my basement arcade

Here is one very cool feature in my house that I didn't really post about too much because the dark room didn't match my social media aesthetic 🤣 I LOVE arcade games and the whole vibe of an arcade makes me feel like I'm back in the '90s again! I wanted this to feel as retro and classic as possible - I even had a little mp3 player that had an "arcade background noise" file on it that I'd play on a loop with an '80s and '90s music soundtrack accompanying it on my phone. I wanted it to be as immersive as possible whenever I came down here to play!



For Christmas in 2023 Arrietty got her own little pool table to go in the arcade! Mostly I would just see her sitting on it and not playing with the toys but she's a very lazy cat lol.



My dad got me the Pac-Man desktop game for Christmas during lockdown and I got the Asteroids one to match once I was putting the arcade together. They're just sitting on cheap kitchen shelves that I covered in black poster board to give the illusion of a full-size game.



This is actually the second version of the arcade - my basement flooded in April 2024 and I had to empty everything out so it could be remediated. I was so lucky I was able to save this carpeting. It's just two area rugs (these are the ones I bought) that I hand-stitched together to make a giant rug, but I had spent so much time on it! Before this I had curtains hanging up in front of the walls but after the flooding I decided to paint the cinder blocks dark purple and I hand painted a fun design on top. I made a dark purple curtain to hide the basement window, and added a neon tube light around the perimeter (by the way, Gorilla Glue construction adhesive sticks to cinder blocks if you're curious how I was able to hang anything up here!



One of my favorite things about the arcade was the poster display. I wanted posters that reminded me of going to the multiplex when I was a kid. I got all of these from movieposters.com and they were so inexpensive (I think most of them were like $3.99 because they're not popular films!)



I wish I had taken a close-up photo of my Prizes area because I thought it was so cool!! I would actually hand out tickets to my friends and family so they could redeem them for prizes later. I had all of the bins marked with different ticket amounts, with some big-ticket prizes hanging up like inflatable guitars and teddy bears! 



One thing I've noticed while gathering photos for these blog posts is that I really did not take nearly as many pictures of my house as I wish I had. It's probably because I was just too busy enjoying living there -- but in retrospect I wish I had filmed more of my projects when I was designing all of the rooms and I wish I had taken more photos when it was done! Sometimes I have dreams that I'm back there and dream-me will think "oh, I should take some pictures while I'm here!" 🤣 But then, alas, I wake up!

My apartment bedroom

After I moved out of my house I moved into an apartment, and I'm currently using the master bedroom as a bedroom/closet/office hybrid. My bed is pushed up against the wall, and the headboard serves as a divider between the bedroom and the office, with felt daisy garland strands hanging from the ceiling to add a little extra separation between the two spaces.





The bedding and wall tapestry are both from my society6 shop. The tapestry felt like a great way to separate this section as its own little room since the rest of the space is just painted plain pink. 





In my old bedroom in my house all of the artwork was sleep-themed, and I kept a few of my favorites on display here as well! The "literally nothing" poster print is from The Motivated Type, the "Less drama" print is from Hollie Startup, the "Worries can't reach me" print is from A Soft Wrongness, and the "Tired all the time" poster print is from Exquisite Paradox.

The giant poster of the sleeping woman is actually a vintage ad for bed sheets that I bought on ebay and scanned so I could blow it up to 30" x 40"! I'm SO thrilled with how it came out. The ad already had a bit of a halftone pattern, so it upscaled beautifully and it just looks so perfect hanging above my bed. I uploaded the file to my google drive, if you want you can download it here.

I don't have room for a nightstand, so I decided to hang a floating shelf and use that instead! It actually works great - I was a little worried at first that I was going to constantly bump my head on it, but I don't actually end up sleeping anywhere near the edge of it - so far so good! I also have a discreet ipad holder on the underside of the shelf. I love reading on my kindle app in bed and using one of those remote page turners so I can be extra cozy laying on my side, all bundled up in my blankets!

The bedroom in my house (which I'll be sharing soon!) was an all-time vintage inspired kitschy dream room and I'll never be able to compete with that, but I am pretty darn pleased with how my little bedroom nook looks in my new apartment. And it's so, so comfy! I'm not exaggerating when I say that my favorite part of every day is getting into this bed and cuddling with Arrietty before I go to sleep. It's a perfect cozy oasis!

my home cinema!

For a little while, I lived the dream! As an obsessive cinephile there was nothing I wanted more in my house than my own little home theater. Not just to watch movies (duh!) but also to finally have a home for my massive collection of movie posters that I had been hoarding and collecting for decades. This will sound so silly but there were times when I didn't even watch a movie, I just stood in the theater and looked around at it. I was just so happy to have it, so grateful that life led me to a place where I could devote a room in my home to my love of the movies. Even if this only lasted a little over a year, I will look back fondly on this room, the memories I made in here, and the warm fuzzy celluloid feelings it gave me.

Now, first let's take a look at the before photo, from when I first got the keys!



Me and my brother built the arched entryway from plywood (not the most perfect way to do it, but it did the trick!) and I made my Cinema sign using my laser printer. 



I don't know how many people would want to recreate this, but if you're looking for authentic home theater carpeting I highly recommend the one I got, here. It came rolled up and I hired a local flooring company to install it for me as wall-to-wall carpeting. This was one of the first things I did when I moved in (the rug was literally sitting in the POD in my parents' driveway before it was even delivered to the house on move-in day lol!) and it immediately made the house feel like it was mine!



The chairs were all from Wayfair (I just searched for "black recliner" and then sorted the results from cheapest to highest price and picked the cheapest ones lol) I put the back row chairs on furniture risers so that they'd have a little more clearance to see the screen. Each chair had a blue quilt (from the kid's section at Target!) so we could all be extra cozy during the movies!





I used the wall behind the roll-down screen to store my DVD collection and also to highlight three of my all-time favorite films. Above the shelving I had printed out pictures of my favorite movie stars and put them in Dollar Store frames. 









My house didn't have a ton of closet space, so at the back of the theater I had two utility cabinets filled with pantry items and household essentials (toilet paper, my vacuum and broom, paper towels, etc.) and then I used the side of one of the cabinets to build a mini concession stand for candy and popcorn!



I've mostly come to terms with having to give up this house, especially since I was able to move a lot of my furniture and knick-knacks and artwork into my apartment. But I just don't have the room anymore for most of these posters and they're back in storage. I can't imagine I'll ever own a house again (I don't even know if I would want to after this ordeal) but I really miss having my own little theater. 

long time no see!

Hey! Long time, no see. I mean on this blog at least - I've still been posting things on social media so maybe it's not long time no see, maybe you literally just saw my instagram stories earlier tonight!

Anyway, a lot has happened since my last post when I was giddy with excitement over my cup holder bags and mere months away from getting the keys to an actual real life house. I spent most of the last two years knee-deep in decorating projects and making my house the most fun, colorful, retro, happy PINK house that I possibly could! I made the den into a home theater complete with a 90s inspired patterned carpet, I turned my guest room into a time-travel room that was a replica of my childhood bedroom! I had cat doors for Arrietty everywhere and pink carpeting upstairs. I covered the kitchen in a fun retro pink flower power wallpaper and made an arcade in my basement. It was so fun! 

I had to put the house up for sale this past summer (long story, you can read more here) and it officially closed on Friday. I just realized that most of the photos of my house that have been circulating around the internet for the last 6 months all came from the Realtor listing so I wanted to post them here and give them a real home 💖 

I'll break this up into a few posts so it's not like a hundred photos at once! Let's start with the kitchen! This might be the room that changed the most over the ~2 years I lived there. I had a hard time getting it perfect, but by the time these photos were taken I was finally completely, totally happy with how it looked. I loved the color scheme, the fun wallpaper, the mismatched color chairs, and my checkered rug. It was just SUCH a happy room!

a super belated Christmas decoration post

I'm planning on finally taking my Christmas decorations down this weekend, but before I did I wanted to take some pictures and post them since I was really, really happy with how everything looked this year! My favorite part was my new pink Christmas tree, which fits so perfectly in my space it's almost like it was made to order. I've wanted a tree like this for so long but never found the exact right shape or color. I love that this has such a long pole at the bottom before the actual tree starts, the perfect pink color that isn't quite pastel and isn't fluorescent neon (I feel like all pink trees tend to be one or the other) but a perfect carnation pink. I love the height and width, a small scale full size tree for a small space! I got it on amazon (it's only available in 7' now but mine is 6') And I love my new tree topper that I made out of laser cut wood and glitter mod podge. It's a "Topper" topper. If you like classic movies hopefully you'll get the pun ;)



























A small "where I got that" list, if you're curious!

= My Christmas cat pillowcase is from Vinnie Boy Vintage

= DIY honeycomb santa wall hanging is from my shop

= Pastel putz houses are from Everyday is a Holiday

= Tall putz houses were from Anthropologie

= Lady vases & Christmas cat figurines are vintage

= NOEL figures & choir girls are vintage