The Great Purge

I know the title of this post is beyond awful, but all month Mr. Spice and I have been purging out the excess in our home. It's all apart of Go Big Or Go Home 2011!! It's been so exciting that I've even taken pictures of all the junk we've deleted. Here's round one going to Good Will:


We live in a one bedroom apartment that is approximately 700 square feet (best guess), and we now have empty shelves in our closets:

Hallelujah!! Yes, we have extra space in 700 square feet!! Whoot whoot.

Even more exciting- our new shredder!!* Can I tell you how excited I was to shred Mr. Spice's Tax Return from 1994 and two whole boxes of bills from 1999!!!!

And thanks to the powers of ebay, Craigslist and Weddingbee Classifieds, I even made $340 bucks selling new or gently used stuff. FYI, I sold our kitchen table:

Replaced it with our desk:

I now have big plans to buy some awesome modern dining room chairs!! (More on that to come).

We also now have an empty nook in the living room. And People, I have even BIGGER plans to fill this nook. Big Plans!!!

But for now, I am using the money I made towards Go Big or Go Home Dream A: Financial Stability.*

*Ahhh, the joys of adulthood.

Does anyone else love a good spring cleaning???

Friday Introductions

Happy Friday Lovelies,

I have a very special introduction to make today. Let me introduce my newest Niece, Macie Elinor:

Precious, beautiful and loved. We can't wait to meet her in person next month.

Have a great weekend. Stay dry and warm.

Finally...

A bit of inspiration for you...




These pictures feels like spring. Dont'cha think?

Please click over to check out Cia Wedin. Her eco-design portfolio is amazing.

Seriously, great huh:


Happy Day.

On a Positive Note..

So, I am not a bird design person. But I am a whale design person:

20x200: Don Carney.


Etsy: VerreEncore


Etsy: GnomeSweetGnome

So cute. Are you an animal design person?

Silly Secret

Since I am not really in the blogging inspiration mood, I thought I'd share with you as silly design secret of mine- birds + design= drives me nuts.

I want to like it, but the truth- I am not a bird design person.

20x200: Dapper Owl.

There I said it. I feel like this is a safe statement to say these days because I am not the only one.

In the mean time, I am trying to jump back onto the blogging bandwagon.

Dreams Do Come True

Huck, his dog bed, and our bedroom were featured on HGTV!!!

Check it. Ummm. Yes. Dreams do come true!!

And yes, Huck is allowed on every piece of furniture we own. Here's two photos to prove it:

But really, he does sleep on his dog bed 90% of the time.

Does this mean I win the HGTV Dream Home? Or is that just asking too much??

Loving this

It's Valentine's Day, and while I could give a dissertation on why I love my husband (which I do an awful lot), I doubt any of you really want to read that.

So instead, I am sharing a song that I currently love. Do you ever listen to a song enough that the lyrics all of a sudden feel like they are speaking to you??

Well, the Cave by Mumford and Sons is currently on repeat on my ipod. Kinda random, but a great song nonetheless.

And I've taken some liberties- here are my favorite lyrics:

The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind

I will hold on hope

And I'll find strength

I will change my ways
I'll know my name

I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears

But I will hold on hope

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be

Well, that's something that I love today, and you better believe it that I'll be lovin on Mr. Spice tonight. In fact, we're breaking all the rules and having a (cowgirl creamery) cheese and wine night. That may or may not also include my favorite cupcakes in the world!!

So Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

In love with 79 Ideas

Do you have blogs that you love?

And then they up the anti by so much that you HAVE to feature them?

Well, 79 ideas just upped the blog anti by a good gazillion.

She did an entire Valentine's Day magazine as an ode to her readers.

And it's fantasticpants (defined as: so fantastic that I almost lost my pants).

Hurry, click over:


Did you click over?? You won't be disappointed!!

Happy Friday! Hope you have a weekend full of love.

Muuto Love

Did I mention that I am on the hunt for new kitchen/dinning chairs? Well, I am.

The raw chair from Muuto is perfection.

Except for the approximate $1,000 price tag.

Crap. Maybe I can afford a light?


At least it's expensive good design, not just expensive.

Maybe I can just paint some chairs a bright color and call it good?

Best Restaurant Design in SF- The Moss Room

Recently, my favorite SF Magazine 7x7 (yes, I am obsessed with that mag), had a contest asking for the best restaurant design in SF.

The restaurant that won looked cool-ish, although I've never been, from the picture I kinda agreed with one commenter, "kind of boring."

So it got me thinking, what is my favorite SF restaurant?? I know the restaurant that best embodies my style, but that's not in SF. Then I was reminded of a restaurant in a basement of a museum that just WOWed me and my Mom. AND the food was outstanding!!!

The Moss Room. It's at the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Seriously, they use moss as decor and it's amazingness.

Check it:

The pics and an article from Metropolis Mag on the Moss Room can be found here.

I love that it completely fits in with the goal of the museum itself, and it uses design in a way that you probably wouldn't use in your own home. What do you think?

Do you have a favorite 'designer' restaurant?

Do you Read?

Hello Lovelies, I am putting out some feelers. I am a bit of a voracious reader. I get lost in a book and sometimes won't look up for days. Poor Mr. Spice has to put up with me until I finish a book at which time, I will pledge to be his wife 100% of the time until I pick up my next book.

I totally enjoyed my latest read, An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin.

I read Shopgirl years ago, and surprisingly liked Steve Martin's lead female character (usually I don't like male authors writing about females). In spite of an air of sadness surrounding the main character, Shopgirl was an easy, totally enjoyable read.

Well, An Object of Beauty is even better. I dove head first into this book and didn't look up until I had frolicked through the entire NYC art scene with Lacey, the main character, an object of beauty herself. While I know next to nothing about art, I am assuming that Martin's take on the rise and fall of contemporary, modern and historic art collecting is fairly accurate as he relates the art scene to real economic events from the 90s to the recent economic collapse. As the beautiful girl who is always granted attention when she enters the room, you don't always love Lacey. But I did find myself routing for her and wishing her only the best- even as she does some not quite legal things and uses men to get ahead (or are they using her?).

Since I feel like I've been less than impressed with the latest and greatest American novels out there today (yes, I am talking about Freedom), I found this book refreshing and enjoyable.

So Lovelies, are you a reader?? While short and sweet, would you like me to review the other books that I've recently read?

PS I am always looking for suggestions for my next novel, anyone??

Oh Monday...

Having a case of the Mondays, but in the mean time, I am loving these pictures on sale now at One Kings Lane of HK Photographs...



If I ever had a walk in closet and an extra $399, this is what I would want it to feel like.

Did I mention that the sale is for Charity? It's for the Go Red for Women Campaign.

Glamor, fashion and charity. Maybe this Monday is looking up?

Wish I was here...

I wish I was here, with a gaggle of friends and a few bottles of wine.

source: Desire to Inspire

Instead, I am nursing a headache.

Happy Friday to you and yours!

Floors to Covet

I've fessed up here before that Mr. Spice and I have been to a few Open Houses over the years to check out houses- some we might be able to afford and some, not so much.

Well, guess what else, I am a serial on-line listing person too. This week I was having some fun* and looking at houses that fall into the just out of our reach category. I found a house that spoke to me, and pouted about it for a bit.

But Mr. Spice, being the uber fantastic husband that he is, said, "well, there is no reason that we can't copy that look for our home." Seriously, he falls into the genius category.

So, here are the floors and kitchen island that I am currently coveting (sorry for the small pics):

Did I mention that the house is in wine country and has some baby vines on property?

Oh, and here's the 'just out of our reach' house. On paper it looks awesome and I think it's in a good location- if you want to live in Sonoma.

So I am filing this post under, 'someday I will have a house with awesome floors' post.

Are you an on-line home shopper??

*yes, looking at homes on-line constitutes as fun in the SugarSpice household. Don't judge.

On the Hunt

As promised yesterday, we are officially on the (low budget) hunt to update our apartment.
I don't know if any of you noticed but this winter we ditched the rug in our bedroom.
Before:

After:


About 3.5 years ago, I somehow scored the rug for around $100 from West Elm. While the color was great when we bought it for our last living room, we had massive issues with it from the start. It shead like CRAZY. I was vacuuming it daily for awhile, and soon it start to really show the dirt. When we first moved it into our current apartment my friend begged me to ditch it, but I did my best effort to clean it up with Resolve. Finally, I couldn't handle how dirty and grimy it looked, plus the cat loved to use it as his scratching post, so up it went.

That leads us to today- on the hunt. For a bedroom rug. I really want to get this rug right this time, soooo I am being an uber planner and taking all facets of our bedroom decor into account.

If you recall, our bedroom last spring:


But then this winter, I mixed it up and added in more teal and took out the pink:


My original goal for this room was to have a 'beach-like' feel, check out my beachy-esque picture collage wall:

See where I was going with those blues and greens?

In my rug hunt, I have fallen head over heals for all rugs from Anthro (no real shock that they are all amazing):

source: Anthropology

But based on our old rug and our current rug in our living room, I am starting to think that we need something (1) woven so the cat won't scratch at it and (2) darker, I love light rugs but HATE how dirty they get so quickly. And all the Anthro rugs all seem too delicate for this mess of a person.

Anywhoo. I've been on the hunt, and I found one I think is perfection:

I emailed it to Mr. Spice and he isn't sold on it yet. I am going to spend some good quality time telling him why this rug is the winner.

Do you think I can convince him?? Do you ever tell convince your spouse that something is perfect even though they don't love it at first?