After months enduring the new homeowner’s life, from picking what shade of grey-eggshell to paint the house to what type of wood to redo the floors in, my couple friend in Long Island City has finally finished and deemed the apartment worthy of a visit, and how flattering to find out that Chris and I are the first friends (after their visiting friend from California) to see the apartment. For the last four months, they’ve spent almost every weekend working on shopping and picking out furniture, building furniture, overseeing construction, and figuring out how to lay out their apartment, and it’s basically been like a full-time job on top of having an actual full-time job. The idea of being a homeowner just based on what they shared with us today makes my head spin. These are all the little benefits of renting and not owning; someone else has to deal with these issues and not me.

And on my end, because I knew I would see them soon, I wanted to get them a housewarming gift, but I had no idea what their home style was and was worried if I picked out something decorative that would’t go with their current look. I toiled over multiple ideas and finally settled on a set of Portuguese ceramic bowls, with the look of cracked glass inside them. These are the kinds of things I’d like, and they look very sophisticated. Plus, they’re dishwasher safe and are a faded blue color, so they’d go with lots of things. Who doesn’t need bowls to eat out of? I got a gift receipt just in case, but I told them that in the event they didn’t like them, I’d just take them for myself and get them another gift. 🙂 But they ended up really liking them and keeping them.

“These make our kitchen seem more adult like!” My friend exclaimed.