This post could also be called Tulips, plants and a dinner table in various states of tulips and plants.
Oh, Hi!
In January we moved in to our very own apartment. Well, we rent it, but it's our lease and it's not an airbnb like the other apartments we've lived in here in LA up until January.
We've obviously lived in apartments in Sweden but this time around it feels different because we don't have all of those things that you collect over the years just by living. You know, the pots and pans you get from your parents when you move out of your childhood home, the chest you got from your friend's parents because they were going to throw it away but thought of you, the cute chair you bought at a flea market in the tiny village where you studied theatre and then had to carry over your shoulder through the entire said village to your student room, the bed you bought from the family friend who moved to another country and you rented an apartment from. I really could have written "I" through all that block of text, right?
But you get what I mean, a home is built by so many weird and random things you put in it over a long time.
This home is built from scratch though. And that feels SO strange and new and INTERESTING.
Let's talk a little about that, and mix it up with a bunch of photos, okay?
Cardboard boxes make for "great" tables.
We moved into this place with no furniture but two director's chairs with our names on them that we got from the Lights Out production. David was alone here for the first two weeks because I was in Sweden packing down all our things in our apartment there, so he bought a mattress and stuff for his home office. And stuff like pots and pans and plates and pillows and sheets- from IKEA.
We didn't have money for more than that for a while so for a couple of weeks we ate all our meals in the guest room/office on our director's chairs, or on the empty living room floor.
Love how the large living room window has two palm trees outside but all you can see are their waists...
After a couple of weeks we bought a dining table. We have a Pinterest board for our apartment where we pin things we want to buy/are inspired by, and we had searched high and low for the perfect dining room table. We wanted it to be large and rustic and not cost a million dollars. I'll let you know that it's harder than it sounds to find a table like that. But one day we found it at Nadeau, a place we had no idea existed that we stumbled upon when looking in a super weird furniture store across the street where they sold RIDICULOUSLY expensive and ugly furniture. We couldn't believe our luck when we found our dining table at this random place, and it was super affordable and exactly what we wanted.
The chairs arrived a week or two later. And the rug is our latest addition. Because we have been taking our time with the furniture we really love the stuff that we do buy. We have a clear idea of how we want the place to look and its so AWESOME to see it come to life. David has never thought himself interested in these things before, but now it's like he has understood the fun of it. I think it's because we have thought it through for a long time now, adding pins to our pinterest folder and trying to imagine what things we want, and for every piece of furniture we add it gets clearer and clearer that it's turning out exactly like we wanted it.
I want our home to be filled with plants and one thing that I did in Sweden was to plant seeds I either found outdoors or came from fruit I ate. I think that makes the whole indoor gardening thing more interesting! I had a Mango plant that I loved so the first thing I did in our new American home was to plant a mango seed. They grow insanely fast.
At first the leaves are a purple brown color.
But then they turn green and strong.
I love my mango plant!
This is a little lemon plant.
So far I use the ugly cardboard boxes as plant stands, but the idea is to get a long bench underneath that window. It's not easy to find though, most benches are too low and too short. I'm thinking of making one myself instead.
A window made for people watching.
If you follow my instagram you've seen my hashtag #LottasOverambitiousWaterDrinks where I share photos of what's really just pimped up water in pretty light. I go through quite a lot of citrus fruits...
The blood oranges really turn the kitchen counter into a murder scene (Also: Tiled kitchen counters, America? Are you stupid? It's IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean).
Pretty colors. Water, blood orange and fresh mint.
One day I bought a big fern because I've always wanted one and they remind me of when I was a kid and my parents had one that was huge.
The pretty secretary desk you can see a little of here is my office. I sit at the dining table and work and keep all my stuff in this desk. We found it at an antique store and I LOVE it. It's from the late 50s and it's Swedish, funnily enough.
The vintage tins are actually from my collection in Sweden. I brought them with me filled with jewelry making stuff and other things I didn't want to live without. I've collected old tins for years and these are some of my favorites.
I've gone cuckoo for tulips this spring. It's partly because of this dream of turning our home into a jungle but until I have all the plants I want I'll just fill it out with fresh tulips.
Kitchen window still life. Tulip in glass bottle, hair tie and a jacaranda seed pod on a jar lid.
And then the tulip died and I documented that too.
I probably should throw out these tulips now...
...but it's like confetti on our table!
Last sunday we bought the big plant to the left. I think it's some kind of Schefflera. It's bright and happy!
And then this morning. Too much stuff on the table, a sweater hung to dry on a chair, and now we really do have a jungle on the table. I have bought so many plants online. Mostly on Amazon. It's actually really good plants! I have two Monstera's, one Rubber plant, two Schefflera's, one Prayer plant, one heart fern, one Fiddle Leaf Fig and some other plants I don't know the name of that we bought on a flea market.

I really enjoy documenting the journey this apartment is on. All these photos were taken with my Nikon D7000 over the course of four months. We've lived here for quite a while now without a lot of furniture and it makes the changes we do to the space feel bigger. Think of this as The Slowest Interior Design Program EVER.
I'll probably be back in a few month with an update, so I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our home.

/Lotta
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