Around Our Home: Shells Abound

Shells of all sizes, on their own, in candy jars, and in baskets

When I started looking around our house and taking photos, I realized I hadn't shared what our home looks like. There are photos of an empty apartment when we moved in. There are photos of the living room filled with wedding stuff. And there are photos of my attempt to dig out. But I can't believe that aren't any "walk through" photos. Over the next month or so, I'll correct that.

In the meantime, let's start with the bathroom. (It's actually the first room you see when you enter our apartment.)

It's on the east side of the building so it catches a lot of light. I like nice bright naturally lit spaces. This room has the majority of my shell collection. There's shells in the stand.

On the back of the commode. And above the shower.

Shells tucked onto the ledge above our shower.
The two large shells (from left to right) are a pink roller and a sea biscuit.

And of course, there's shells on our counter.

I really like the color palette in the bathroom. It's primarily a warm neutral blend (neutral palette with RGB numbers) with lavender and blue accents.

We'll leave the bathroom now and walk down the hall towards the living room. The bedroom is in the opposite direction but there aren't any shells in it, oddly enough. The kitchen, the utility closet turned office, and the walk-in closet in the living room are the other three areas sans shells.

This cubby is really a catchall and NEVER looks like this. Typically take out menus and coupons are tucked behind the barnacles. Now that it's cleaned up a little, I wonder if a chalkboard or a pin board would be more practical? What would you do with this area?

Immediately following the cubby on the right is our linen closet. Here we find another shell tucked neatly next to our winter scarves. (The dusty blue garbage bin is the one remaining hold out from my early college dorm decor.  I followed the crowd with the Cornflower Blue and Dusty Rose color pairing that was popular in the 80s.)

We end our brief tour in our living room with another pink roller. This is the shell I've had the longest. It was one of my first purchases at the Shell Shoppe in Morro Bay. Growing up we weren't given allowances per se. We got to pick out a new book or magazine weekly at Crown Books. My dad gave us a new Sanrio item for our collections each Friday (or every other Friday, I forget the frequency, it seemed like a lot). My parents purchased new rolls of film and processed the used ones as well as supplying albums and album pages for my photos. So we had an allowance, we just didn't receive it as money. My Pink Roller purchase was special because I had to save money from birthday and holiday gifts to buy it.

I thought I had more shells to show you, but after scouring our apartment that's all we found. In next month's Around Our Home, I'll feature my vintage train case and luggage collection. You'll get to see every room but the kitchen in that tour. I have two sets - one complete and one partial - I use for nearby travel; another almost complete set I use for storage; and many other individual coordinated mismatched pieces I also use for storage.

Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for Recipes for the Good Life.