purchased : indoor houseplants.

a year ago, i bought an airplant for the kitchen and put it in the pretty urchin planter you see above. it didn't survive. it made it for about 8 months, but i decided to get two more, and i actually got some more information on them this time, so i'm hopeful these will survive.

anyway, completely separately, we've been on a bit of a plant buying kick, making many trips to our local armstrong garden center to buy outdoor plants. but on one of those trips, i decided to peruse the indoor plants, and kind of fell in love with these spiky tall snake plants.

they're tall and wavy and really low maintenance! and amazingly, after i brought it home, i did a bit of internet research and learned that these plants also generate oxygen at night and filter out formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene, and benzene from the air. how awesome is that?

we've had the one above the fireplace for less than a month, and it's already showing signs of additional growth. i'm utterly in love!

and since i'm so enamored, i soon bought another one, this one much smaller, to put in the kitchen. it's already doubled in height since we brought it home two weeks ago!

so of course, when we went plant shopping again today, i looked at more indoor plants. i bought a small croton petra that we've placed in the bathroom because it needs humidity and lots of sunlight. i love the pretty reds in the leaves, but hopefully, this will be enough sun for it. everything i've seen online says it calls for unfiltered sun, but we'll see how it goes. this one is the most finicky i've dared to purchase so far.

and last but not least is this pretty peperomina, which i think is also called a baby rubber plant. it gets a place in the bedroom. my biggest fear with indoor plants (after them dying because i have a black thumb) is getting bugs! but i'm sucking it up because i'm really enjoying the bit of greenery and life in the house.

neighbors are coming : a little privacy please!

so, the house next door is in escrow! this is absolutely fantastic because when we first moved in, it had been foreclosed but the homeowners were still living there. and it was, to put it gently, a total dump. since then, it has been flipped by investors and put on the market.

anyway, the sliding door in the kitchen faces the house next door, and more specifically, directly into the two bedrooms (sorry for the dark photos, we did this little project at night!):

we hadn't put up curtains yet, because i always felt curtains would be weird here in the kitchen. plus, we really love how much nice sunlight we get in the kitchen, and didn't want to lose that. however, just with the real estate agent, new homebuyers and various inspectors stopping by the past few days, we knew we had to do something!

we wanted something that was a quick and temporary solution. we eventually want to put in a wood fence up against that chainlink (it's on the neighbors side, so we can't touch it) - probably with some tall plants for additional privacy - but don't have the time to do so before the neighbors would move in.

after a bit of thought, we decided to do the same thing we did to those bathroom windows when we first moved in. the artscape etched glass window film that we got from home depot last time was so easy to install, and has held up really well to the humidity and direct afternoon sunlight of the bathroom.

we bought the 36x72 roll, and it was perfect (we needed 66 inches total). we did a stretch across the middle, that lands just a bit above eye level. it took all of half an hour to measure, cut and install. and i think it looks great! and while it's a bit modern for our craftsman home, the whole kitchen is kind of modern and will eventually be redone with wood-framed french doors. a view from the outside:

we didn't block out the entire door because it is still nice to be able to see outside if necessary, plus sanford loves spending his afternoons looking out the door:

lookit that booty!

and who are we to deny him that pleasure?

purchased : more plants!

purples and greens, oh my!

we went on a plant purchasing spree this past weekend at armstrong garden center! as you can see above, we're really digging deep greens and purples (wearing purple pants and green sandals was entirely a coincidence)! a couple succulents got a new pot (below), one plant is going indoors (only our second indoor plant!). the rest are divided between the front yard and the back concrete jungle. we're still working on placement, so very little is properly planted or potted yet, but we're excited at more greenery!