Anna Lisa's Profile

Not a huge fan but these are at least cute unlike irritating "love. hope. dreams. family." wall decals or those little decorative tiles that hang on the wall that you buy at hobby lobby that say "cafe." "bistro." "espresso." etc. Gag.

Actual vintage signs from restaurants and such are really cool if you can find them. I also think initials on the wall or children's names above their cribs can be cute.

I'm really loving this series of posts! Sometimes it's fun to just look at expensive pretty things....

We had one of these growing up and my mom just kept books there.

I think hanging a floating shelf or two over the end at the top of the stairs would create a barrier while not closing in the space too much. Then you could store books or whatever you wanted on there.

Regarding consumerism... to me, part of transitioning to a grown-up house is getting rid of all the random cheap crap - whether it's badly-made ikea pieces, cheap bookshelves I picked up at Wal-mart because I needed someplace to hang my books, mismatched beer glasses from a college apartment, or whatever - and replacing it with higher-quality items which I can keep for a long time. So yeah, I'll be shopping for stuff, but switching from the mindset of "I need something that will do right now, even if it'll need replaced every six months" to "I want something that will last me forever" should reduce consumption in the long run.

Adorable, and I am in love with those vintage kitchen canisters!

Our apartment is 960ish square feet - it feels huge for two people to me! I like having a den because we both have big desks and quite a bit of hobby stuff, but I feel like you could cut 200 square feet out of the apartment and it would still be comfortable.

I'm not a huge fan of living in a city but one of the things I love about Dallas is the grocery store selection. On a normal grocery shopping trip I can head to Sprouts for all my produce (it's excellent and cheap - sometimes organic options are about the same price as regular produce at other stores), Albertson's across the street if they have any good sales that week, and Kroger right down the street from there for basics like milk and flour. I spend maybe five extra minutes of driving to go to all three instead of just one.

I also love going to Whole Foods (as long as I mostly stick to the stuff you can buy by weight, not packaged organic cheese crackers or whatever) but I'm really looking forward to getting a Trader Joe's - one of the things I miss a lot from Chicago.

Most sports decor you can buy at the mall or the gift shop is so, so, so tacky. I enjoy vintage pieces in a den or basement or garage though.

Unless you really want the seating a futon would provide in your spare room, I would definitely go with an air bed. Get the kind that's twice as tall as a normal mattress so that even if it loses a bit of air your guests won't wake up on the floor. They're really pretty comfy!

I think the actual bed looks pretty cool (it's definitely looking more "boat" than "coffin" to me at least) but why not just put your toddler in a twin bed and not have to buy two mattresses?