Apartment Tour & Fall Decor

At long last I'm going to share some pics of my apartment. Side note: This whole blogging thing is harder to keep up with then I originally thought!!!

Since it is now October I also have a couple pics of some fall decor we currently have up. Fall is my all time FAVORITE season- boots, scarves, candy corn, Halloween, Thanksgiving/Christmas right around the corner-- it doesn't get any better folks!

Below is a picture of our family room/kitchen area. I love how open the space is. We would love to put some color on these plain white walls, but since we are just renting we're not sure we want to go through the trouble of having to paint everything back to white before moving out. So alas...we are stuck with boring white walls. However, we're seriously considering painting a chevron or big striped accent wall above the "bon appetit" sign on the kitchen island (Inspiration found on Pinterest here).Thoughts?

Accent table in the family room area next to the TV. 

We are BIG fans of these adorable baskets from Target for storing blankets, pillows, etc. Not only are they adorable but they have chalkboard nameplates that you can write creative things on. Side story: For our sister's bachelorette party we wrote "Naughty" on one basket and "Nice" on the other so guests could place their present within the appropriate basket- more to come on that in a later post :)

Door in the family room area out to our balcony. 

Last but not least a few pics of some of our festive decor. 

I'm still finalizing some decorating details in my bedroom and bathroom so the tour of that portion of the apartment will come in a later post! And I'll have to get permission from my roomie/sis Cait before posting pics of her room and bathroom.... Whattaya say Cait? :)

I'm in a pickle about which headboard to get for my room but very much leaning towards this one. Still doing some research though. Any headboard suggestions would be much appreciated!

Be back in another few months SOON! Happy Wednesday. 

XoXo, Mere

Hello Again!

It's been WAY too long since my last post. I guess starting a blog was a bit more work than I anticipated- opps. But I am now back from my blogging hiatus (i hope) and I intend on doing a much better job of updating this regularly. Get excited!

To hold you over til my next post (that will be much more robust, I promise!)-- here are 3 fun facts/updates about my life, in no particular order:

1) My older sister (Clare) is getting married in September. My little sister and I are the two bridesmaids/MOH's and we could not be more excited! We're throwing her a bachelorette party at the end of August down here in Chicago so I will be sure to share all planning and event details as it gets closer. Oh, and of course details on the actual wedding too :)

2) I've moved into an apartment with my little sis. Shout out to Cait-- my new roomie!

3) I'm loving summertime in Chicago-- then again, who doesn't ? This is my 4th summer living down here and I swear it gets better every year.

I will be back soon- I promise :) Until then, enjoy this picture of the amazing view from my apartment.

Cheers!

Hot Dogs at Hot Doug's

Yesterday, I had my first experience at Hot Doug's and I was impressed. This restaurant specializes in a variety of hot dogs/sausages and has a diverse "affordable gourmet" menu that is constantly rotating. I opted for the traditional Chicago style hot dog as well as a corn dog- Not very adventurous :) I'm not a huge hot dog gal, but these were absolutely delicious. We also tried the fries, which are fried in duck fat on Fridays/Saturdays- Also delicious!

Apparently, the line is usually out the door and around the corner during lunch time but luckily we beat the rush. We arrived close to 11 a.m. and probably only had to wait about 10-15 minutes to order. By the time we left at noon, the line was much longer.

If you haven't tried Hot Doug's you MUST! While it's a little difficult to get to without a car (it's located in the Chicago Avondale neighborhood), the food is totally worth it. The best part (besides the food) is that it's not too pricey. I will definitely be trying Hot Doug's again.

Currently Loving: Fall 2012!

Fall is my all time favorite season- colorful leaves, boot weather, pumpkin spiced lattes, football, CANDY CORN- the list is endless! This past weekend I went home to see my fam in Wisconsin (so this entry is technically a "Meredith in the Suburbs" edition). While I was home, my little sister and I did a couple fall crafts including painting pumpkins, planting mums, and candy corn filled candle hurricanes. A few pictures from my fun fall filled weekend above.

Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinders

Oven grinders is a little hole in the wall type place with AMAZING food! They are famously known for their "pizza pot pies" available in a 1/2 pounder or full pounder size. My favorite items on the menu are actually the Mediterranean bread and the Chef salad (both pictured below). The salad comes with two delicious dressings- sour cream garlic and sweet and sour poppyseed (the poppyseed is my personal fave).

This place does not take reservations and you usually need to wait a bit to get a table- especially on a Friday or Saturday night during dinner time. Every time I've been here the hostess is amazingly able to remember the order in which people arrived- he never writes anything down. This made me a little stressed out at first (heaven forbid that I have to wait longer for my pizza pot pie!) but surprisingly he seems to know what he's doing and the wait always go by very fast. If you haven't been here I would definitely check it out. 

Orange With A Peel

This morning I went out to breakfast at a place near my apartment called "Orange With a Peel". One of my favorite things on the menu here is- "Frushi". As the name suggests, it's fruit sushi. Today's frushi featured mango with coconut rice and strawberries. I also ordered the homemade granola with strawberries, blueberries and vanilla almond milk. So delicious!

Blown Away

I love when my little sister comes to visit me. Our time together usually consists of shopping, eating portillo's chopped salads, and self-served froyo (Froyo on State Street is our current favorite). But when she came to visit me last Thursday and Friday, we added a new activity to our itinerary- blow outs!

"Blowtique" is a new blow-out boutique that opened in early June and offers customers a convenient and efficient blow-out. There are four different blow-outs on their menu, all of which are $35 bucks (They offer up-styles too, which are $70). I went with "The Deep Ellum Dallas"-big body curls with a dramatic bounce. Dramatic bounce is an understatement (see picture below)- my hair was HUGE!

Don't get me wrong- I love big hair and lots of volume. But this was a little intense- even for me! Luckily, I got the blow out done Friday morning so by Friday evening my hair had settled down (Picture from Friday evening below). Overall, I really like this place and plan on going back- especially for special occasions. They also said that they do fun "girls night out" events- where you can bring in food/wine with a bunch of friends and get ready for a fun night out on the town. Next time, I plan on trying one of their 3 other blow out styles with a little less volume ;)