Budget....cabinets.....hardware.....sustainable issues...

So I've been working on spec'ing and pricing my kitchen for the past 3 hours and decided I needed a study break! I never know how much work went into a kitchen. Plus the fact that I now see how  much a new kitchen costs....it's outrageous! I have a smaller galley kitchen and my cabinets alone at priced at $15,310 right now! I also have to say that this drafting table is one of my favorite things in my apartment! It's the only thing that I can handle leaving messy because I look at it randomly and will get an epiphany on my project! I'm excited to get this done and all rendered out finally. (I ordered the Candace Olson Divine Design book on Amazon today because I love her renderings and want to improve my skills before this condo is due!)

I also thought I'd include one of the better pictures out of the hundreds from this weekend! It was great having a few of my really good friends up for the weekend. Although Saturday night I do think by building codes we definitely exceeded the amount of people legal in one apartment!

My Life Lately....

So now that school has started I spend late nights at my drafting table or sprawling in the living room watching Grey's Anatomy (my new season of addiction!). Right now I am designing a lofted condo in downtown Minneapolis, MN overlooking the Mississippi River, for a famous sculptor. It has to be sustainable and the emphasis is on the kitchen. If I'm not up late working on research for a project, building a model with balsa wood for building systems, or studying electrical components for lighting class I'm trying to do something creative for myself. This rarely works though! I tried uploading a picture of my plan and the kitchen rendered but it said the file was too large and wrong format! :(

The bird mobile is my garage sale steal. I'm not going to lie, sometimes the shadows are a tidge creepy if I wake up in the middle of the night. But they make cool shadows and keep me distracted when I'm up at 3 a.m. doing something due at 8 a.m.! (my picture won't rotate!)

On my end table is my other garage sale steal. One night I fell asleep in bed with it on while writing a paper and apparently the lampshade couldn't handle the heat and it melted! I was watching Myles of Styles on HGTV the other day and she wrapped a lamp shade in ribbon with loops. It looked really cool and if I ever get time that's how I'm going to fix mine too!