The collegiate semester is over and we’ve officially transitioned to summer office hours so, in theory, I should have more time to chill… But realistically, the last time I had a chill summer working in Higher Ed was summer 2019. Last summer and this summer feels like we’re still working overtime to pandemically respond and prepare accordingly for the next school year.
That said, I’ve been home, still working remotely and working on our home. Really trying to stick to a regular rest regimen (in response to self-diagnosing myself as ‘burned out’) and keep my work stress levels down. Charles and I are fully vax marinated and have been slowly easing our way back to socialization on the weekends with family and close friends. It’s been great to be able to simply hug folks but the little bit of socializing we’ve done so far has been exhausting (like we’re seriously out of social shape) so, for the most part, we’re still very much homebodies.
But back to working on our home, if there’s one thing in our home that’s changed extensively over the 12 past months, it would have to be our walls. They’ve been getting laid… with photos, souvenirs and artwork and our space feels much more homey because of it. I feel like the progress deserves a formal recognition so here’s a little update on what’s been going on with our walls.
Living Room
The OG living room gallery wall has been holding it down since we moved in. Framed travel memories that we brought from our 600 sq. ft apartment and then added a large canvas via Easy Canvas Prints of my favorite photo from our time in Greece.
Dining Room
Three small canvas prints for our dining room from artist Maggie Stephenson that I acquired via Society 6.
“Prevail’ poster print by artist Michelle Robinson, whom I’ve been following on instagram since 2016. I really love her work and was excited to finally get a piece from her for our home.
“Love + Art: Two Side To Every Story” – a super high quality print version of a collaborative piece by Cristina Martinez and Al-Baseer Holly. Charles and I both really loved the duality of this image. (this piece is on the wall facing the window and I kept getting my reflection in the frame glass because of backlighting – hence night pic)
Hallway
Left Side: A family oriented gallery wall made possible by an awesome holiday deal last Christmas on Mixtiles. What I love about these Mixtiles prints is that they were so easy stick to wall. I literally just peeled the sticky covers on the back and put the pieces to the wall using my eyeballs to align everything. No leveler needed lol.
Right Side: 1. A framed Chinese tapestry I was gifted back when I used to work in global relations. 2. An Aztec calendar sculpture that we got as a souvenir when we visited Mexico. 3. My cousins, Zak and Lena, formed a bluegrass/folk group name GoldenOak and we got this handmade pressed print at one of their concerts.
Bedroom
Our most recent addition, a canvas art piece that Charles and I made… with our bodies for this past Valentines Day via Love is Art (sookie sookie now). The piece is so homemade that we even built the back wood paneling and stretched the canvas ourselves, which was surprisingly really hard – the stretching the canvas part – but well worth the strenuous, grip strength effort.
Update As of This Past Week
The mirror that we ordered in January finally arrived! ^^^ sneak peak of our new seating set up as well :)
I had my eye on this mirror from West Elm since last October but Charles and I went back and forth, having a hard time wrapping our head around spending so much money for a mirror… But goodness, now that it’s on the wall = it was worth it. This is our forever mirror. It’s going with us wherever we may go for the rest of our liiiiiiiives.
But now that’s it, noooooo more additions to the walls. Our dining room project is pretty much done (full reveal coming soon) and next up is our final home project for the year = our DIY kitchen renovation.
So far, we’ve pulled the wallpaper down, gotten recess lighting installed and resurfaced our countertops. Next is painting our cabinets and walls… And then installing shelves and then updating floor tiles annnnnd the list goes on and on.
Goal is to finish everything by August… Wish us luck!
Until next home update.
xo, Setarra
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