This post has been a long time in the making! You are finally going to see our new apartment! Well some of it anyways. While the driving portion of our move was pretty uneventful, the settling in process of the move went slower than maple syrup on a cold day. We faced multiple hurdles, some of which we had to rely on our apartment’s maintenance man to fix, while others we did ourselves. We also chose to get rid of a few items prior to packing up our truck, which we then had to replace upon moving in, and when you furnish your home in mostly vintage, it’s sometimes difficult and time consuming to find just the right pieces, which is what happened to us. There are still some bare spots, as we chose to get rid of some of the artwork we had, and we are still deciding what to put up. Additionally, this is going to be a bit of a series, as there is so much to share and it’s quite a big space. So today I will just be sharing our living room, dining area and a wee bit of our kitchen. But enough with the excuses! Onwards with the pictures!

The room divider piece, as seen above, in the entry was a piece I saw at Antique Alley ages ago, and at the time, it was being used as a fixture for a fellow dealer, however, when the dealer moved out, they sold the piece. At the time we didn’t have room for it in our apartment, so I bought it and then used it as a fixture in my space. I’m happy it how has a place in our home, currently serving to house some of my Mexican themed ceramics, a place for our keys and some of Patrick’s camera collection.

During our college days and first few years after graduating, I feared for the Heywood Wakefield end tables I had tucked away at my dad’s. College kids and young 20-sometimes aren’t always the best with coasters. So for those years I used wood patterned formica tables in our living room. When we made the move, I felt it was time to let go of those formica pieces and give the Hey-Wake that had sat in my dad’s garage their day to shine. Today pieces I’ve had stored for over five years, including these end tables and corner table, now have a proper home. Our coffee table, also a Hey-Wake piece, was a recent purchase just prior to moving. We bought it, and another piece that is currently in our bedroom, from a friend who was selling his collection.

The biggest hurdle we faced was that of an entertainment center, which we parted with when moving. While finding tables, chairs and even sofas can be easy to find for someone wishing to furnish their home in vintage wares, finding an entertainment center is impossible. Why? Simply because the notion of an entertainment center didn’t exist in the 50s and 60s! Televisions were complete pieces of furniture in themselves during that time period! Making up entire consoles that sometimes include radios and record players, some even had bars! And forget about a place to house your DVD collection! While we had been to Ikea to get some pieces for our new office/sewing room, none of the entertainment centers caught my eye. And eventually we settled on spending an afternoon antiquing. We saw a few Hey-Wake buffets that could possibly do the job (as I had seen some other fellow vintage bloggers do), but when we walked into Woody’s, a shop full of Hey-Wake, my heart stopped as I gazed upon a Hey-Wake room divider. Made up of a top shelf unit, and a lower cabinet unit, the room divider is extremely versatile. Immediately I saw it as our entertainment center, using the top half on its own as a book shelf, and the lower half to house some DVDs and to set our TV upon. However, the room divider proved not to be enough storage, and eventually we faced the fact we needed some floating storage above, and settled upon some Ikea cabinets. The remaining furniture, such as the sofas, chairs and lamps, have all been antique shop or thrift shop finds over the years. And Patrick’s camera collection is scattered throughout.

The piece that is home to our record player and LPs is actually a Hey-Wake vanity. Normally the area where I store records has a second shelf (the piece would have also had a large mirror), but with it removed, it houses LPs perfectly! The cabinet on the side also stores CDs nicely, and the drawers are home to games and dining linens.

In our Portland apartment you may have noticed a large, graphic map that boldly had “Portland” printed across it (easily visible in some photos here). And here you may notice a map done in the same vein, but boasting “Los Angeles” in bold type. These two pieces are in fact part of the same map, an advertisement for Harold’s Club in Reno, showcasing its proximity to both Portland and LA. My dad had been visiting an antique mall that was in the process of making up a wall of old signage, and to his horror my dad saw this map cut in two. He purchased the pieces, and framed them. I took the Portland piece, seeing that I was living in Portland, it felt like a proper place for it, and when we decided to move the Orange, just 30 miles outside of LA, a switch seemed in order. We haven’t entirely forgotten our Portland roots, and still feature our Portland Expose film poster in our hallway.

Our dining area also includes Hey-Wake, including the dining room table and chairs (though it looks like one chair is missing…oh, that’s right, I’m sitting in it now! I need to get a proper office chair). We also use a Hey-Wake corner bookshelf to house our barware. I was thrilled to see glass front cabinets in part of our kitchen, as our lack of a china hutch left my beloved Franciscan Starburst hidden from view, but not anymore! Now much of it can proudly be on display.

Well, I think that just about wraps up our living and dining area! I think you’ll get to take a peek at our bedroom in the next installment!