Anyway, I suppose I'll start off by saying that Ryan and I are officially settled in our apartment and couldn't be happier living downtown! I'm loving the way our place is taking shape and even though it's still a bit of a work in progress, I'm quite content with the way it's going so far. 
We did encounter a mini disaster of sorts when we tried to stain our IKEA dining table and chairs. I'm getting over it though, since I have since purchased a navy tablecloth to hide the mess! Essentially, we bought the wrong kind of wood stain, and instead of creating a beautifully rich walnut color, the paint turned out very streaky and formed horrible globs everywhere. I know, I know...those of you with experience are telling me "you should have used X paint or Y paint" and "you should be sanding it between coats". Trust me, I spent far longer than I would have liked, researching all of this stuff! With the price we paid for the table and chairs, and with how the paint turned out, it's really just more economical to cover it all up for now..at least until we're ready to tackle the problem again!
In other non-decor related news, something that Ryan and I have both been enjoying in our down time, is the convenience of being able to walk three blocks to our local dog park! Rocky absolutely loves it, and it's nice because he gets to meet lots of other dogs and get plenty of exercise running around off-leash! He's even been lucky enough to be at the dog park at the same time as his old buddy Bane, a two year old mastiff, who was at the Humane Society with Rocky at the same time that he was. Ryan and I had even seriously considered adopting Bane, that is, until Rocky cemented his place in our hearts! 
I don't want to ramble, so I'll end here for now, with the promise that I'll have more posts this week! I hope you all have a fun (and safe!) Halloween!
