Hello Out There in Internet-Land

I love mid-century modern. The light, the simplicity, the form, the way it perfectly captures a certain spirit of restrained optimism...how can you not love it? Sadly, my wallet doesn't love my obsession. I read Atomic Ranch, Dwell, and even Apartment Therapy drooling all the way. My budget, however, doesn't go in that direction.

Oh, there's IKEA, of course. How else would the young and poor ever buy new furniture? But there's only so much IKEA one can take. So, how to bridge between what I want and what I can realistically afford? How can MCM be done on a budget in a way that feels fresh and sidesteps kitsch?

Complicating matters, I'm freshly married to a man, J, who describes his own aesthetic as a cross between Southwestern and beachy. And by beachy, I mean Golden Girls. I don't know. This is a man who only recently even learned what MCM was, despite the fact he spent part of his childhood in an MCM house in California that I suspect might have been an Eichler.

So stay tuned to see what happens when two thirty-somethings try to merge divergent decorating styles...