My Place on Pierce

My Little Living Room

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 19:05:56 -0500

Alas, here it is. The last photo shoot of my humble little San Francisco apartment. Luckily I took these right before I began packing and basically ransacking my apartment into an unseemly state. It’s actually quite sad looking at what could have been. I’m going to miss this little corner of Alamo Square and all the dear friends nearby. Well, here’s to the old and onto the new!

Marc Jacobs playing cards and a coffee table scored from the Alameda Antique Fair for $35.

I keep a weird collection of booze and nic-nacs on my mantle. The Butcher & Baker book I found at Liberty London during my recent trip there.

Definitely super into the whole picture rail concept. It’s so much easier and less damaging than actually hanging frames!

Interesting owl coasters scored in Thailand for about $4.

Some of my favorite coffee table books. Minus the Thistle, which is just there because it’s also large format.

Moving to New York

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:25:25 -0500

I haven’t updated this blog in awhile, mostly because I’ve been traveling but even more so because I will be moving to NYC in a month for a new job. It’s funny because the first thing anyone asks me when I tell them I’m moving is, “but what about your cute apartment!?”. It’s true that my time here on Pierce street was dramatically cut short, but I’m actually incredibly excited to start the decorating process all over again. That’s the fun part about moving somewhere new, after all. New York’s romantic brownstones and exposed brick will be a different aesthetic to attend to, though I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for these San Francisco victorians.

I’ll be passing on my place (and this blog) to my friend Gopal. It’ll be interesting to see the apartment’s evolution into a full on bachelor man-cave, I can’t wait! Until then, there still a living room to photograph and my adventures in New York apartment hunting to document. Stay tuned!

Before & After: Bathroom

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:50:14 -0400

For anyone who’s interested, here is a before and after comparison from when I first moved in (the old tenants left their shower and window curtain) to now, in which I’ve officially decided I’m done furnishing my bathroom. Also if you really want to scare yourself you can look at the photo from the original listing.

Bathroom.

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 08:59:01 -0400

Without further introduction, here’s my photo shoot with Xiang from In The Mood for Heart. My bathroom is so tiny that it was even a tight squeeze for two tiny girls to be in there trying to take pictures, but I have a feeling we made it work. Thanks, Xiang!

Bathroom Photoshoot Preview

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:12:39 -0400

I’m off to London for the week, but here’s a little sneak peek from the photo shoot I did of my finished bathroom with my good friend Xiang (of In The Mood For Heart).

Progress Photos

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:00:38 -0400

Some more progress photos of how the apartment is coming along so far. This weekend I got around to finally hanging up all of my framed posters and prints. Also bought some flowers so I can finally start using some of the vases I bought from CB2.

Romantic & Girly Bedrooms

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:56:28 -0400

I’ll admit it, I strive to make the more public areas of my home appear cool and eclectic. However, when it comes to my bedroom I am unabashedly girly— and why shouldn’t I be? It’s my private sanctuary, for my personal comfort and escape, a room that should be totally ‘me’. In a way its aesthetics indulge my guilty pleasures. I am a sucker for lace and frills and pink. I’ve become surprisingly more comfortable with this fact as I’ve gotten older. In fact, I recently replaced my plain white bedsheets with a fresh set in blush pink. The rest of the room will follow suit— romantic victorian details, dresses on display, a vintage-inspired vanity. It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

DIY Copper & White Plant Pot

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:56:00 -0400

Lately I’ve been obsessed with the color copper. It’s shine is a lot more subtle than gold or silver, and I love the rosy tint it gives off in natural light. I knew I wanted to place a plant in my bathroom to take advantage of the humid atmosphere (I am keen on long, piping hot showers) and originally intended on using a simple white pot. My bathroom already seemed to have a lot of ‘white space’ if you will and I’m not a very committed minimalist so I thought, why not spruce up that plain white pot?

So I started off with this very simple rounded white pot I got on sale for $6 at Target. I figured it would be best not to spend too much money on an experiment that could go awry…

Next step included some ghetto wrapping. I mean REALLY ghetto. I was too lazy to even run out and by painter’s tape so I used scotch tape and a plastic bag to cover the parts I wanted to remain white. The spray paint I used is by Rust-Oleum. I’m not actually sure how long metallic spray paint will last on glazed porcelain… like I said, just a little ghetto.

So after two coats of spray painting the exposed top and letting it dry for 24 hours, I unwrapped the tape and plastic to reveal the finished pot! I intentionally ‘swooped’ the tape around the pot to give it more of a dipped look. As you can see I did make a few mistakes where the scotch tape was probably not sealed tight enough or some excess paint fell into an air bubble. I kind of don’t mind because it makes it look a little more handmade and once the plant’s actually in there you don’t really notice it so much.

So last but not least was potting the plant itself. I went to Paxton Gate in the Mission this weekend and picked up a fern (they thrive in humid areas) for about $6. I particularly wanted a plant that would drape well over the pot in order to obscure those tell-tale mistakes. So, there you have it! A pretty easy project with a look I imagine would go well with whatever your bathroom aesthetic might be. I’m also now taking name suggestions for the fern, if anyone has any suggestions!

Missoni x Target Tumblers

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:56:01 -0400

My co-worker and good friend Max surprised me at work with these Target x Missoni cups as a housewarming gift! It was such a sweet surprise and so thoughtful since Max reads my blog (Hi Max!) and saw my previous post about Missoni Home. The cups are so cute and I for-see sippin’ on many summer drinks from them.

Knives Chow

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:42:06 -0400

I got this colorful knife set on sale at One’s King Lane. I haven’t had a chance to use them yet since I’m waiting for some other cooking supplies to arrive, but just looking at the bright citrusy colors brings a smile to my face. The only downside is they almost look like toys and I sometimes forget to handle them properly!

Miso Office Tour

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 07:43:00 -0400

Back in May we relocated to a new office space just around the corner from our old one. Although I’ll miss the concrete floors and exposed brick walls, we now have twice the space, enough room to not eat at our desks, and the opportunity to start fresh with our office decor. We took over Desk.Com’s old office and knocked down a lot of the existing walls to make the space much more open. I was left in charge of finishes which basically meant choosing the accent paint color (the orangey-red above) and curating our TV poster collection.

Unfortunately we did not get to change the bathroom paint color which was this bright avocado green, but you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.

Luckily Ryan Gosling can make any paint color look good.

Our main living room area where most team meetings and presentations are held. I kind of like that most of our office looks more casual and home-y than professional, it seems to fit with the TV theme. Often times some of us will sit around the TV here doing work while someone is playing a video game or watching the news. I feel like something needs to go on that back wall, but not sure what yet…

This is probably my favorite room in the office, which we affectionately call The Banana Stand. It’s actually the room in which we hold all of our user-testing. We intentionally decorated it to look more like an apartment’s living room to make our test users feel more at ease and in a real TV watching environment rather than a testing lab.

We also have a few trolls in the office…

One of my other favorite areas is this cushy and private ‘nook’ for when you want to do some work without being distracted. We also use this area for very informal meetings and for hanging up our process.

So, yup! That’s our new office at Miso. If you’re ever in the downtown SF area, feel free to stop by, say hi, and have a juice box on us.

Cuteness Overload at Daiso

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 07:42:00 -0400

Since I was downtown and had some time to kill I decided to check out the recently opened Daiso Japan store by my office. It had been over a year since I first visited their store in Japantown, and probably for good reason. With almost everything in the store being priced at $1.50 it’s a little too easy to load up on a ton of ridiculously adorable things I don’t actually need. It’s also nearly impossible not to buy something once I walked in so I left with a haul that would make Strawberry Shortcake ripe with jealousy.

While Daiso carries a vast range of items from stationary to cosmetics to kitchenware, something does feel a little odd to me about buying a $1.50 frying pan or even their glassware. However, I think it’s the perfect place to pick up cleaning supplies — they are meant to disposable so I’m not that concerned with how long they’ll last and also where else can you find a sponge shaped like a piece of cake?

I mean, come on!

I bought this container because it reminds me of one of my favorite sites from my childhood, the ever entertaining engrish.com.

Even their plastic baggies are festive!

Yep. All of the above and that adorable dust-mitten for a total of something around $15. This could become a slippery slope. This could become a problem.

Grosche "Munich" Glass Kettle

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:55:37 -0400

Being an avid tea drinker and enthusiast, I didn’t last long in the new place without a kettle of my own, so I recently ordered this bad boy from Amazon and gave it a spin. They say that glass kettles produce a purer tea taste without any of the residual metallic taste that steel kettles are wont to leave behind.

I suppose my tea tasted better, but the real joy of this product is that it totally makes you feel like some kind of bad ass scientist while you’re watching the water boil. Like Walter on Breaking Bad (which I just started watching). Perhaps next time I’ll step it up a notch and try brewing tea in an erlenmeyer flask.

Love Letter to Missoni Home

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 07:50:13 -0400

If I could live inside of any fashion house’s… well, house, it would without a doubt be Missoni. Founded by Ottavio and Rosita Missoni in 1953 the Italian fashion empire encompasses luxury goods and an even international hotel line. As much as I love a monotone and minimalist home, I can’t deny that I prefer to live in a very colorful world. So Missoni has always impressed with me with their ability to basically break all the rules with their excessive combinations of colors, prints, and patterns and still manage to make it all look tasteful with some 60’s charm.

I’m a little bummed I hadn’t moved into my new apartment last fall when the Missoni for Target collection launched— although it may be for the best given the chaotic accounts from the debut. It may be awhile before I can afford a legitimate piece of Missoni furniture, or even something as small as a tea towel, but maybe one day soon I can treat myself to a stay at one of the Hotel Missonis.

Progress

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:46:25 -0400

Hung up some string lights (but broke a few bulbs in the process) in my living room above the hutch and also hung up my new shower curtains and made that bathroom look so much whiter and brighter.

MUJI Storage video sent by my friend Xiang of In The Mood for...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:57:00 -0400

MUJI Storage video sent by my friend Xiang of In The Mood for Heart. I love MUJI stuff, it’s ridiculous that there isn’t a store in San Francisco (yet). I bought some cardboard giraffe statues from the store in NY which I plan on spray-painting hot pink.

Lively Living Room Inspiration

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:12:00 -0400

Living rooms are like the statement piece of any household— in which case, we must go big and bold or go home (no pun intended). Unlike the utility-based bathroom, kitchen, and even bedroom, living rooms are purely social spaces. The more the room itself can lend to conversation, the better. Seeing as to how this room will also be doubling as a casual workspace for me, it is even more important that the room is bursting with inspiration.

I’m very inspired by the juxtaposition of traditional forms with vibrant, saturated hues and exotic prints. The aesthetic could be described as a bit French-Colonial. The idea came from the green-blue stained glass window over my more classical looking built-in hutch in the living room. I knew that I had to work with the stained glass somehow so I plan to work straight off of that color palette. As the first step in that direction, just last week I put in an order for a velvet loveseat in “blue lagoon” from West Elm. From there on inspiration has been drawn less from existing pictures of living rooms and more from other elements of pop culture, like the pops of yellow in Wes Anderson films and this past March’s Free People catalog shoot in Vietnam.

1. String Lights from Target 2. Throw by Missoni Home 3. Moroccan Pouf Ottoman from One King’s Lane 4. Henry Loveseat from West Elm 5. Trollsta Side Table from IKEA 6. Pillows by Calypso St. Barth for Target 7. Grape Bunch Bottle from Etsy 8. Rock Candy Lamp from Swank Lighting 9. Dylan Credenzafrom Thrive Furniture.

Black + White Bathrooms

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 07:57:00 -0400

1. Shower Curtain from Urban Outfitters 2. Black Soap by Caswell-Massey 3. York Trash Bucket from Urban Outfitters 4. Peonies and Vase by Kate Spade 5. Oceanstar Bamboo Bath Mat 6. Perpetual Blooms towels from Anthropologie 7. Miu Miu illustrations by Paper Fashion 8. Kuro Soap by Sort of Coal 7. Scout Soap Dish from Izola.

I’ve decided to tackle my bathroom first and foremost out of all the rooms in my new apartment— first, because it’s one of the most utilized rooms in the entire place and second, because it’s small and manageable. Initially I wanted to give my bathroom a nautical theme: predominantly blue and white with red as an accent. However, once I moved in and was reintroduced to the greyish-teal colored tile I had to work with I decided to go with something more neutral.

Hence the emphasis on black and white. I kind of enjoy the sparse and almost masculine tone that black and white bathroom hardware gives off. I think that would help offset the girlier gold and pink details which I plan to use as accents. The introduction of wood also keeps things interesting by adding another texture to the room. I’ve already received the bath mat in the mail and it’s been working out well. It’s definitely a drastic improvement from having to worry about people trampling all over fabric rugs.

Most of the items pictured above for inspiration are already in my possession, along with a new shower head that’s been working out exceptionally well. The next thing on my list to tackle with regards to the bathroom is how to preserve prints and protect them from the humidity. Any tips would be appreciated!

Floorplan

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:01:14 -0400

Mocked up this quick floorplan to show you guys what I’m working with. Proportions are probably a bit off because I just eyeballed it, but you get the point.

Pleased To Meet You, Pierce Street

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:47:00 -0400

I shamelessly stole these pictures from the original rental listing for the apartment (so don’t judge me on the quality). I’m definitely enjoying the bay windows in the bedroom and the weird built-in hutch in the living room + stained glass window are kind of cool and unique details. I think the room I’m least enthused about is the kitchen. I’m not a big fan of formica anything so I need to work around that somehow. Likewise there is a built-in desk in the bedroom but it is also covered in formica, which feels particularly out of place there. I would rather just remove it entirely— with the amount of clothes I could definitely use the extra closet space!