New Year, New Resolutions

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I figure that most resolutions ends up by the wayside due to a couple of things: (1) they're really difficult to accomplish; and or (2) they're really unpleasant / things you don't actually want to do. So I'm simply choosing things that are manageable and fun. Well, mostly.

✔ Head over to Iceland this summer
✔ Keep my closet organized
✔ Take more photos
✔ Shop smarter, appreciate what I have
✔ Read more (anything)
✔ Play more games with people, not computers

Et Voila! A list that I'll actually want to get through, so that by this time next year I won't be agonizing over the things that I was *supposed* to do, but didn't.

Blog about your own resolutions? Leave the link here so we can all come and visit you!



Happy New Year Everyone!!

Holiday

The past several days:

❤ went to Ann Arbor ❤ finally saw Melancholia - it was beautiful.haunting.sad.epic ❤ went to Frankenmuth to see family ❤ missed out on dinner w/Santa + karaoke ❤ went antique shopping ❤ had Christmas at my parents' house ❤ watched True Grit - John Wayne marathon on - and opened a few small gifts ❤ went w/mom to feed shelter kitties ❤ played Trivial Pursuit ❤ sat around with a happy belly full of Christmas cookies ❤

... How was your holiday?

Dream Rooms: Industrial Light

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We have a reasonable amount of light that gets let into our house, though I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to have an entire wall of windows|light.

Dreamy.

Thomas Crown

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Aren't these images of Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway from the original The Thomas Crown Affair just smoldering? I could watch this movie over and over again. I actually liked the remake, but I'll take Steve McQueen over Pierce Brosnan any day.

This semester is almost through, so I'm looking forward to some days that can be taken up with nothing other than old movies and good books. What's standing between me and that time: a holiday party, a long overdue visit from a good friend (both of these, obviously go in the "good busy" category), a little stretch of grading, Christmas shopping (no, I'm not done), an auction, and a short non-vacationy trip up north.

Doable, right?

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Holy real estate jackpot! The townhouse where Holly Golightly lived in Breakfast at Tiffany's is up for sale!

Beautiful brownstone with elegant stoop divided into 2 duplexes located off Lexington Avenue. The upper duplex consists of a sunny living room with wood burning fireplace and sweeping staircase, powder room, dining room with a wood burning fireplace and a renovated kitchen with laundry. Upstairs are two bedroom suites each with its own renovated bath. The garden duplex apartment with a separate entrance has a living room with a woodburning fireplace, full bath, kitchen and glass enclosed solarium with backyard perfect for entertaining. The upper level includes a front library/office with wood burning fireplace and powder room and a rear large bedroom with wood burning fireplace and bath. (Corcoran)

Between this place and The American Horror Story house being up for sale, my money tree dollars are going to be stretched quite thin. Though when I tire of good old-fashioned haunting on the west coast, I can jet out east to spend some time on the fire escape with my guitar and cat.

Want It Now: Vintage Home Style

{ Air Plant in Blue Bird Cage } and { Vintage Glass Brass Box }
{ Antique Composition Doll } and { Vintage Wooden Chairs }
{ Vintage Industrial Metal Paperweight } and { Clay Horse Head Bookends }

I'm rather an impatient shopper. Once I decide that I want something, I want it right then and there. New shoes, a coat, a good cup of coffee, pancakes, a different bedspread... whatever. Yes, I realize this is not the most admirable of qualities. But I fear at this stage in the game, I'm probably stuck with it.

This kind of a desire to have something right away is a problem when it comes to home design though. For most things I really prefer vintage pieces, but it's not as though you can run to Target and find that great antique bookcase that you've been pining for.

It takes time. Sigh.

Working part time at an antique store helps with a bit of expediting, but for everything else there's ETSY. In the last year of so, a pretty incredible crop of sellers of great vintage design pieces have popped up. I'm always cooing over some strange.precious little porcelain doll or metal.wood industrial furniture.

Do you have any favorite home design stores.sites? If you have a post about design goodies, I'd love to know -- you can share your link using the widget below!!

Dream Rooms: Workspace

{ Gail Rieke }

I don't entirely know what kind of work goes on in this space, but I'm certain that I want to be there, making things. Or just to breathe in a little bit. You can for sure be creative anywhere, though I suspect that situating yourself in a space with so many amazing tidbits around you helps with that, just a smidge.

Want It Now: Indoor Pool

Last Saturday I popped by the second day of an estate sale that was just a few minutes from my house. 50% off days are kind of great - there's not really the pressure to be there as early as possible + no having to fight people off for something specific you might want.

There were a few good things that I picked up, though the best was just getting to be in the house itself - they had an a.mazing indoor pool! Like, just add people + drinks and you'd have the coolest parties ever.

The house had already been sold - and only for a few hundred thousand above our budget - but now an indoor pool is on my "things I didn't know that I wanted but now absolutely need to have" list.

New Additions

Ever since I got my Fox dress form for the shop, I've been looking for an older version that's got some distressing to it. Though unless you're very lucky, they're typically a pinch on the expensive side, especially as more and more people look to use them to sell online.

These two Bauman dress forms were being sold as a pair, and I purchased them with every intention of selling one. So they arrived, and of course, they're both gorgeous.gorgeous.gorgeous in person, each with its own unique pattern of water stains and wear.

Then the hemming + hawing + lip biting started: which one do I part with?

Well, there's no harm in both of them just *resting* at my house for awhile, you know, while I choose, right?

Dream Rooms

{ From Greenwich with Love }

I adore wallpaper. Especially busy wallpaper. Especially this busy wallpaper. There are trees, and flowers, and birds, and ponds, and I think even some happy little fish. I can see this working in just about any room, save for maybe a kitchen.

The only thing is that you'd be stuck choosing furniture + accessories in solid colors -- unless you were looking to give your guests seizures, that is.

Is It Time to Leave Yet?

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One of the nicest perks of working in academia is that every now and then a conference comes along that is in the most perfect location ever. For instance, the next World Congress of Philosophy, in August 2013, is in Greece. Yes, you heard that, Greece.

Greece, of course, is an incredibly expensive place to visit. So for a conference to pop up there, it's really as if the travel gods have smiled directly at you.

We have a year yet to submit papers / proposals for the conference, though this is certainly an opportunity that will be difficult to pass up!

Have any of you been to Greece before, or is it someplace that you'd like to escape to as well?

Currently On: Street Style

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The colder temperatures are officially here and staying - at least in Michigan - which means no leaving the house without lots of cozy layers. I love how these girls are all bundled up, but still super cute.

Want It Now: Kilim Drawstring Bags

These handmade Kilim bags from A Kind of Guise are perfection. The folks over there have taken some of the rugs that they'd brought back from a trip to the Middle East, and made limited run of bags for what they're calling The Kilim project.

I'm smitten with the fact that they're not only "recycling" vintage materials to craft their goods, but also that each of these bags would have it's very own origins story behind it. While most products have country of origin labels, it's far cooler to be able to know where exactly the materials from your bag came from, when they were gotten, and who made them into something wonderful.

Here Kitty Kitty

{ Glamour Spain via Fashion Gone Rogue }

Headed to Church

{ For Sale here }

Currently there are a number of churches in our area that have closed - due to the economy, I suspect - and the vacant brick buildings sit, sad little "For Sale" signs perched out front. Were it in my budget, one of them would be mine, mine, mine. It would be pretty marvelous to remake the inside of a church into a living space, such as the property above (located in Australia).

Outside Inside

{ vintage animal prints } { x-rays: here, here, and here }

Most of B.'s whole family is comprised of artists: his mother is a painter, one brother makes installations and is a craftsman of sorts, one sister is a painter and and clothing/accessories designer, his brother-in-law is painter and designs houses, another brother-in-law was a photographer, B. draws and plays the guitar.... There's so much creativity in that family that it's depressing.

In my head, I can imagine a lot of interesting projects, but then there's this whole part about having to actually execute something: while in my mind it may look like Picasso, on paper it comes out as advanced stick figures.

So I may just stick to mashing things together here. Though I also have to add, I'm recently obsessed with making things with all of my new graphics collections!

Want It Now: Vintage Cat Eye Glasses

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When I was younger, I had to have braces, and I had five years of allergy shots. It seemed to me that the one thing that I didn't need to have help with - vision - was really the only thing with a pleasing solution. Nearly all of my relatives were (as I saw it then) blessed with the need for glasses.

Thankfully it doesn't seem to matter any more whether or not you have less than perfect sight - pretty frames have become accessories in the same way as jewelry: a little extra ornamentation never hurt anyone, right?