handmade t-strap shoes

I'm not the type of girl that has many shoes or spends unmentionable amounts for the ones I do have. I like to keep it simple, purchase a good, long lasting, versatile pair for the right price when I find it. These handmade, leather t-strap shoes from Aurora Shoe Co. might be just that. They'd be perfect right now with a pair of tights and a cute skirt and then later on with a long, linen summer dress.

pretty holiday napkins

Loving these customizable napkins over at Paper Source. Perfect for a holiday party or possibly even a wedding!

Morse Apartment Tour / 400 SQ FT

I'm so excited to finally share my apartment tour! We've been moved-out for a couple months now, but lived in the tiny apartment (approximately 400 square feet) for a full year. We picked the place so we could save money for a house and so Tim could walk to work and bike to school. The location was absolutely perfect, tucked just behind Winter Park's main street, Park Avenue.

As with many apartments, this one had it's pitfalls - super small appliances, tiny closets, no washer/dryer or dishwasher - but oozed with charm (and the location was unbeatable!). It was built in the 1920's and served as a boarding school for many years. Most of the features (doors, floors, windows, etc) were original. We were hesitant to move in, because we knew getting it prepped would be a lot of work (3 full weekends to be exact!) but I'm really glad we did. Not only were we able to save for a down payment on a house, but because of the location and walkability we were able to sell one of our cars, saving us roughly $450 per month!

Before we moved in, we painted the walls (they were an awful orange-ish beige color) in Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl and trim in Benjamin Moore's Super White using the Natura no VOC paint. We also re-covered, the nasty, old, white and super stained vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathroom with self-sticking squares that matched the color of the wood. This helped bring continuity throughout the space.

As I mentioned earlier, we moved into the place to save money so I didn't spend hardly anything on decorating. Other than a few small furniture pieces and some souvenirs I picked up on our Portland trip, I mainly relied on fresh picked flowers from the apartment grounds or local parks to keep it pretty.

You can't see it here, but we used our dresser as our TV stand in the living room. It actually sat right next to the little cupboard pictured above. I found the bentwood chair, in the photo below, at Crate & Barrel on sale for $30 for being an old display piece. It was a shiny white lacquer chair when I bought it, so I sanded it down and sprayed it with matte black paint - for a total price of $37.

In such a small space, wall shelves, baskets and decorative boxes became my best friend. I scored those handy wall shelves (above left, in our reading nook) at Ikea for about $30 and painted them with leftover white trim paint. The robins-egg-blue document boxes were an absolute steal from See Jane Work (something like 50% off) during their Black Friday sale last year. One of my favorite things about the apartment was the sliding door entry into the bedroom (in the top right photo). Even though the apartment often felt like a studio, being able to close up the bedroom when we had company was nice. Another neat thing about the apartment, was the old rectangle on the wall behind our bed. It was where the chalkboard used to be when the place was still a boarding school in the mid 1900's.

Our bedroom was proportionally as small as the rest of our place, fitting only our queen-size bed and a small dresser. The room also had a small closet and an entry into the bathroom. I wanted to the bathroom to feel crisp and clean, so I kept the wall colors white and accessor-ized with a neutral colored hand-towel.

The the sink and the clawfoot tub in the bathroom were both original, so they were pretty banged up when we moved in. In keeping with the fresh, clean feel, we picked up a refinishing kit from our local hardware store (you can purchase online, here) and Tim spent a day sanding, painting and refinishing them. We also got new drainage covers.

I wish I would have been able to take more photos before we started and during the "processes" to share, but as with everything, we were in such a hurry and time just seemed to slip away. You can see these images, larger, along with a few others on my flickr page, here.

You can also see my inspiration here, and an exterior shot from out our window, here.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Design, Decorating and Photos by Mary Stonecypher

Perfect Summer Chair

Right now our yard is a jungle - literally a native Florida, snake infested jungle (pictures to come). I'm looking forward to the day when we have a small patch of grass to plop down a couple of these sling chairs and relax in the sunset. At about $100 a piece, I'm seriously considering snatching a few before they sell out. What do you think?

Islander Sling Chair, $100 on sale at Jamali Garden Supply 

Our Save the Dates

Hope you're having a good evening! I just wanted to pop in and share a quick shot of our save the dates! For these, Tim and I really wanted something that was simple and affordable, but personable too. Photo booth save the dates seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

I'll be sharing the full process/tutorial with sources soon, so stay tuned :)

Kitchen-less in Winter Park

Our kitchen has been completely gutted for about three weeks now and I've been documenting some of our restaurant adventures on instagram. It's quite a challenge to eat local and organic when you don't have a kitchen, but thankfully Winter Park has a few good spots to choose from. See our favorites below.

• Shipyard Winter Park (pictured above)
• Prato (full review, here)
• Audubon Park Community Market (specifically the Big Wheel Truck)
• Whole Foods Winter Park (specifically the juice bar)
• Ethos (the #1 vegan stop in town)
• Edens
• Barnie's 

 *Photo taken with my iPhone. 

Thom Dolan Bikinis

Love these swim suits from Thom Dolan. Especially that madras one. 

Henrietta Bikini in Navy Swiss Dot and Clementine Bikini Madras (Both made in the U.S.A)