i spent the evening tucked up in bed, drinking water and reading design books and websites (always).
this week has been really interesting, home wise. the boxes of stuff various family members sent me - after extensive guilt tripping - have been arriving since last thursday or friday, culminating in the final two, which arrived last night. i brought them up before i left for the party; between those boxes and my fabulous new color printer (i LOVE working at mit), there are seven assorted big boxes strewn around my living room.
more importantly, though: this morning my coworker anthony showed up at my house at 8 am bearing none other than the illest bookcase ever. we put it down and dashed for work; as i was locking the front door, i caught a glimpse of the paint job (the toothpaste color GLOWS in the space with my lighting; i made the right choice) and one finely turned leg. i never really considered, from the point of view of its protracted absence, how furniture gives order and definition to a space. i understand the dimensions of my living room so much more clearly now; i have a plan, my apartment has vision, there's a unifying theme.
my coworker arthur confirmed with me today that he will be borrowing his mom's van to bring both my couches home november 11th, by which time they will be in a state of doneness that will at least not embarrass me. i am definitely okay with putting the piping on here, since that is the last step and relatively non-messy. but i might even be okay sewing the parts and then attaching the fabric here. if there are any unexpected tools i need, those would be at stata; there is also more space there. but if i don't do the work here, i would need to bring my sewing machine and serger in to work, along with the masses of fabric, to work long hours there. i still can't decide; i might do it anyway. the point being that prong one of my three step solution for furniture is over, and the illest bookcase is at home.
everything is here. the building blocks are falling into place. this is the greatest point of the chaos - everything from here on out is forward.
i poached the tig camera for the weekend, so i'll take pictures of all the little projects i do around the house this weekend and also stage some to show how things have changed.
i am now brainstorming; i am surprised by how little space the bookcase really takes up and how much storage it provides. i will be easily able to make a little nook with both my sectional and space for a dux chair (drool) once i find one on the cheap. i need to start rocking estate sales in a serious way. depending on how i organize, i might even be able to make a little reading nook in the shadow of sam the giraffe.
speaking of, here are some things (besides finish my couches) i will do in the next two weeks:
- put my pots and pans away (i finally papered the insides of the drawers thursday night before the party)
- buy sam the giraffe
- make a comprehensive storage plan (like the bailout, except that my storage plan will actually work)
- decide what color i am going to paint my living room and paint it. that will probably be monday the 10th, if anyone wants to have a painting party!
oh and keyse, my new light fixture got here today! i will be putting it up hopefully tomorrow evening, so that i can get any pertinent light bulbs sunday. i got the large size - it seems huge in the box! this makes me happy; i love me some oversized shit.
this weekend my main purchase will be foam and batting. the beginning of the month is a lean time: rent is due, my T pass comes out, capoeira cash monies are due, plus i paid utilities today.
next weekend (i have been saying this for ages, but i swear) i will buy sam the giraffe, SO THAT arthur and i can bring him home in the massive van on tuesday.
i realized what the uniting colors of my apartment are going to be: pale turquoise, wood and gold. (although, if we are frank with ourselves, i came to this realization fully a month and a half ago. i am just a slow reacter.) (and wow - reading that, my apartment is going to look exactly like that, if it doesn't already. but each idea seemed to need to come organically - and slowly - on its own.)
in the living room, this means the illest bookcase ever and my flock of geese wall hanging, primarily. in the entryway, i will be buying a sweet and ridiculous chandelier (probably not until next year) and painting the whole thing a light turquoise, maybe three shades darker than the illest bookcase ever but almost certainly in the same color family. i am excited about that; now that i know what it will look like, the whole space will pop. i am also going to experiment with tiny but ornate frames turned into a display of many chalkboards. i will show you what i mean if it works out in my mind.
in the bedroom, my bedside lamps will be an awesome pale shade of turquoise; in the bathroom, which i want to remain a lovely land of neutral colors and strong contrast, it will just be a single turquoise laminated bamboo bowl, which i'll need to source from home when i go for thanksgiving.
(airfare prices have tanked - if you need holiday tickets, buy them now! i am going from boston to tampa on two nonstop jetblue flights for $200. and my christmas tickets will only be about $233! it's an ill economic meltdown that blows no good.)
(yikes - that didn't even make any sense.)
aaand in the kitchen, i will do this awesome chalkboard door project, spraypainting the door gold first (already have the paint) and then doing the turquoise over it, then gently sanding to rock an antiqued look.
i have super exciting ideas for my coffee table, which i don't believe will be a burl after all, and my bedside tables, all of which include repurposed drawers. (i will also be building a new, wall mounted armoire; another 2009 project.) but i am getting sleepy (lying around doing nothing is exhausting work), so i will leave with this smattering of thoughts:
- apparently i am losing weight, even though physically i am a little heavier than when i got here. i put on the pants i interviewed in, and before i put my belt on i could remove them without unzipping. weird. but i'm relatively happy in my body, even though the actual number of my weight is dauntingly high. so, a little up or a little down is not too much of a big deal to me.
- after all that drama, i am actually not painting the wood of my sectional - meaning that the illest bookcase ever is the only wood painting project i've managed to complete. i just love wood grain too much, it would seem. plus, a great deal of my belongings seem to be walking the greige path, and i want to see where it takes them.
- living room curtains?
i-fucking-conic.
- my coworker anthony told me this morning that i could make my own arco lamp with some conduit and a cheap fixture from ikea. i love the suggestion, but i might pony up to buy this one if it comes with the attachment:
yum.
- one year ago today, i started capoeira. i almost went to class tonight as a memorial, but i think i needed to sit still and think more. those first classes were such a revelation for me - to be good at something movement related, and not just good but really an outstanding beginner, to have an instinct in my body for the first time in a long time. that was followed by three months of living and breathing ginga and the roda and another three months of focusing intensely on movement, bodywork, and my physical relationship to other people in a variety of different permutations.
then i came back to boston and the focus has been mainly on my work ethic and my mind - or so i thought. but in fact it feels to me like the time not directly thinking about the body has given my contrary mind some time to process everything that happened during that time. and surprisingly, at some point when i wasn't looking, i stopped automatically saying "i can't."
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