There's No Place Like Here: Hindsvik from Etsy on Vimeo.

I'm sure this video is making the rounds in the design blogosphere. Valeria and Daniel are the duo behind my favourite Etsy vintage shop, Hindsvik. Etsy recently produced a video tour of their Scandinavian-style home in Ontario.

I don't know if personally I can live in a space with that much white, but I do appreciate how beautifully they've decorated their home. All their vintage goodies set my heart a-flutter. And they've done some awesome DIY projects as well. Their website, which is full of inspirational home decorating ideas, is worth checking out.

This is what the home office looks like currently. Originally the office was set up in the darkest corner of the living room, but it was relocated next to the balcony window so that it gets flooded with natural light.

The glass wall shelves are from IKEA. I love how they look, especially in contrast to the DIY desk. (I don't hate all things IKEA). We did make the mistake of spacing the shelves out evenly. I learned later that height between shelves should decrease as they go up to create visual balance. That's a tip for next time.

The task lamp is one of those that clamp on to the desk. Originally I wanted a black one (I still do), but I saw this red one at a garage sale for $3 and I couldn't resist. The orange boxes are from IKEA as well. I think I should have gone with the black ones. Oh well.

The square painting on the middle shelf is the inspirational source of the colour palette I'm going for in the living room. It's a thrift store find, like a lot of stuff in our home. The little painting on the mini easel in front of it is from a fellow Canadian Etsy seller, emmarts, who is based in North Vancouver. I have a few of her works around the apartment as we often buy from each other's shops.

I wish the desk looked this clean all the time. I think having a drawer unit would help with clutter management. The other mess to deal with are all the wires below the desk. Ugh.

The office chair I'm coveting these days is the Eames Aluminum Group Management chair. If I get one, it would have to be a knock-off because there's no way we're spending over a $1,000 on a chair again.

So sexy beautiful. If I want Eames anything it would have to be a knock-off.

Remember the sad empty wall I was crying about?

Allow me to remind you:

The Dude and I finally got around to putting up the troublesome wall shelves. And voila!

Initially, we put up three vertical rails, but decided to take the middle one out. It was unnecessary. Plus, because the wall is not even, the shelves were not flush against the wall, and taking out the middle rail solved that problem. It's weird how walls can be uneven because they look deceptively straight to the naked eye. The cedar boards are just resting on the brackets. Don't want to bother attaching them together. Crossing my fingers that it won't be a problem.

If I had all the space my heart desired, this is not how I would curate the stuff on the shelves. But the shelves were mounted so that I'd have more space to store all the thrifted objects that I'm selling in the shop, and they don't necessarily mesh very well colour- and style-wise. Anyway, the items on display will be in constant rotation as things come and go so I'm not going to worry too much about it all looking pretty and shit. 

The shelves are holding a few personal items as well, one of which is the cat picture, a recent thrift shop find. It's a print from the "Sam" the cat series that Andy Warhol did, and I love it. The Dude thinks it looks weird, but I don't care.

More wall shelves are slated for the future, which means another trip to Home Depot(s). The plan is to fill the red wall with similar shelving. The landlord is sure going to have a lot of fun spackling all the holes we've drilled into the walls once we move out.

I am totally captivated by a song called "Take Care of Yourself" by Teddy Thompson. It's lush, haunting, and oh so sad. I'm trying very hard not to listen to it too much so that it never gets old. You can listen to it on his facebook page (it's track #9). It has that old-school, Roy Orbison-esque sound that I love. Can't wait to get the whole album, which comes out tomorrow.

Anyway, we had another successful craigslist weekend. More purging, yay! We sold the IKEA bookcases (remnants from the Dude's bachelorhood) to make room for the new storage chest we got. We'll soon be putting up more wall shelves to replace the bookcases.

And the Dude's big-ass ergonomic chair also sold - miraculously. We thought it would never sell because we were asking a lot for it since we paid a lot for it.  Getting rid of it allowed us to re-position the IKEA Expedit bookcase/room divider in the living room so that it lies horizontally. When it was standing vertically its proportions didn't fit the rest of the room. Its new horizontal position seems to create better "flow" in the living room.

It's amazing how much we purge weekly from our little apartment. Whenever I think we're done purging I still manage to find things for the outbox. The fact that I volunteer at a thrift shop probably has something to do with it. It encourages me to find things to donate on a regularly basis. The less stuff we live with, the better I say.

(via apartment therapy)

We have a loud neighbour problem. He blasts his music at random times during the day, like 5 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 2 a.m. It's been like that since we moved in more than a year ago. We've complained to the building manager, who's given him numerous warnings, but he doesn't seem to give a shit.

Now that he's acquired a girlfriend, who seems to have moved in with him, we're subject to her vocal theatrics when they have sex. And in the last couple days they've taken up the habit of having loud sex at 4:30 a.m. That's right. 4:30 A.M. Really, is that really necessary? You can't let the ol' cock just lie until at least sunrise?

I'm a light sleeper and being woken up by loud sex noise, which is coming from his bedroom that is separated from our bedroom by at least his living room and kitchen, sucks (yeah, she's really loud). Once I wake up, I can't go back to sleep. Needless to say, I've been very sleep deprived and feeling like a zombie during the day.

We're hoping he gets evicted real soon. Meanwhile, I'm debating if I should post a note similar to the one above.