A little Change Goes A Long Way...

My roommate and I have been redecorating our apartment since the beginning of the year and it has been quite a fun process. We started out by taking a day trip up to LA's fabric district which is always an adventure. We came home with a wonderful cream colored (washable!) fabric, we managed to barter down the price quite significantly, as two well knowledgable ladies would do. My extremely talented roommate then made a slip cover for our lounge chair from scratch with no pattern. We also rearranged some items so give more height and depth to the room, painted a mirror, ordered at print online which I saw at a store in Fashion Island for $250 but found online for $25 on esty, a great source for all things creative and hand made.
The next step was to pick a color for the walls. This came from an inspiration pictured below which my roommate found. Now that we are in the just about finished we are so pleased with the results and will catch each other staring at the walls.

Redecorating can be done on a budget from getting discounted fabric to saving on paint at home depot and just a simple reorganizing of a few fixtures. You'll be amazed at how a little redecorating can change the whole feel of your home and makes everything look fresh again!

Need I say more...

The all time cream of the crop, numero uno, utmost favorite place to get a cup of coffee (or tea, or bagel or acai berry bowl for that matter) is Kean coffee on 17th. It is a favorite to the locals here in Newport and I place that I splurge on at least once a week. I used to get my usual sugar free vanilla soy latte, but I have recently been introduced to the soy lavender infused latte. Yes I said it infused (said in a fancy drawn out way).

Knowing that I would want to blog about Kean someday I have been racking my mind how I was going to convey to my audience the magnitude of it's greatness. There are so many reasons why one would be attracted to their coffee shop and justify paying $4 or $5 for a cup of joe. Maybe it's the funky urban feel, maybe it's a leaf or a heart they skillfully design on your foam or the fact that all of their coffee is fair trade thanks to the coffee aficionado and owner Martin Dietrich.

For me it's the memories I savor there. Memories of my roommate and I strolling across the street to our old friends at Kean to pick up a cup of coffee, enjoy the sunshine and wander back to our apartment. Or the memory of when I met my sister there and she pulled out a little black and white photo to tell me about the new baby in her belly.

I love when my mom or sister call to say they are going to be there knowing that I will drop what I am doing to run across the street to meet them. Now that I think about it those poor barista's have seen me in every stage of my day, morning, afternoon after a work out, and night. And well let's admit it...my morning after look as well!

Below is a photo my roommate took on the beach at Corona Del Mar on a 80 degree day in January. I think it is the best depiction of my love of Kean simple yet oh so enticing!