Hellloooo friends! How are you guys? It’s currently Sunday evening and I am pooped. Marlowe had TWO birthday parties to go today– in two totally different directions– one allll the way west and one all the way east. But we managed. She had a great day… and I can’t complain too much because I totally snuck in a 45 minute reflexology massage while she was at one of the parties, haha. So yeah, it was busy, but a good day.

The rest of the week will be super busy too. Alex had an extra week of vacation time available and we thought this would absolutely be the best time for him to take it. It’s strange for him to take time off without us traveling anywhere, but it’s totally necessary. We got a little home to build, you know? So this week we’re diving into renovations and getting this place all set up for move in time.

It’s funny though, with all my previous home, I never thought much about design. Pieces just sort of fell together. I’m not much of a planner when it comes to home decor. I just work with what I have and develop a space slowly from there. Call it procrastination or being married to Alex for so long, or I don’t know what, but I really sat down one day to try to figure out some design plans for our condo. (Alex is a major planner, he cant dive into anything– except maybe his last tattoo, but thats another story).

I had my mind set on a green velvet couch for a long time now. I’ve reallyyyy been leaning into greens lately. Maybe its the Colombian in me (emeralds everywhere). But for whatever reason, the green couch thing never worked out–  money, bad reviews, whatever. Something was always standing in the way of me and my green couch. But then (even though Alex had said NO BLUE for our apartment) Alex picked out a blue couch for our place. It’s velvet, so I am happy with it— and I don’t have issues with blue like Alex does (hence my three previous blue couches)– but it totally threw me off color-wise. So the procrastination began– and I started tinkering on photoshop to try to find colors I ( and Alex too, haha) would love most.

We knew we would be taking these photographs from our dining room and bringing them to the condo. 1. We love them. 2. Our home rental doesn’t need our personal family photos, you know? So my end game was to fit these images/colors into our home space.

So I collected a bunch of color swatches and put together this ^^ and went from there. A few days later, I realized, damn I really know what I like, because I looked at the header of my blog to realize that the colors are almost the same, haha. Even more funny is that once the paint came, we realized that the colors were VERY similar to colors we already had in our home. I mean, what can I say, I’m very strongly opinionated in my color choices 😉

I haven wanted to be VERY thoughtful on the items, especially new items coming into our apartment. We’re trying to buy as clean, eco-friendly, sustainable, and ethically as we can. That seems impossible in the world of couches. This couch, seemed as close to that as we could get (besides buying second-hand of course), because at least many of the products are fair trade and the couch is made in the US.

By the way: link to couch: HERE.

We’re doing our best within our means, you know? Mostly I think little changes will help. We removed the carpets already (you can see a little peak in the bottom left corner) and removed these weird drape things that were over the window/sliding door. Doing little things without doing too much. Keeping it simple and beautiful is the goal.

On our last trip to Mexico I started collecting a few things to decorate our space. Again, most of the decorative and functional items will be staying in our home and not coming with us. I laid out my new items to see what I had and Raha looked at me and said, “Wow! Your color palette is really changing. Everything is so neutral.”  And then I got nervous. Was my place going to be that drastically neutral and minimalistic? I hadn’t planned on it, but looking down at the table: she was right. (Aren’t these things all so pretty by the way?)


But as we started coating the walls, all worry about neutrality or lack of color went out the door. This condo will be how my homes have always been– clean, bright, with pops of color everywhere.  Except this place will have drastically less floral, haha. I’m excited and nervous to decorate it all. I’m worried it’ll feel incomplete, but I’m also worried that it might be too filled too. I just want a happy balance in our space.

These two photos are what I call: short people problems. Taping can only go so high, haha.

We’ve already purchased most of the things we *need* for our space. A small dining room table, chairs,  (not the fancy chair pictured above, haha— we stole that from my moms condo to use) and more. Our super eco and clean mattresses and bed frame should be coming in the next two weeks or so (expect a fun giveaway with that!!), and we don’t need much more. Definitely a console for Alex’s records and a small desk for my computer, but thats just about it.

I’m excited to get more work done this week. I don’t know how long the floors will take us to install (we’re doing it ourselves, with my dad too– thanks dad!), but once that is done, we’re set up and ready to move in. And I can’t wait for that. Once we’re settled and comfortable, I’m going back into full on healing and self-care mode. I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I became wayyy more lax on diet… well that + plus moving stress is taking its toll. I’m fine, but I want to get back to better again. So after this move, I’m full on dedicating myself to taking care of myself again… and maybe even more this time around, because if I’m being honest, I don’t feel selfish about it anymore. I did at one point, but something has shifted and I’m okay moving forward with myself in mind. We should all do that anyway, shouldn’t we?!?

Alright friends! I’m off to put away laundry, do some dishes, and put myself to bed early (hopefully). I’m extremely exciting, I know. I hope you had a great weekend! Cheers!

ps. want to see past tours? You can check out the first apartment I blogged from HERE. And other (older) room tours for our home HERE.

2 Comments

  1. Yay, so exciting! I’ve been dying to see the new place. I’m sure it’ll turn out so beautifully and look forward to seeing it. 🙂