purchased : cozy touches from tj maxx.

we went to tj maxx a couple weeks back when we had some time to kill and bought some cute decorative things for the house. it was really nice to do since up until very recently, we felt like we had to watch every single penny and would only buy necessities for the house and nothing nice for ourselves. these little things definitely help make it feel more home-like.
we bought 2 J's and an ampersand to put on the mantle. kind of silly, but i'm in love with coral and seafoam right now, so it was kind of perfect. plus it adds some color to that terribly white fireplace and wall. we also bought a couple outdoor "lanterns" to put on these half columns on the porch. we have candles to go in them, we just haven't gotten around to putting them in yet.

and lastly we bought this little red, distressed landing strip. it's right inside the door and currently holds keys, sanford's leash and harness, and some small knick-knacks we didn't have a good place for yet.

purchased : a place to dine, finally!

yup, we finally got that dining table! it's the gorgeous benchwright in rustic mahogany from pottery barn. we also go the matching bench from the same collection, as well as two aaron chairs in mahogany. in the next month or so, we're going to get two arm chairs for the ends as well.

we're pretty in love with the rustic industrial feel of it. plus, it's just super nice to finally have somewhere to sit at in the house. it's kind of become our default location for hanging out and doing things, even things that should probably happen in the office.

sanford also loves it considerably, as far as we can tell anyway. he's always hanging out under it, or using the chairs and ends as part of his own personal obstacle course / race track..

purchased : a vintage sewing machine table!

our friend jonathen recently picked up and moved to new york. before he did, he listed a bunch of items he was trying to get rid of for cheap. i saw this at 10pm one night, and one of the items was "vintage sewing table". i asked him to send me a picture, and when i saw it i said i'd be over to get it immediately. i've been looking for a small writing/secretary desk for a long time and definitely wanted vintage, but it's LA and vintage stuff is hella expensive. even at flea markets, the cheapest i saw for something similar was close to $200, so i was definitely excited to (rather unexpectedly) snag this pretty lady for $10!

it's sitting in the corner of the dining room for now, which is a pretty good place for it. one of these days (weeks? months?) i'll get around to re-finishing it and fixing all the chipped/broken bits and pieces. the craziest thing is that the sewing machine is actually still in it, which makes it pretty heavy. it's an old belt-driven one, and it's not functional. not sure what to do with that either. i particularly like this front drawer - it'll be a perfect place for pens and all my washi tape, once i get something to prevent it from falling so far forward.