It’s been a week since we walked into our one bedroom apartment in the cute, lively neighborhood of Hillcrest, which is also San Diego’s gay ‘hood, which means it has the best restaurants and shops — or so we’ve been told. There are so many places for us to check out, but I think we can all agree that the most important asset to this neighborhood is Trader Joe’s just a few minutes’ drive away. I’ll never understand why they gave such a popular grocery store such a miniscule parking lot, but I digress.
What I love about our apartment isn’t just its uber-close proximity to Balboa Park (which we can walk to!); it’s how much sunlight we get, how big our closets are, how we have a dishwasher, tons of storage space and even a little balcony that can fit a small table and two chairs. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Manhattan anymore.
In my post-college NYC days, I never invested the time or energy to find interesting furniture or buy anything nicer than Kmart plastic plates. It felt expensive and pointless since I knew I wouldn’t live there forever. But now that we see a bit more permanence in San Diego and are totally, completely happy with our apartment, we’re so ready to create a home, one that reflects our personalities and travels with a unique look. This has meant opting mostly for flea markets and vintage shops and refurbishing/repainting the pieces. Wildly enough, on last Saturday’s trip to Kobey’s Swap Meet, San Diego’s gigantic flea market, we walked away with a dining table, coffee table, three chairs, an ottoman and mirror. This Sunday, we’re heading to the famous, every-third-Sunday Long Beach flea market for more goodies hopefully.
It’s…interesting to reconcile male taste with female taste (blergh), but the upside is we both have a lot of ideas. And over the holidays, I became a Pinterest-pinning, Apartment Therapy-reading, Design Sponge-browsing maniac. Below is a glimpse of our empty apartment and further down, some home decor inspiration c/o my crazy Internet addiction. Oh, and we’re welcome to suggestions if you have any! (I wish we could paint the walls, but sadly we’re not allowed to.) In a few months, I’ll share with you the end results of our design mission.
Happy Friday!
Our hopes and flea market dreams…
i have that comforter!
Yes! I really wanted that one from West Elm, but it’s a bit out of our meager budget, so we opted for an IKEA one. So far, so good!
I love the site! Wishing you both the best in San Diego!
A friend had recommended a restaurant by the name of Bandar. Perhaps it’ll cross your path one of these days, :).
Looking forward to visiting! Enjoy!
By the way, that’s a pretty fancy sink!
Fancy, but you can see water spots on it all the time!
Thanks! Quite a few people have mentioned Bandar (a Persian restaurant) to us. Guess we need to go!