Around The House.

TC and I live in an ancient old house. Actually, it's a house that has been divided into three apartments. We rent out the top and bottom apartments and we live in the second floor apartment. 

When I first moved here, I thought it was kind of weird. But as it turns out, its fairly normal set up in our downtown area. 

We won't live here forever, but its a great little place for us right now and will eventually be a nice income property.

Even in college, when I knew I was only renting an apartment for the year, I would still put in some time and money to make it homey. It's important to me to feel comfortable in the place I call home, even if it isn't my forever home. 

But it's a tough line. Balancing time, money, practicality, function, form and reality isn't easy. There is a lot we don't do around here because it just isn't worth it to us. Eventually our apartment will be a rental so we save our pennies to, hopefully, do fun upgrades to our nonexistent future home.

This is the point where I should ask all of you to start sending positive real estate thoughts our way. If you're the praying type, you can help out in that way too. I need some support here, folks. I need a real house in the next century.

In the mean time, I make do with what I've got. I don't want to buy anything too big or bold, just in case it won't suit our nonexistent future house. On the other hand, for my own sanity I need to love where I live, so I try to do a few little things every now and then.

While we were in Paris I developed a minor obsession with all the cool doors and door knobs. I swear, that country doesn't have one boring knob. 

It was getting a little embarrassing for TC as I obsessively stopped in the middle of crowded sidewalks to duck down and photograph each cool door that we passed.

He would just nod at the people as they stepped around me.

Then he would shrug at them as if to say, "Yeah, I don't know what the hell she's doing either."

He's supportive like that.

Meanwhile, I just kept snapping away because I had a vision of hanging them in the hallway.

And it turned out pretty well, I think. 

Cheap dollar store frames suit me just fine, thankyouverymuch.

While we were in France we also picked up a few fun door pulls.

The originals were boring. 

And also, could someone please come scrape all the excess paint off the glass? I'd appreciate it. I'll pay you in cupcakes.

I think they look pretty spiffy next to the ancient encyclopedias that we found in the basement.

My last little find came from this little shop on Etsy. 

Really, how did any of us function before Etsy?

Our bathroom is a brilliant blue that I just love. Honestly, it's my favorite room in the house, despite the horrible mirror that I intentionally left out of this shot. If this were my forever house I'd replace the mirror, but again, it will be a rental one day and I'm just not willing to do it.

How great is this quote? I read it every morning and it makes me smile. Katie Daisy at The Wheatfield has pages and pages of her illustrations that are beautiful and bright. They'd look gorgeous in a little girls room. Or my bathroom, obviously.

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In other news, thank you so much to Kelly of Fabulous K for the shout out on her blog today. You can read it here. She's fabulous and you should definitely check out her blog. I would love it if she would give my whole life a makeover. 

Also, those breakfast cups she posted? Yeah, I still eat them everyday for breakfast.