath.  Clearly, it looks fabulous and, being tall, I'm all in favor of using the height of the room.  The thing I haven't quite figured out is whether or not I'd need a stool to reach the way-back of the top shelves.  I think I would...which might make it too impractical to do in real life.  Or maybe not.  I'm on the fence...

 There are lots of pictures of this beautiful restoration at this post on Apartment Therapy (another place I visit often!).

The kitchen remodel is probably a long-term goal, hence the visiting.  In the shorter term, I'd like to find some really funky-cool pillows for the living room couch.  The couch is a very respectable (read: boring neutral) beige-y tone, and it's currently being dressed up by a bright orange throw.  I'm thinking that a pair of vintage-print (maybe something 1970s-ish?) orange pillows would be faboo to go with it.  

The problem in this case is that I'm mired in indecision!  There are a million wrong shades of orange...and way too many cute prints out there to choose from...and I refuse to get something until I'm sure of what I want.  So I've become a frequent visitor of all of the orange retro print pillows on Etsy.

And just recently, I came across this gem (ohhh...the painful puns).  I can't remember which series of internet links got me there...but dude, check out the shiny!!  I'm not typically particularly moved by sapphires...but the design of this is so simple and the stone is so gorgeous, I almost literally can't stop looking at it. If it didn't live in New Jersey, I'd probably go visit it in person (come to think of it...New Jersey isn't really that far...).  

Sadly, I can't justify $4k for a ring (see above re: kitchen remodel)...but if I could, 2 ct of sapphire and almost 1 ct of diamond would be well worth justifying.  For now, I'm visiting all seven pictures of this ring on Amazon with a bit of lust in my not-independently-wealthy heart.


On some level, I feel a little bad about wanting material things.  The world doesn't need me contributing to the propagation of stuff...and, at the moment, every cent of disposable income I can scrounge up goes directly to plane tickets to see Reid.  I'm trying to look at it more as a practice of appreciation...and I'm consoling myself with the fact that I'm not actually running out and buying this stuff...I'm just visiting.