For my fall break I went to go visit my big bro Jack who is doing a dermatology research fellowship at George Washington U. Yay Jack! He lives in the really awesome Capitol Hill area in a pretty sweet little row house that I would love to slap a fresh coat of paint on.
In this City Spotlight I decided to add a few restaurants and bars in with my home design stores!
In this City Spotlight I decided to add a few restaurants and bars in with my home design stores!
The first evening we did some sight-seeing and ate at this little gem right near his house. Delicious, inexpensive, PIZZA, a clever name, need I say more? We the Pizza was a winner.
Since Jacky was busy working for the dolla billz all day, I had time to explore the city. Aside from the standard touristy things like the Smithsonian Museums, the National Archives and the Zoo (pandas!) I took some time to check out some cool design shops around U Street and Dupont Circle.
First stop was a cool little accessories place called Tabletop in the Dupont area. I was drawn in by the cute window display and the pillows!
First stop was a cool little accessories place called Tabletop in the Dupont area. I was drawn in by the cute window display and the pillows!
I so wish we had one of these in Houston, they have the best little gifty things from linens to prints and cards. They even had this really adorable horse lunchbox that almost became mine.
I was seriously lusting after these Jonathan Adler coasters but they were not even close to what I could consider to be a reasonable price for coasters. Ah but the animals! The Santorini blue! I have regrets about these little beauties.
That evening we went to POV (Point of View) the bar on top of the W near the White House. They had yummy cocktails and a stunning view of the sunset! Too bad the Washington Monument is perpetually wrapped up in scaffolding. Not cute Washington Monument. Not cute.
That evening we went to POV (Point of View) the bar on top of the W near the White House. They had yummy cocktails and a stunning view of the sunset! Too bad the Washington Monument is perpetually wrapped up in scaffolding. Not cute Washington Monument. Not cute.
The next day I went to the U Street area which is the obvious hipster/ gayborhood that reminded me quite a lot of my own neck of the woods in Houston.
The first shop I went to was my favorite, GoodWood. It's self described as a "Mercantile and Dry Good Store," which really makes me think of purchasing grain before heading out on the Oregon trail. A better description would be "all of the home decor and furniture Anthropologie wishes it could sell." It had a dark and eclectic feel with items ranging from the interesting to the ridiculous to the just plain weird.
This is the little entryway. Don't tell me you wouldn't love these cheeky animal print and whicker chairs in your life, I won't believe you. I also really like the bulbous lamp.
This gives you a better feel of what they're going for with the old world/ rustic thing. Sorry for the dark pic. I think all together the pieces are overwhelming and almost theatrical, but if you had one or two in an otherwise modern home I think they would add a lot of interest.
They randomly had tons of candles and body products which made the whole store smell amazing.
I liked this turtle shell! It might be cool to hang on a wall or to have on a fancy little decorated table (which is not something I have, all of my tables are fully functioning, not just standing in the corner looking pretty) but the $200 (I know, what?) price tag made this a bit of a joke for me.
Now, for the pièce de résistance ...
Now, for the pièce de résistance ...
GoodWood had a lot of taxidermy which as a tree-hugging animal lover usually makes me sad, but this faux hammerhead shark is probably the best possible thing ever. I want to have a stuffy library with this hanging behind my leather studded office chair. Absurd. Do you think it would be better in pairs?
The second store in the U Streets I went to was HomeRule. Are you sensing a pattern here? I'm not sure why every store is two words smooshed into one with each individual word capitalized. That's how they roll here in DC.
This place was packed to the gills with extra colorful kitchen gadgets. So fun! I would love to have one of these too. They have everything from practical, necessary tools to silly things like silicon ice cube molds. Yes please.
The second store in the U Streets I went to was HomeRule. Are you sensing a pattern here? I'm not sure why every store is two words smooshed into one with each individual word capitalized. That's how they roll here in DC.
This place was packed to the gills with extra colorful kitchen gadgets. So fun! I would love to have one of these too. They have everything from practical, necessary tools to silly things like silicon ice cube molds. Yes please.
The next place I actually walked past on my way to HomeRule but I was intimidated by the sparse, expensive looking furniture and few customers. I got over myself and went in on the way back to the metro station. The things I do for you guys. Vastu is an ultramodern, swanky design place that has an addiction to mid-century modern. They offer design services as well, so if you're actually furnishing a real house with nice expensive things this would be a good pick for you. They were friendly to me, but you could tell they didn't want me to touch their fancy couches and get them dirty. The horror!
This is the basement where they had some inspiration boards and pictures of rooms in progress.
Although this isn't my taste at all, I think this scary pink bunny deserves to be on the internet. I guess for me Vastu is just an expensive version of Ikea. There were a few items I really enjoyed, one was a cork ottoman/ coffee table which I didn't get a picture of because they were giving me the stink-eye at that point, and the teal couch in the picture above.
Our last night we went up to Georgetown for dinner, (window)shopping and cupcakes! Of course we had to go to the uber famous Georgetown Cupcakes of TV fame. Apparently there's usually a really huge line for these but we walked right in. Such a cute and really pink shop. I failed and ordered a pumpkin cheesecake cupcake which turned out to be a tiny cheesecake and not a cheesecake flavored cupcake. It was still good, but disappointing. Jack's vanilla birthday cake one was money.
For dinner we met one of Jack's friends and went to Farmers Fishers Bakers, an extremely delicious but pretentious in an everything-organic-is-way-super-better kind of way. Still I would recommend it, very tasty pizzas. You can see that gangsta-Jack approves. The only major oddity was the decor. I had no idea where to look because so much was happening. You can see next to Jack the wall of tire treads, and behind and above him there's a rope ladder hanging down for no reason at all. Why not I guess?
So there you have it! My quick little design shop adventure in DC. As you can see I found a huge variety from the few shops that I stopped in. With the great shopping, gorgeous crisp fall weather and seeing my brother this was a fun trip!