Knitasha's Profile

Conveniently, my fiance and I just painted our new house and we had the exact same question. The kitchen is very narrow with not a lot of direct sunlight, dark cabinets just like yours and black granite, which all combined to make a very dark kitchen. We went with Behr's Mermaid Treasure (a very bright aqua) in semi-gloss and I seriously could not be happier. The entire room feels larger and brighter than white could ever have made it.

Thank you so much for this post. I've been looking to learn more about local manufacturing in the US and ways I can support the Bay Area industry; Heath Ceramics looks fantastic and even has a collaboration with Alabama Chanin. I hope you'll post more about companies like this.

I would absolutely buy a Lady Grantham tea set, but only if it included a tipping tea pot. I've been stalking ebay lately looking for one.

Our new loft apartment has a long window that goes from one side of the room to the other with a half wall that was just begging for an indoor garden. Unfortunately, we have two cats who are very prone to eating..well... just about anything. Plants would be considered normal everyday food for them if I let them (which I quickly discovered after the first time my boyfriend brought me flowers).

If you're looking for something that can fit on a windowsill, hold your plants, and be moderately pet resistant, I definitely recommend the Ikea greenhouse. Even though we only have three plants in it now to start (spearmint, rosemary, and lavender), I could very easily fit another 5 of these boxes in there if I needed quick storage before re-potting them.

My goal is to have the entire length of the wall be covered in these!

As someone who *just* came back from a 9 day trip to Costa Rica, I can't help but put in my 2 cents for what my boyfriend and I made sure to do...

-Basic clean up including trash, laundry (not having clean work clothes the next morning can be stressful), making the bed (we normally don't, but coming home to it was nice), and giving the bathroom a light cleaning. We're not very strict with our cleaning schedule, but I knew that after coming home from having cleaning services every day I'd hate to have a super messy apartment greeting me even if it wouldn't bother me during a normal day.
-Copying important documents such as passports, bank cards, and all insurance cards. I've heard too many horror stories to not have back ups with me and with our emergency contact.
-Call the bank to let them know we might be using our cards internationally. I didn't think to do this but I'd also recommend setting a limit as to how much money could be spent before a flag went off. It keeps me from overspending and still keeps an eye out for possible fraud.
-Left emergency contact with our building manager. I'd also recommend leaving it with the landlord if you contact them at all. We actually had some issues with the apartment while we were out and the landlord handled them directly, which meant that our building manager didn't know to contact our emergency contacts! What a nightmare... Thankfully everyone was very nice about the issues.
-Write the next rent check. We came home before our rent was due, but in case we were detained for an extra week, I wanted a rent check to be written and ready so our emergency contact could turn it in for us if things went wrong getting home.