Hi Friends!
Yeah, I know…it’s been FOREVER.
Life, man… LIFE.
Last time you heard from me here on the blog was in the summer of 2018. My husband and I were preparing to open a small music venue called the Listening Room at 443, which eventually became The 443 Social Club & Lounge. We opened in January of 2019 and worked our asses off for the next year to get our new venture off the ground… I was working non-stop and honestly, it was BRUTAL.
As we celebrated our first anniversary in 2020, we thought we finally turned a corner. We had cultivated a loyal tribe of music fans and were selling out most of our shows. We were ecstatic that all our hard work and sacrifice were starting to pay off, and we had a stellar year of exciting shows lined up. Then, of course, COVID-19 hit and everything came to a screeching halt.
Other than a brief period in the fall where we tried to reopen (while observing some of the toughest restrictions in the entire country), we have been shuttered. At this writing, I’m still not totally sure when we might be able to reopen because New York still has our capacity severely restricted. We can’t break even at that level, so we’re planning to remain dark for at least a couple more months.
Which means I’m home ALL THE TIME.
I’ve spent so much time staring at the walls of my house for the last year, it’s kind of shocking I didn’t launch into a full-scale remodel at the beginning of the pandemic. I guess I was preoccupied cooking comfort food and working my way through my wine rack trying to manage my crushing existential dread. Finally, a few weeks ago something snapped – and I decided I couldn’t stand my house for ONE MORE MINUTE.
I thought I would just rearrange the furniture a little and switch up my artwork and before I knew it I had every room in my house pulled apart.
It always starts small, doesn’t it?
The other factor playing into my sudden desire to change everything is a big switch we had to make to The 443. When COVID hit and it became clear it would be a major extended closure, we decided to pull out all the funky 1970’s furniture. It’s just not possible to sanitize upholstered furniture between uses, plus it wasn’t completely practical for the kinds of shows were doing – we were moving furniture around constantly. It was a tough decision because our conversational “living room” seating areas really gave the 443 its personality… but it was the right thing to do.
This is what it looked like Pre-COVID:
So, I had a storage container full of cool furniture I thought I might shift over to the house. I spent a lot of time thrifting all these pieces and didn’t want to let them go just yet.
My house decor style prior to this was vintage/cottage with a bit of bohemian and a very monochromatic neutral color scheme – you can check it out here at my Tour My House page. When I first began contemplating a change, I thought I might lose the cottage style elements and focus more on the bohemian. I started poking around Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration, and kind of lost interest in the bohemian angle. With its explosion of popularity, bohemian is starting to look very cookie-cutter to me, which is weird, because “bohemian” by definition is supposed to be eclectic, right? As I was hauling pieces over from the storage unit I started really digging the funky 1970’s vibe that was developing, so I decided to go in that direction instead.
I thought I would document my projects here on the blog, at least for the next few months while we wait to reopen the 443. Here’s a sneak peek at what I’ve been up to:
I also decided to drop the “live” from my name. I originally thought I would do a lot of live videos, but I’ve realized I enjoy writing far more than appearing on camera, so shortening the name makes sense.
More coming soon!