twig by twig

why i have disappeared!

2009-06-27T21:19:00.004-04:00

this doesn't mean that my house and i have fallen off a cliff. far from it!

i've been guest blogging over at keyse's space, crocodile tears, which is incredibly fun and where a lot of my design passions are going. i started a photo blog and subsequently began taking a photography class, both of which i'm having a lot of fun with. i was so precious about photography for so long (thinking i needed to be invited to join the membership of the exclusive Photographer's Club by proving my worth, and that without that validation i had no business taking pictures) that it's been really refreshing and healing to me to let those barriers fall.

it's also summer in boston, meaning i actually have a life again! i've found, among many other things:

- the credenza of my dreams (a broyhill brasilia behemoth)
- a great new desk chair, a hot kidney-shaped coffee table
- a crazy boudoir chair that i'm using in my kitchen
- a beautiful vintage typewriter, and
- not one but five inspiring new lamps.

but i think more important than documenting tiny projects and things (although that IS interesting, and i still believe it has merit) is the fact that i've just started to live my life in a twig by twig sort of way. i'm waiting, doing business pretty much only with buyers and sellers i have a good feeling about, not spending too far beyond my means (though this month is a bad example of that!) i've had a tendency for most of my life to live to extremes, and the growth of the past year has had everything to do with learning to be okay with moving slowly.

i'm a gardener now, both here and at the mit community garden: proud parent of many succulents, three sweet potato vines, two tomato plants, two kinds of basil, peppers and eggplant. (perversely, my eggplant is my favorite and most beloved plant, even though i hate eggplants themselves. but his leaves are so furry and cute!)

i'm paying off my credit card debt, by making small deposits every week, and then larger and larger ones as i gained confidence that i could do something on a regular basis and stay committed to it. i'm teaching my stretching class again and loving it, and being given even more freedom and responsibility at work. i'm getting into collaborative projects outside of work which i'm really excited about.

and so i think i need to say goodbye for now. this isn't a new or radical philosophy for me anymore - it's just the way i live my life. but i'm so grateful that i documented all of this when things were uncertain and i wasn't sure how i was going to grow into the type of person who could do this project successfully. i have so many ideas that are coming to fruition now, and i can't wait to post pictures of my apartment here when it's done!

what we have ahead of us

2009-04-21T11:40:00.002-04:00

so i have been away for a while, it is true. part of this is due to travel; i was in portugal for a couple of weeks, home for a couple of weeks, bounced back out to florida, where i am now. my friends ray and pete had a BEAUTIFUL hippie wedding this past saturday, and i have another wedding coming up saturday (my sister's, for which i am both maid of honor and wedding planner/designer).

HOWEVS, i am coming home monday night, whereupon shit is getting serious. i'm starting my first cleanse that day, and i'm also starting the eight week cure. i have been a bit sporadic with updates to this blog at least partially because i've been a bit sporadic with updates to my home. but: i am committed. i have the money (due to a serendipitous combination of a fat tax return and the fact that the month of may has FIVE pay periods in it instead of four. XO!), and i have the time - because after all of this jetsetting i am chained to my desk until about december.

brimfield is also in may, and moveout day and all the free furniture that that entails, along with the knowledge that it is finally spring again and i'm no longer deeply depressed. i finally have the energy to tackle this. i'm out of step with the official apartment therapy cure, because i think i was in ireland when that one started.

so this blog is going to have to be where i detail my struggle and labor, post in desperation and triumph, and hope to get the encouragement and inspiration to keep going. big mountain to climb in my future, huh? but eight weeks from monday i will have a finished home. the goal, among other things? coffee table at last.

animal dreams

2009-03-08T22:40:00.008-04:00

so sporadic (for shame)! here are some snippets from my house, since apparently coherent thought on same fails me when it comes time to blog. a tableau of the ways in which animals creep in even though i can't have pets, followed by an introduction to my new entryway table.

sometimes you need a peace dove to hold your stirring spoon. that is all i'm saying. one of my cherished finds from sarasota bargain barn.

first elephant: one of my favorite teapots, and one of the only ones i kept when i consolidated my collection. this teapot was purchased in portugal last spring, and was first used when luis and i had our long bilateral peace talks. but i THINK i may have mixed up the two pots in my luggage, meaning the actual pot used in the process is now living with anna in asheville. this is probably okay.

the "backsplash" to my hutch - also known as a pair of ikea trays that unite senhor elephant and senhora peace dove pretty nicely!

who keeps your feet warm? because mine are protected by fabulous ~~elephant~~ monkey slippers. (editor's note: oops! elephants on the brain.) note in rest of image: fabulous shag rug, bright yellow leg of the couch i still need to sell, csail duffel bag waiting to be packed for gym tomorrow, water glass on the ground because i still don't have a coffee table.

final elephant; this guy holds quarters for laundry and i got him when i was in sarasota this past thanksgiving. currently he is running on nearly empty - time to buy another roll. also, does anyone know what sort of metal this is? i think it is tarnished and should be a gold-ish color if it were properly shined, but i don't know what products to use to clean it.

my two vases: the whale and the chickadee. currently empty because working all afternoon today means that i never made it to the grocery store - alas!

my new man: a scruffed up grunow teledial potentially dating from about 1937. it needs new knobs and some serious love to the peeling veneer top:

to say nothing of a new faceplate. from looking at pictures of old ones, they were VERY grand; a glass plated front and the gold foil obviously all in one piece. i may chip off the rest of the veneer on top and cover it with some pretty wallpaper?

it's going to be a resting place for, among other things, my first piece of milk glass (purchased in the same shopping trip), and a vase and a place to hold keys and organize stuff. since that was the only big thing i needed for my entryway, i'm in the mood to paint it a dark turquoise next weekend, start scouting for hooks, hang the asker pods i've been saving for its organization and get things into gear!

i've been away

2009-02-01T21:16:00.007-05:00

for a while. but this doesn't mean my house is languishing! lots of exciting things in the pipeline; here is a quick teaser of a project i'm working on now - jewelry shadowboxes courtesy of design*sponge!

this is my jewelry. it has been living in a small magenta pencil case for far, far too long now, and while i am unlikely to wear earrings while my ears still have a chance to freeze outside, i really enjoy the style of everything i own, and it's much more cohesive than i thought it was. i left a lot of stuff i don't wear anymore in tampa when i moved, so that could be a part of it (although now that i have space to store it, it might be very nice to bring some back with me next time i visit). these will hang in rows of three over the dresser that i don't yet have. i want something simple and danish-esque, like

this

or this.

it needs to be relatively small (no more than 56 inches across or i won't be able to comfortably access my closet - even with the door removed), and i'm not mentally prepared to pay more than $50 or so for it. i'm keeping my eyes peeled; craigslist seems to be on the edge of a major upswing. for example:

this is being sold for $75. which is a monster deal. and it is a cool, petite 41 inches across. however, i don't have $75 right now, so i am not sure how i am going to avoid being the shady craigslist person who asks for price and dimensions and then doesn't respond to the email. perhaps i will email her back during the day wednesday (strategic, as wednesday might as well be friday as far as planning is concerned - is this how people plan dates?) and see if it is still available.

back to the jewelry for a second: a quick word to the wise when attempting this shadowbox project. you may rap on the clear front of the ikea bas shadowbox, and you may think "hmmm. it's pretty inconvenient that this plastic is built in as a part of the box and doesn't slide easily in and out. still, it should be pretty easy to give it a smart tap with a hammer and take the pieces out."

imagine your surprise, then, when the plastic turns out to be glass. (caution, is all i am saying.)

other house news is mainly all about getting more settled. i'm writing this on a break from intensively cleaning, and when i'm doing i'll go right back to the final stuff: cleaning mirrors and scrubbing sinks and bathtubs, wiping down desks and windowsills and countertops, sweeping and finally using this fancy wood mopper/polisher thing i got at target. (method, you warm the wee cockles of my heart.) i have been traveling a lot recently, it seems; thanksgiving in florida was followed by three weeks here, then a week in vermont; that was followed by three weeks here, then a week in dc for the inauguration.

i've been back for a little over a week, and it seems (not including a potential valentine's weekend in quebec city) that i'll be hanging around for a while this time. new news to be on the lookout for when my posting schedule stabilizes:

- complete rearrangement of bedroom (pieces sold, pieces bought, layout changed entirely)
- sectional soon to be no more! i have a new couch (and cozy kitchen chair) waiting in the wings at eliza's house across the hall. more on the why of that later
- desk chair on the auction block
- prowling for a new monster hutch

right now my home is like a boy in short pants. (nowhere is this illustrated more beautifully than the bathtub, which is an elegantly flat clawfoot tub with an internal liner, but no billowing, lovely, entirely decorative outer curtain.) i think the time of adolescence is drawing near, though; in the next few months, keep an eye out for its hems to start to reach towards the floor.

44

2009-01-18T23:51:00.003-05:00

i'm in dc for the inaugural! i have been seeing some very inspiring interiors and stores, walking around and absorbing the feel of a city that is in a lot of ways both older and younger, wilder and more staid than boston, and buying lots of small things for the home. updates in the next two weeks.

i'm doing exciting things to my bedroom this month, and hopefully i'll have exciting things to show by the end. i wanted a dresser that someone else bought out from under me (the story of my life on chop chop), but i have faith that i'll find one happier and better, and soon.

oh, goodness

2008-12-21T16:14:00.005-05:00

so: my house is a mess.

we are having a massive snowstorm in boston and i picked this weekend as the time when i was going to start getting shit together. i salvaged shelves from the trash and i had high hopes of painting them and putting them in my closet, prompting the massive reorganization that is necessary to keep said closet from permanently becoming what it currently embodies (boxes piled on open boxes, a leaning tower of disorganization).

it took me three days to get the shelves painted: setbacks, chaos, nearly exploded pilot flames due to inadvisable indoor use of spray paint. i finished them by hand. i tried to put them in the closet. they don't fit. i tried to take off first one corner support, and then a second, for reattachment once the shelves were firmly in the closet. it's not working. so with scraped, swollen fingers, boxes strewn all over my house, along with paint dust and paint chips and a half disassembled set of shelves that i am now (guess what?) almost certainly going to put back in the trash, i am conceding momentary defeat.

i'm sure i'll come back from it. this is just a particularly low point (right? right?) and with an area rug (read: baby) on the way for christmas, my living room has to turn into something i love sooner than later.

but i hate this room sometimes. my sectional sofa, which i championed and reupholstered at great personal expense (both time and cash monies), is simply too big. it doesn't fit. my great sofa love is the anson, from room and board:

what's a girl to do? i don't have $1700 just kicking around, burning a hole in my pocket (though if i did, i might have a much nicer apartment).

so here i am at the end of december, six months into this project. broke, messy, pathetic, with a half finished sofa that i am already needing to sell off (in fact, i also need to sell the armoire - and possibly also the illest bookcase ever). they just don't work. and i feel like a design idiot.

of the eleven pieces of furniture in my house, two were trash salvages, one is still at the stata center (because i have no money to work on it, no clear idea of what to do with it and no clue where i'll put it when it's done). two are definitely being sold, and two more are in states of deliberation. (the two that are being deliberated over will be sorely in need of repainting and reupholstery if they're going to stay.) one was a gift (and i suppose my bed was also a gift, from my mom). the two salvage pieces are sort of taking up space, and all my grand ideas seem to be absolute crap right this second.

i own:

1) a kitchen island, courtesy of eliza (my awesome neighbor across the hall) and her mother in watertown

2) a scoop chair, salvaged from the trash, that needs to be reupholstered and could also stand to be lifted about ten inches off the ground so it's a comfortable place to sit

3) a vintage victorian settee, languishing in the lair of the infrastructure group

4) a three piece french provincial sectional sofa, which is beautiful and absolutely wrong for the room, and into which i've poured nearly $500 at this point - and i haven't even covered the staples

5) an ikea skruvsta chair in orange, which needs to be reupholstered and then probably sold in exchange for a desk chair with a smaller profile

6) a mid century modern desk, which i heart

7) a vintage bookcase that is cute, but painted the wrong color for the room as it's currently being understood

8) a set of shelves plucked from the trash that is even now half assembled and sticking out of my closet

9) a tall platform bed to which i retreat when times get hard (i am thinking about it right now)

10) a full length mirror that is very cute

11) a danish modern armoire that is handmade, exceptionally well crafted, and also too short and too small to be of any real use to me aside from creating disorder, and which i've swapped for a hanging sweater bag and some cloth drawers. i need to sell the armoire. i need to sell what feels like everything.

i was smart to acquire:

- my full length mirror
- my bed
- my ten dollar kent coffey desk (that was a genius move that is one of the few redeeming choices i've made)

i was stupid to do: nearly everything else, up to and including painting my walls blue, my couch trim yellow, and purchasing a great deal of furniture before i was physically in the space.

i need a design overhaul - and now I CAN'T AFFORD IT, because of the obscene amount of money i've already poured into items for this house that i may never recoup. i am broke and paying off credit card debt and living inside my means, but just barely. and i kind of hate my apartment. so what do i really have to show for all of this? not much. all i can really do is go back to craigslist to look for a couch and hope everything will just shut down or turn off soon. i'm tempted to sell this couch and go back to sitting on my desk chair or bed until i'm absolutely certain something is right. i can't do this again.

tgd

2008-11-27T11:56:00.001-05:00

i have been in a bit of a rut, it's true. i'll explain later. but for now, mainly: happy thanksgiving. i'm making a cake!

just a thought

2008-11-13T00:34:00.004-05:00

i've been in boston since june thirteenth. i have had a mini tiny nervous breakdown and a fair amount of anxiety. but it's been five months today that i've been in a situation and a place where i wake up and i am not terrified. i am not crushingly sad. i'm not depressed. life is not a weight on me.

for such a long, long, very long time, i thought that sadness was who i was. i thought i would have to make a life around the fact that everything hurt, all the time, that being alive would simply always ache. i thought if i found enough ways to mock the unhappiness or mask it or ignore it or punish myself for it or, very occasionally, wallow in it, i could get by.

this is the first time in my adult life that i am not just getting by. since i was ten years old. i can't convey how much that means to me in words - i love them passionately and with reckless abandon, but for this task they escape me. i am moving slowly in this town, it's true. but professionally, personally, domestically, even (dare i say?) sartorially: i am thriving. i am so, so proud of myself.

which is not to say i will never be depressed again. i think that would be a bit much to ask and a bit premature to state. but it has been a revelation for me to learn that eventually, it is possible to wake up and repeatedly realize that everything might just turn out okay.

2008-11-11T23:05:00.006-05:00

it feels satisfying; i'm not gonna lie. (this is the before, if you needed reminding. yikes.) piping this weekend. also, area rug, hopefully tables, pictures, pictures, pictures.

apartment bootcamp weekend is over. during it i finally finished my sectional, painted my living room, adjusted to my new bookcase and light fixture, unpacked\sorted\consolidated (everything that needs to be dealt with is in three boxes behind my couch), and maybe started to feel at home.

i'm drawing a bath now; i have worked so incredibly hard this weekend that it is time to break out the lush products. and i opened the tiny bottle of incredibly rich muscat that i bought the week after i moved in, to be consumed when i really arrived. welcome home - i'm so proud of you.

smatterings: a teaser

2008-11-02T11:58:00.004-05:00

my bedroom - which is somehow managing to look bohemian rather than merely neglected.

leaving the bedroom, entering the entryway

the bathroom looks dark and shady here, but is actually quite refreshing

this is my desk, with an ikea chair blocking it. more in-depth photos of it later (like when it's actually organized). the mounds of purple and cream paper are for my sister's wedding invitations

ignore the fact that all the boxes and the illest bookcase ever have been piled into the kitchen for this photo (a dramatic reenactment);

this is what i meant by sitting with my back to an empty room

my lovely kitchen hutch

and not so lovely kitchen cabinets

fin.

i will be unpacking later today, hopefully, and putting up my new light fixture. pictures of that, as well as the illest bookcase ever, later on. for now:

this is where we start.

holy tangible progress, batman!

2008-10-31T23:31:00.014-04:00

happy halloween.

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."

home alone and happy (nothin' brings me down)

2008-10-28T20:57:00.002-04:00

tonight, as i sit here, i have four washerloads (only two dryer loads, in all fairness) of laundry to put away. my credit card is overdrawn and i have $12.52 in my bank account. i am surrounded by boxes whose contents i can't unpack because i have no storage and no furniture, and two more are on the way. there is not really any organizational system that i have in place; my (very few) surfaces are constantly cluttered, and i have a sink full of freshly made dirty dishes.

but i just made myself a beautiful dinner, a riff on this, with baby bella mushrooms substituted for porcini and fresh spinach fettucini from a package instead of la swanson's roman handmade. it has just a handful of ingredients: mushrooms, pasta, lemon, cream. (garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper go in almost everything i eat.) i ate it in a beautiful white bowl that i got from goodwill, and i dined using - for the first time since i moved in! - real silverware.

i was in my kitchen cooking, listening to random ambient songs flow one into the next into the next, dosh into tristeza into mum into the album leaf into the ever lovely emiliana torrini (who perhaps i overquote - if that's possible), eating hot green pasta from a periwinkle colander with my bare hands, before stirring it into my fiesta orange and creamy white vintage pan to pair with my discount mushrooms. eating it in its lovely bowl, drinking ice water from a stemless wine glass with a coaster - and even before that in the kitchen, stirring in the cream, fiddling with the heat on my crotchety stove that runs wicked hot.

i realized that times are hard and money is tight and life is completely out of control right now. but this complete mess, this chaos: it's my life. i am broke, but it's MY money i'm spending. (sobering thought!) all through college i was essentially bankrolled by my parents. i worked, yes, and worked hard; i usually had between two and four part time jobs. but i used them to finance great food, vast purchases, and an amazing amount of travel. i may not reach the level of financial freedom i enjoyed as an undergraduate for the next five years of my working life, which is a little bit sad.

but all that time, i was scared in the back of my head that i did in fact have expensive tastes, as my father has always said, and that once i was reduced to the mundanities of having to pay my own rent and all my own costs, i would be completely at sea. i worried that my champagne tastes would crumble under a budget that could support not beer, but maybe water with a splash of orange juice (EWWWW. does anyone else have parents who water their fruit juice? so disgusting).

but i am living a wonderful life. i am stylish and warm on a budget, and my home is going to be the exact same thing. it's funny, because everything feels SO spare and sometimes depressing, but i am already starting to see echoes of how the future will be here. my bedroom, for example, is pretty stark. and yet it is small, so it can't be cluttered, and my bed is already the most amazing haven.

when i walk in from bringing the laundry up, my gaze falls on my entryway, which has maybe four things in it at all times: my bike helmet, my keys (both on the doorknob), my beloved vintage men's cowboy boots that i got last year in san francisco (on spring break, for my 21st birthday!) and this welcome mat from target. it is a place holder until i decide what colors i want in there and get a rug to match. but that space seems vibrant and alive; it's so small that the light is right next to the molding on all the doors, and that fact kind of highlights the structural elegance my cute little apartment has.

and my kitchen.... my kitchen is wonderful. sometimes it feels like i am constantly spending all this money and i don't see where it goes. but it's everywhere! it's in the walls and bones of my home, in the fact that i have excellent sheets and an abundance of pillows, expensive soap and fancy bras and a beautiful, functional mirror/headboard. i love the shape of my radiators and, even though i hate the fact that the only natural storage i have consists of two 17x31 closets and the area under the kitchen sink, i love the funny nooks that are created by the shape of this home.

and in the kitchen.

everything i bought in the kitchen, i bought because it makes me happy. i chose pots because i liked their shape more than the other brands, and the tupperware and vintage pan were bits of wonderful luck. i grilled the flatware selection at goodwill for aesthetic promise, and since i always drink water from wineglasses anyway, i figured i'd skip the extra step and get two sets of stemless ones for everyday use. my silverware is a set i fell in love with and poached from my parents' home - three pieces of everything. (i need to expand and buy more eventually, in case i ever have a dinner party.)

there are awesome trays i bought at ikea (busig, if you're looking - the ones with the elephants) that form a backsplash in my lovely hutch, and my dish drainer was selected to be as unobtrusive and sturdy as possible. it's a warm, vibrant space that overflows with color even though it is in some ways echoingly empty, and it will only be better once i've put in my couch and a sideboard. when i eat, i don't have favorites among my servingware or cutlery, the "nice" or exciting stuff and then everyday things that are plain. my kitchen is always at its sunday best.

i want to try to make sure that that stays true for all of my home. but this particular evening, eating green pasta as finger food and listening to emiliana, i really felt clearly that this is exactly the way my life should be, and that it's going to be okay. (i'm an anxious person; sometimes it's impossible to have too many reminders.)

home sweet home: month one

2008-10-27T22:48:00.009-04:00

all right! so here is my day. it has been a day much like any other. boxes have finally started to arrive, chock full of my stuff. while i have no storage for it, that's stressful. but i'm trying to see it less as clutter and more as population, as the ephemera that makes a home.

i also feel like after doing this project for so long, i really don't know HOW to have that much stuff. it is really freeing; once i get my shit together i think i am finally going to be able to start letting things that i've held onto for a rainy day go out into the world and be free. it's almost a lovely feeling, the crowding i am currently experiencing. here is to a bright future in an efficient, happy, loving home that works for me, where nothing is ignored and nothing gets left behind.

room by room, i am going to walk through and see how my house was populated and what has changed, so i don't feel so lame and like nothing has changed. it has, but definitely bit by bit. so starting in the bedroom and radiating out.

bedroom

- armoire arrives (first piece of furniture in home!)
- gilded mirror for above bed gets here; placed in closet
- bed is delivered - box spring and mattress
- full length mirror brought in by me and tony
- pillows bought
- new sheets bought. hate them, so
- better sheets bought
- hamper bought
- bedframe arrives! jenn and i put it together
- armoire drawers lined with decorative papers
- clothes finally unpacked
- all my shit gets stored under the bed
- mirror finally hung above bed, at 11 pm on a monday night. try not to think of how much neighbors must hate me.

entryway

- bought welcome mat
- began storing helmet and keys on doorknob (i am broke! but for now it totally works)
- trusty cowboy boots always at the ready in corner

bathroom

- hung (two) shower curtains
- unpacked cosmetics
- bought small starter rug and lovely trashcan
- bought fabulous soap dish

living room

- brought in desk
- papered insides of (gorgeous kent coffey!) desk
- washed all blinds in house
- bought small orange scale
- bought coasters
- organized cleaning supplies in closet
- cleaned and painted bookcase (coming home wednesday)

kitchen

- bought trashcan
- stocked pantry
- bought full set of glasses and dishes
- began to buy decorative display pieces and cookware (dark wooden fruit bowl, gorgeous pyrex mixing bowls, vintage lidded pan)
- silverware has arrived!

(p.s. lover man just came on. "got a moon above me/but no man to love me/lover man: oh, where can he be?" good question. that's my boston project AFTER i get my couches done.)

i wish this list were more comprehensive; there are many things lined up for this week and beyond. for example, my fabric for the sectional, although delayed, should show up soon. this is an idea of how it will look on a couch:

but i want mine to have a bright, poppy color for the wood. keyse suggested bright yellow, which i love. turquoise or even bright pink might make a slow play for the win, though - remains to be seen. i also got a beautiful idea for my kitchen couch (if you are thinking aloud "but didn't you already buy fabric for this bitch? and didn't it semi-bankrupt you?" the answer to both those questions is yes. but look!

it's vintage sack cloth! that effect would be SO superlatively beautiful on my kitchen couch, non? so i wrote to apartment therapy to see where to find feed sacks on the cheap.

i also have lots of exciting ideas for adding texture and color to the house, and this may be the week i bring the giraffe home! as inspiration, don't ya know.

so i realized: my entire life is a crusade. luis used to play this song to tease me called perfect, by fairground attraction (and the lyrics are only made more ironic by the fact that it was luis playing the song). but for better or for worse, i have never been able to settle. not happily, at least. i push myself for the best of everything i can have - but i would like to think i have fuller experiences because of that.

remind me of that over the next month when i want to cry because i still have no furniture, okay? remind me why this is happening, what i'm doing, why i'm here. remind me that it's hard, uphill to the finish - but if i'm honest with myself, i wouldn't want it any other way.

paper anniversary?

2008-10-27T00:22:00.002-04:00

it's my one month anniversary in my apartment! september 27th was the first night i spent here in my new home.

i want to make it special somehow, and will be back later in the day to post a rundown of what has changed since i moved in (more to make myself feel good about my chronic lack of couch than anything else, but also because i thrive on ceremony and ritual).

in the meantime, happy anniversary, house!

home

2008-10-19T20:47:00.005-04:00

you bring it with you everywhere you go.

image courtesy of my friend daniel, who bought this table at an obama campaign fundraiser/garage sale for $10, then rode the f train with it all the way back to williamsburg.

real simple has me super excited about food again. i need to subscribe, just because sometimes heidi swanson kills me. i love her cooking, but sometimes i am too broke to get that pivotal ingredient (which is always something like fresh amazonian lavender water for $45 a half-ounce), and it precludes me from making her recipes. also, everything she makes has at least eight ingredients, which is fun when you're feeling decadent, but not when you're feeling poor. which i am. (poor, that is. decadence is for bygone days.)

so here is what i am realizing: living within my means and still doing high quality projects takes time and forward thinking. every week, i will allow myself one splurge (under $40), and the rest of it needs to be focused on clothing and furnishings. i will start with the most important and work my way down.

this week, for example, here is what i've bought or committed to buy:

- internet (coming out of my account soon) $89
- gorgeous overhead light fixture for my living room $39
- 8 yards pale green ultrasuede for my settee $60
- 15 yards muslin for use on couches $15
- adrienne vittadini eggplant dress $39
- bright blue sieve $7
- groceries for the week $45

add that to the money i need to put aside for rent, and i'm out of cash/time. and did you notice that i still don't have any batting for the settee, or piping to cover the staples? yeah, nice.

so here is the plan for this week. i will be cooking and eating at home every night, and packing a day's lunch. i need to start doing one or two massages a week, both because i need the income and because i need to get working on my certification in case i see fit to get another side job next spring, and actually be a bodyworker part time. it's a lucrative skill, and one i enjoy, and i need to put it to work for me. tomorrow night, i will go with a coworker to an area craft store to invest the batting they have there; i know that one bag of one kind is $21. we'll see how many i will need to layer to create a nice cushy couch; i will also look into foam.

friday, i will buy only one house item:

- 15 yards couch fabric (which, if this website doesn't lie, should run me about $180)

the rest of my discretionary money next week - not a lot, as i will have to put a big chunk towards rent - will be used to buy some sweaters. i am also going to try and save up to purchase those frye boots. but mainly, planning is only stressing me the fuck out, so here it is:

next week i will buy couch fabric. when i will buy an area rug or a camera or get started on my coffee table, or any of those things, all of that is up in the air. the fabric, i can commit to. (also, cross your fingers for me that my rebate from my gym membership comes through soon, in addition to my refund from grand central apartments. that is $400 of money in my pocket that i could use for all sorts of things.)

also, i may need to say fuck you to a fall coat, because by the time i start wearing it, it will be winter. instead, i will start rocking my winter coat - which is awesome. once it arrives, i will photograph myself in it. it's salmon colored cashmere, a vintage swing coat with bracelet sleeves and new buttons i put on myself. i might get new buttons for this season, though; i am moving away from the bright gold round ones and more towards ridiculously ornate cream things (like my ring) this year. this is good, as it lowers the number of things i need to buy and ensures that i will be nice and warm almost immediately. heart.

i am pretty stream of consciousness right now; i haven't eaten yet today. (and yes, you're reading the time stamp right. last night i made this delicious and simple curried rice with shrimp, and i am moving on tonight to the tortellini with eggplant and peppers - although if you are me, it's got mushrooms instead because i hate eggplant. (ditto yesterday's onions.)

i need to start taking better care of myself, and get back on track. i am not sure where that nurturing spirit is going to come from, although my sneaking suspicion is that it is going to come from cooking, sleeping normal hours, and having beautiful couches. i'll keep you posted on that one.

progress and notions, ill and otherwise

2008-10-18T23:10:00.022-04:00

with regards to my last post:

i have been doing things around the house on an almost daily basis. taking down and cleaning my blinds thoroughly (i LOVE j.r. watkins cleaning products!), moving the arrangement of things pretty frequently, trying to set and meet priorities, planning for the future. i am not in a rut anymore; there's motion here, even if momentum is slow. i think all i really needed to do was lift my gaze from the ground.

(i just re-read that paragraph, and while it's all true, MAN! that is a lot of hippie doublespeak :)

when it feels appropriate, i've been having people over. randomly, spontaneously. i have nothing to offer them, and if there are more than two of us we can only ever sit on the floor, but it feels really nice to be able to invite people into my space. i like to see that as a positive harbinger of things to come.

i talked to luis and we decided that he wouldn't call me for a little while. there may have been crying (no prizes for guessing which one of us was the hypothetical culprit - although actually, i think we are pretty much tied right now re: weepiness). but i feel better, healthier.

i am less lonely. spending time working on my own projects or hanging out alone is becoming more of a choice; thursday night i was at an excellent, crazy party, but last night and tonight i have definitely spent at home cleaning and cooking, and both were fun.

today i bought a fabulous new dress, a beautiful adrienne vittadini eggplant colored masterpiece. i will wear it thursday. (i think i should find grey tights to go with it.) my summer palette was very mediterranean and probably influenced by portugal: turquoises, blues and teals and greens, with pops of white, flashes of pink, gold accents. now, for fall and winter, i am leaning towards rich plums and eggplants, dark denim, charcoal grey and warm cream, and caramel.

i am kind of frustrated at not having any clothes, it feels like, and never feeling warm enough. but perhaps i should look upon it as a challenge: seasonal dressing. i have no idea how northerners do it; i am almost certainly going to spend so much more money than i would have needed to in sarasota to stay fashionable/keep from freezing to death.

i need a new pair of boots, preferably leather and preferably a warm, rich caramel. and the heels can't be too high! (my turquoise boots are wonderful, but you know they hurt my toes. i love these ones from nine west:

compare those with my current cowboy boots:

summer palette, painful height. i have another, more sensible pair in a deep cognac shade, but they're men's boots, so when i want to be dainty, i have to suffer.

anyway, so i need the boots and also a fall coat. i saw one in last month's issue of real simple whose cut i am in love with, although i personally would love it in mustard. it is apparently to be found at dressbarn; there is one somewhere relatively close to here. perhaps next weekend i will find a friend with a car and take a field trip.

boots, coat. beyond that, i just need to complement and build on what i already have. i would like a host of sweaters, one blazer, two more pairs of pants and three skirts, and maybe one or two more dresses. this means i will be shopping in bits and pieces from now until december, and that my fall wardrobe will also be my winter wardrobe. i am okay with that; i love my new palette and i want to use and explore it to its best advantage.

a few further examples of why i am perpetually poor (i have semi-expensive taste):

silence and noise legacy coat

ben sherman car coat (ben sherman, who are you? i want to have your babies)

harness tall buckle boot

sam frye pleated boot or, why the world is not fair.

and now, with little further ado: ladies and gentlemen, i give you the illest bookcase ever.

befoah:

mid-paint:

aftah:

ill.

(adam, is this enough images for you? just let me know; i am, of course, entirely dedicated to user friendliness and extreme accomodation.)

next step is bringing it home, which should happen tuesday. (i have been too broke this week to afford a zipcar.) i will then paper the inside back, probably with a textured gold wrapping paper whose existence i have yet to discover at paper source - i will go tomorrow and look; i have faith that it's there. anyway, then i can fill it with stuff! exciting.

aaaaand, i bought fabric for my settee today! when i find polyfill batting somewhere, i will be able to cover it in its new skin: pale, ferny green.

{can i just note that i love ingrid michaelson? i am listening to far away, and the lyrics are so so so cute - and so me!}

as a last note: my friend nic and i had a talk a few weeks ago about boston and why it is difficult to make friends here. he pointed out that there is a definite pattern to meeting people here: you meet them and they are the most wonderful people ever and you decide that you are going to be bff, and you pledge to hang out all the time - and then you never see them again. and this is so true. but i wonder whether this is because it is a college town and people are used to you leaving, or because people are just insincere? i don't think that's what it is, though. i think people mean well and just run out of time. OR MAYBE, we in small towns (we the old me, from sarasota) are the anomaly: we see people and like them, and then we go back to them and hang out because there is no other game in town. hmmm.

a few thoughts

2008-10-07T23:38:00.002-04:00

i am determined to be physically in bed by midnight tonight, so these will be a few quick notes.

- i have not been posting recently. this is because i have been overwhelmed and sinking into a little mini-rut on the home, without even noticing it! this will change.

- i gave my first massage tonight in almost four months. some things i realized:

+i need to spend more time taking care of myself, which translates to finishing things i start and being more nurturing.
+part of my recent dissatisfaction has been NOT that i've been spreading myself too thin socially, but that in the situations i have been in, i'm not taking care of people. i am not cooking for them, making them tea, giving them presents, making them comfortable, giving them, with my home and my personality, the best of life. part of the nurturing of me has to do with being able to nurture people that i care about.
+luis. i need to handle him, in my head, once and for all; he's blocking me in finishing some things i need to take care of. not by design, but just because i'm letting him take up space that he perhaps never intended to occupy. that's not fair to anyone involved.

- people's body types are intrinsically linked to their taste in furniture, i think. i am going to develop this particular thought further, but i think it is true.

- i am kind of lonely in boston. BUT i think i just happened upon some ways of thinking i can change to work my way back to a healthier place within myself. i don't think loneliness is necessary, and i think i can prevent it as long as i remember the fact that i am new here and life is shifting on what seems like a weekly basis. i don't have to be lonely if i get comfortable in, and even happy with, being alone.

all of this is closely, deeply tied to my home, and i think the fuzziness of emotion i've been feeling recently is because i'm in this place now. i'm not planning and scheming for it anymore; i'm sitting in it now, with my back to an empty room. i need to address that, and i need to listen to myself. sorry all this is vague; it is mainly stream of consciousness for me to look back on later and ruminate on at greater length. but the end point is: i'm proud of myself tonight.

the illest bookcase ever

2008-09-30T21:38:00.003-04:00

so i just picked up that bookcase from yesterday's post, and: the guy who owned it previously had perhaps the sketchiest house i've been inside in boston. total student squat, complete with large sketchy rug, decomposing desk, clothing thrown all over the floor, and pervasive smell of patchouli, pot and unwashed boy. the guy i bought it from came out rocking sweatpants and an undershirt, which is when i knew exactly how excellent this adventure would be. he, in blissed out fashion, proclaimed that when he saw it, he knew it would be "the illest bookcase EVER, yo," and proceeded to buy it in haste.

i'm being unnecessarily snarky because i fear that the disorder of his house may be contagious, but it really made me think about the logistics of possessions and how they change ownership. i gave him $49 (we had to kind of cobble it together because he didn't have change) and carried something out of his home. i felt like it was a mistreated dog that i was taking away to the pound (stata) for a while, until i could get it rehabilitated and reintegrated into healthy, non-filthy society.

i have managed to furnish my entire apartment for under $450. that's insane! not counting a bed, but taking into account:

- a vintage desk
- a desk chair
- a five foot long wall mounted mirror
- a six foot tall floor length mirror
- a victorian settee
- a three piece french provincial sectional.

and just like that! i will need a coffee table and an end table, and lamps, and rugs, and you know. but the big meaty bones of my home are here or waiting to be here, and they all came to me through someone else. strange thought. what kinds of lives does furniture lead? how will i be changing these pieces by bringing them into my life? hopefully i will love them better, be kinder, take more care.

along those lines, i've been doing laundry all night, which means that it is time for me to unpack all my clothing and put it into my armoire. i am going to hold off on papering the inside drawers until i decide what colors i want it to be. (that is, probably until i see papers in the orangey-pink family that inspire me to greatness.) i just need to clean it lovingly with those wonderful method wood wipes and get to stepping, organizationally speaking. when i pack away my summer clothes (soon; those dresses are taking up needless space and i am never going to wear them in the cold), i will probably take that opportunity to revamp the insides.

i am also thinking about what happens when your home has a certain degree of exposure to people online? there is an apartment up now on apartment therapy that looked awfully familiar - and then i realized it was on design*sponge a few weeks ago. i like their sneak peeks because they seem just that: secret. it is so strange to feel like you recognize the inside of a home you've never been in, all because of the internet. i don't think i like it, and i'm interested to see how that reticence and instinct towards privacy will play out in my own redecoration efforts.

i also found out that there is a fall AT cure and it starts tomorrow, for some reason. i don't know why it has to be a wednesday? i was planning on condensing the cure into six weeks and starting it this weekend, so perhaps i will just stagger things out of sync with maxwell gillingham-ryan (i love his shit, but that is a thoroughly unfortunate name. take it from a fellow hyphenate!) and the crew. we'll see!

the terrace

2008-09-30T01:13:00.008-04:00

so i have moved in. i am very tired. this is because, although i have had a long weekend off of work, it has rained this whole time. i had adventures. i:

- woke up at 7 on saturday and lay on the floor until the bed delivery men came
- moved all my stuff with my friend tony
- bartered my firstborn child at target for $400 worth of merchandise
- lost my wallet
- panicked
- went to central square thinking i had dropped it there
- walked back (because my T pass was in my wallet)
- found it lying under some shrubbery
- dogsat
- walked easily 5 miles, in cowboy boots, in the rain
- waited for the number 1 bus for 35 minutes, then
- went to a party and stayed for half an hour.

this was saturday. sunday i had craigslist drama: one woman who wanted me to pay her $35 more for a $40 desk that i had already sent her money for; i went to watertown to get my cash back. then another guy had an amazing bookcase/wall unit for which i was going to break the $100 rule. but it goes to show that the $100 rule is genius, because then he got all "i don't want you to buy it sight unseen; why don't you take the commuter rail down to westwood, help me load it in the car, and drive an hour back to your house, alone in the car, with me?"

thaaaanks but no thanks. i kept on craigslist and instead i am buying this:

for $50 from a seller who is in mission hill. it looks kind of janked, but it has atomic mid century legs and i will be painting the body of it a pale minty turquoise and leaving the drawer and cabinet doors woodgrain. i think it will be nice.

sunday i also took a nice drive to norwood with my friend nic; there was no stress and no chance of late fees, which is lovely (day rentals are the only way zipcar doesn't stress me out). we picked up the kent coffey desk that the lovely keyse thoughtfully sent to me earlier in the week. i got relentlessly made fun of by my friends when i told them i was planning to buy two desks and then decide which one i liked better, but that desk was ten dollars and i liked it better than the $40 one, so i figured it couldn't hurt.

when i got there, i saw that it was a stamped kent coffey original.

i can't find an exact replica of the desk i have, but i LOVE it. it is such a great find; thanks, keyse! i will post pictures of it in a little bit - when i've gotten the router i apparently need for my computer to have wireless internet access, and that comcast entirely failed to mention. (bastards.) my desk is not in the ideal spot right now, because the ideal spot would involve stretching cords all the way across my living room; as it is they are already blocking the kitchen door. i am very much looking forward to clipping them all around the various doorways and painting them the color of the walls and then forgetting they exist!

today i was ineffectual until nightfall. i mainly lay around; my internet was installed. but after dark i went to get my bike, had a great capoeira practice, moved my bed to the opposite wall (where, counterintuitively because this is the wall where the radiator is and the closet door opens, i like it better), started deep cleaning my apartment (got through: desk, closet, outside of refrigerator, all non-floor surfaces in bathroom, windowsills everywhere but bedroom, etc), organized closets and started bringing things out of bags and boxes. i went to paper source earlier in the day, so now that the inside of my desk is clean, i can start laying down liner paper tomorrow night.

i am tired and i have spent more money than i would've liked. the zipcar and my student loan payment, which i forgot, along with $130 towards my credit card (which has been sadly abused of late) total about $350, and add $100 of groceries to that and i definitely only had $550 for moving expenses from the financial shot in the arm my mom graciously gave me. now consider that easily $400 of that went to target on the first day i went there (and i went back yesterday! spent much less, but still), and it all starts to make sense. it's good to see it like that, actually; i was feeling very frivolous and horrible for going through that much money in such a short time. but my house is turning into a home, slowly slowly.

my next priority is to finish my couches and find a soft, fluffy 6' round area rug in a light color for $100 or less. i know i can do it... i just need to watch overstock.com and keep my eyes peeled on other various sites.

i am sick of picking up and moving furniture. i am considering scrapping the handmade coffee table idea and just buying this; the seller delivers!

but silly, stubborn me - i want something warm and lovely that i can look at and feel pride that i made with my own hands. so thursday i am going to rockler woodworking to see a man about a burl.

i have to go to bed now; i am at the point of collapse. but cleaning tonight (with my new favorite favorite products, almond scented method wood cleaner and aloe and green tea scented all purpose cleaner by j.r. watkins), i felt these incredible, slow-releasing bursts of energy and purpose. i cleared up my house. i have a lot to do this week, between stripping the couches and painting the bookcase and all the stuff i have to do here. this weekend will be for buying pots, casseroles, possibly a pegboard, better sheets, some winter clothes, and couch fabric. i will be affixing fabric to couches this weekend.

i feel... harried, but healthy. i walk through my house and i see all the things i'm going to do to make it better. i can't wait until it feels warm and lived in and alive. we're getting there (dare i say it?), twig by twig.

apartment therapy: for the cure

2008-09-25T19:20:00.007-04:00

last week was a bad week for this project; it kind of foundered a bit. my fabric was thrown away, i was having a very hard time finding furniture and making it work, and during my trip to dc i lost out on a heywood wakefield sidetable on chop chop (worth roughly $850) for $19. pain, drama and pain.

but this week i feel re-energized. i picked up my keys on monday and the space feels so, so good. it may be because there is no clutter in it yet. (i dropped off my first piece of furniture yesterday - the armoire! it looks lovely.) but i get so blissed out when i walk in the door. it feels so good and it feels so mine and i love it. and i realized that i want to stay really true to the spirit of this project; i don't want to bring any trash, weight, or even unnecessary packaging into that space. it's too lovely.

so tonight and tomorrow night as i pack, i will be really culling everything i own, taking it out of bags, unwrapping it from plastic, throwing away unnecessary papers and receipts, and dealing with the clutter that i've managed to amass in just three short months in boston. i will also be getting rid of clothing that i hate, don't wear or have no use for; i think it will be good to start clean and pure, and go from there.

i am also reading the apartment therapy 8-step cure book, and so far it feels wonderful, almost savory. i am taking it very slowly because i want to absorb it all. the prose is very gentle, soothing, like a hot hot bath on a cold and tiring day. it feels like being back in massage school - not for the parts with the drama, but when we would discuss the flow of energy, getting emotionally stuck, and a thousand other hippie-friendly topics. i was probably the most skeptical one there, but some things really resonated with me as fundamental truths about life and what it means to be human.

since then, though, i've felt largely disconnected from that kind of deep knowing - until i started reading this book. i got to a line in the introduction about how the amount of things we hold onto and the heavier, not lighter, we travel is a direct representation of how little we trust the world, and others, to provide or simply to be there for us. i started crying in an instant. which was unexpected, but it's true: i hold onto things: people, slights, sadness, sometimes anger. and a lot of the time it's all out of fear. this project was conceived in part to help me move past that.

it's not going to happen overnight, but i am excited to go through all of my things and lighten my load, so that when i move it is with exactly what i need to have - no more, no less, perfect. i am so removed from the massage world right now, and i'm not seeing anyone (in terms of both dating and mental health professionals); i kind of feel like my life is a little devoid of both love and balance. so i want to try and change that. i want to make this home restorative for me. i want to make the whole thing a love letter to myself. i want to curate it and cultivate it and keep it wonderful. i'm energized; i feel renewed.

i will survive.

2008-09-21T10:00:00.004-04:00

i've had some time to mourn the loss of what would have made my life MUCH MUCH (MUUUUUCH) easier, and this week i will be returning to the conundrum of the couch. things have calmed down a little. i have secured an amazing armoire, a great desk (hopefully), and i am about to call about a side table and a bookshelf.

if i get those two things, the only items i will lack are a coffee table and two bedside tables. (then we get into wall decor, which is a whole other can of worms. and i want to start making things as well, notably my own tufted headboard and my own coffee table.)

[update: the side table sold and the bookcase is $200. way too much! so, craigslist, i am back on the prowl, moving like a shark, seeking a mid-century hutch for under $100.]

i am going back up to boston tonight (i'm in dc right now). it has been a really lovely visit, and, as sometimes happens when i travel, it's given me the mental space to face things about my life, rather than having to push them aside to get other, travelly things taken care of. there are some changes i need to make in my life, and it could be the case that this whole moving thing, instead of being a painful scary transition, is the perfect place to start. (a little mini-reset to life in boston, no?)

.

2008-09-16T11:49:00.003-04:00

someone threw away the fabric that i painstakingly removed nails from, separated and saved so that i could make a pattern from it.

thought one: thank god i measured it and took pictures of it fully laid out.

thought two: what the fuck am i going to do now?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-15T14:19:00.003-04:00

Re: 25 Irving Terrace

Hi Adwoa,

Ralph and Dotty tell me you apartment is ready and if you will put the utilities in your name your welcome to move in early at no charge. Let me know you would like to do this.

Tim Moore

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

(update: problem. i don't have very much furniture, any soft goods, any utensils, pots or pans, or a bed. crap. things i absolutely must buy sooner than soon:

- a good mid century desk
- a bed
- a funky mid century dresser

stat! craigslist, i am looking at you.)

why it pays to be scrappy

2008-09-14T13:34:00.002-04:00

because: when you see a mirror and you fall in love with it, and it's on craigslist boston but it actually lives IN KINGSTON, which is treacherously an hour away, and you call the seller and she won't deliver unless she receives advance payment....

if you are scrappy, you are still thinking about it the next day, and you call her back again and ask if she has paypal or if you can mail a check and generally make it clear that you are pretty much obsessed, and then she will drive it up once your check arrives on tuesday!

in short: the scrappy bird gets the worm, especially when the annelid in question is fabulous.

hmmm

2008-09-14T02:58:00.004-04:00

i just took a little design quiz that helped me pinpoint my style and what i automatically gravitate towards. "what?" you cry. "but when have you ever needed help forming an opinion?"

well played. but while i can appreciate a lot of things, what i GRAVITATE towards when the options are unlimited is something else entirely. what it told me about my palette was nothing i didn't know before, but looking at the home i created on this random little website has given me food for thought with regards to the home i'll be creating on irving terrace in a couple of weeks. it was incredibly strong and united, and NOT necessarily the direction i was going in with my new apartment before.

things i move instinctively towards:

- pale turquoise
- ferny green
- faded orange as an accenting pop of color
- bright, vibrant blues
- extreme wood tones: rich, mahogany, blonde, ash
- natural colors: i am endlessly fascinated by white, off white, ivory, bone, muslin and ecru
- texture texture texture! the more undyed, the better - yarn, felt, burlap, ceramics
- sleek, matter of fact plants in unexpected places
- old gold in unnecessary places
- quirky bits of nature: antlers, twigs, shells, all in places you don't expect them.

the bedroom, bathroom, and now living room were all falling in line with this. but my kitchen may be dangerously out of whack... the color of the settee is now in doubt. i don't know that i necessarily want a saffron couch or a moroccan kitchen. i do want all white or off-white dishes and cutlery, though, so the kitchen needs a big exciting pop of color somewhere, some way. what color DO i want? navy? teal, since the other couch will be blue? a neutral? it will stain pretty badly though! grey? i need to think about this carefully... while i do that, wander on over here and check out your style profile. it might stop you before you staple.

kitchen couch

2008-09-14T01:08:00.003-04:00

this time i brought out the hazard team.

my couch didn't stand a chance.

i am kind of endlessly fascinated by the insides of things. taking it down to the springs, coiled and held in tight, made and makes me feel like the kind of craftsperson who would know what to do with a bellows or a last or a strop or some other manner of old school mechanism that no one uses anymore. elderly metal and burlap and twine - now that the horsehair, funky padding, and straw are gone, i am passionately, burningly in love with this couch.

when i was younger, i took everything apart. everything. pens, calculators, cameras, etc. i think if i had been a boy, i would have been encouraged to take apart things like cars, bikes, radios - the sorts of things that have a ton more moving pieces, that you need precision and memory and skill to put back together and make functional. instead, i went the cooking/sewing/bookbinding route. i won't say that couches aren't fundamentally seen as women's work, but i love finding out the secrets of construction too much to care.

besides, while it would really help me to learn how a bike goes back together (a LOT, actually, as my own bike crapped out as i was riding down mass ave today), i don't own a car and i don't care much for radios. this is what engages me; women's work or not, it's too cool for me to get offended. i am also hoping to learn some woodworking; perhaps i will give up and make my own midcentury-inspired coffee table. (craigslist is disappointing me.) what about kidney shaped butcher block?

i almost want to let the bones breathe for a while; they are so beautiful. that is what i will be going back to on monday; my coworker will help me with the wood, and then i'll diagram out the way the couch needs to go back together, do it, and that will be that. i meant to do that tonight, but i am pretty sleepy. i took pictures at every stage, though, and it's pretty self-explanatory, so i'm not too afraid anymore.

it is amazingly empowering to know that you can take something like this apart and understand it. granted, i haven't put it back together YET, so i should probably zip the lip on this. but i have an incredible sense of accomplishment right now. and i'll enjoy this couch so much more because i haven't cut any corners, because i'm doing it the right way, and because i fully understand what's going into everything that i am doing. if i needed to, i could restring those springs. i maybe couldn't intuit the shape and tension necessary to build the wooden frame yet - but maybe that's the direction i'll go in next. anything to have this kind of raw beauty, to work it with my hands.

kitchen couch - the saga begins

2008-09-12T11:14:00.006-04:00

oh man. so, i finally started to take my couch apart. it is a beautiful, gorgeous, sweeping and stunning piece - and it is going to be SO. MUCH. WORK!

after taking a moment to gaze upon it and admire its beauty (faded, but more poignant because i didn't have to do anything to make it one whole piece), i get into it and i start taking it apart, diving in with the tools my awesome coworker ron scrounged up for me. when he handed them over, i was very blase, thinking i wouldn't need them. after all, it was before staples, right? i would just pull them out by hand. what could possible have been used to tack it down that was so very bad?

UM THANKS RON

those are wicked, possibly rusted but definitely very old, nails or pins of some scary metal variety. the types of metal-borne diseases i could have contracted doing that by hand (and the shots i would need to make sure i didn't die from that) are legion.

so i kept digging down and down and down. note to self: next time, start unhooking the fabric from the bottom. otherwise you will have an ungodly mess as the fabric starts to collapse on you since the top pieces are already unsecured:

not the way.

i finally got it stripped down all the way in the back:

or at least, as far as i thought i was going to go. but then i got around to the front and made an unpleasant discovery:

ladies and gentlemen, we have horsehair.

i thought i could just leave the basic parts of the couch intact, but the fact is that i've opened that shit up, now. i KNOW what's inside - and it's disgusting. i won't be able to sit on it happily unless i know that what i'm sitting on is not incubating hundred year old parasites, and the only way to be sure of that is to buy it new and do it myself. so i stripped out all the padding, and i'm going to have to take out all the burlap, all the muslin, all the webbing, and start again fresh: new foam, new padding, new couch, essentially.

chicago's "only the beginning" is playing perkily in my head. i'll be back in to work tomorrow to rip out everything else, clean it up, and hopefully start cutting patterns.

also, my friend alisa and i had a brainstorming session and i decided (for you purists) that i am not painting the wood. i am reupholstering the couch in saffron yellow velvet, which should be rich and ridiculous enough to offset the dark brown wood. after this, bright blue couch with old gold wood and, possibly, bright obnoxious buttons.

couches!

2008-09-10T00:43:00.001-04:00

the reupholstery begins saturday! thursday is for fabric shopping and wondering what i've gotten myself into. will report back!

new bike and eager eyes

2008-09-03T20:17:00.005-04:00

i am now officially an urban cyclist! i bought an old raleigh marathon; it's beautiful and probably from the 80s. wouldn't it be lovely if my bike and i were the same age? i will do more research on it tomorrow at work.

as for furniture, i am on the prowl. i've made a list of things i want by the time i move in, and have been trolling. craigslist seems to be going on an up and down swing, but recently there is a ton of stuff i LOVE - and almost nothing i can afford! see exhibits a, b and c:

incredible tables that i want for my bedside:

i actually went to see these and was underwhelmed. they were in the cambridge antique market, where i picked up my bike.

then there is this couch, which is the PERFECT counterfoil to my sectional:

i am in love with it. but i called the seller to ask if she would be willing to sell the couch separately, and she said i needed to find two friends who wanted the couches. sigh.

and, finally, the perfect desk, although luckily i think it is too big for my space so i can cease to pine:

now: i am a craigslist purist. i find it mildly insulting to sell things on the website for more than, say, $300, except for MAYBE cars. (maybe.) it's not a highbrow site; this is not the place. however, collectors are now posting shit on the site, as are consigners, people are doing the research and finding out that they have a vintage heywood wakefield coffee table, and prices are soaring. where has the deal gone? i ask you.

in other news: how hard do you think this would be to make?

because i love it. show me a person who doesn't need a tufted velvet headboard, and i will show you a person who is not living life to the fullest of its wonder.

also, in the works for this site: redesign. (or rather, first design.) coming hopefully soon! i need to brush up on my code, and design programs generally. but i think it will be fun.

p.s. managing the stress a little better. i made my lists, i toned it down on the weekends, i rocked this long weekend, and here it is almost the end of the week and things have gone fabulously without my really paying attention. i finally repotted that begonia, and (insofar as this is a possibility for a flower trying to hold it down under fluorescent lighting) it looks fly.

surrogate nesting

2008-08-29T22:15:00.004-04:00

i just realized that in the absence of an actual place of my own, i am going overboard on trying to nest in spite of this lack. i'm skipping a party right now to read design magazines (and maybe watch a movie) in my sublet alone, while all of my housemates are out in various places. i would feel extremely lame if this weren't a massive improvement over the past four fridays, on which occasions i've simply fallen asleep for a good sixteen hours to recoup after the exhaustion of the week.

in other, more positive news, it turns out we have a full woodshop and a ton of space at work (duh!) so my couch reupholstery can take place there! this means i don't have to buy any tools or do anything; what i mainly need to do is tell machine shop ron what size staples i need and bring in some fabric and paint. i may have mentioned that i love my job and everyone i work with, but just in case that wasn't clear: i love that place.

also! we are moving to a different space in the building - one that is three stories tall with an actual glass ceiling. i am not even going to pretend to want to break that one (as a fancy secretary), because this means i will have direct sunlight at my desk all winter long. i had some serious seasonal affective issues the last time i lived outside of florida, so that goes a long way towards easing my mind. (and yes, i was already decorating my new space in my mind. HAVE TO MOVE.)

magazines!

2008-08-28T00:24:00.007-04:00

so i went out monday night and rocked my shit at the harvard coop, just before it closed. i picked up:

domino (super excited about it! that cover alone...)

real simple (i cave; i love it - although i have to say that i find it ironic that the url displayed when you look at their homepage is not real simple at all)

craft magazine (hmmm. overpriced, but maybe awesome)

aaand one called boho. i would be lying if i said i wasn't a little ashamed that i got suckered by it, especially because i am such a walking, talking advertizement for stuff white people like. but it had such pretty paper...

i tried to buy lucky, but it confirmed what i've suspected for a while: no matter how progressive, no matter how exciting, no matter how fun, i really don't like fashion magazines anymore. i still LOVE fashion and take an almost fanatical interest in how i look.

but i have so much more fun creating looks with what's available on the ground, and i think that other categories of magazine are better inspiration in terms of shapes, colors, textures to juxtapose. fashion magazines feel like the children's abridged classics series of design: totally dumbed down.

hmm... maybe since writing my thesis (on dress and identity in sex and the city), i need more of a challenge. the fashion magazines, at the end of the day, all felt the same to me.

p.s. this past weekend was the first one since i moved to boston on june 13th that i haven't had to look for any kind of housing. absurd, but true. it was such a relief! i went to a lovely italian market in watertown, had friends over for a vat of sangria, unpacked my clothing and other than that, did absolutely shit. it felt so great!

magazines?

2008-08-24T23:34:00.003-04:00

this is a random opinion poll. i am firing my magazine subscriptions back up, and i am not sure what to subscribe to! good features and articles are important, but also a crazy attention to color and layout, because these are the same magazines i am going to be cannibalizing for my inspiration wall.

i have sorely missed bust since i left for portugal and am REALLY excited to get it back. and domino's features (namely everything that is cheap) are pretty encouraging. but what else? i kind of hated ready made's book, but the magazine is a genius idea (in theory). there was a book i LOVED put out by a magazine that folded, i think, with a title that had something to do with a budget and having good taste.

i love lucky magazine's books (they made my job as a stylist much easier, but will i love their magazine?) and i have a secret love for real simple that verges on obsession even though i am totally not their target demographic (i don't have kids); i would read it on the sly when i babysat.

so: good pictures? amusing writing? what do you read? any thoughts welcome! tomorrow i think i am going to the coop to browse the selection and see what feels like a keeper.

buying freeze?

2008-08-23T23:30:00.003-04:00

and at the worst possible time, too - EVERYONE is moving out and i could harvest their old shit like nobody's business right now. but i've been spread so thin lately that it's been hard to motivate myself to look for couches and things on craigslist and then find a place to store them for a month: that just makes me even more anxious to move in and get started!

the lovely keyse has been holding down her end by keeping me psyched about the random and amazing shit that people sell out of their homes on the internet. but although this is the time when i have probably the most buying power i am going to have this year (my rent is paid through november first - damn), so my paychecks are entirely mine right now, i am kind of overwhelmed by all of the potential places to spend money and underwhelmed by the selection.

this is not to say there isn't some great stuff out there (um: really?)

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/fuo/806574930.html

i am in love!

but the thing is, i need a couch and some furnishings that are hawaiian funky and space age chic without having to spend a jillion dollars. plus i am so overall stressed that one of the things on my list of things to do tomorrow morning is: "make a list of everything that is stressing you out." holding it down is about all i can handle.

so i am dreaming of end tables, mirrors, sewing cabinets, antique radios, floor lamps and the perfect bedside table, but the largest thing i've been able to commit to since the sofa has been a seven dollar pot. i am putting the begonia i inherited at work in it, and maybe i will work up the guts to bring it home with me one day. maybe.

porter square for the duration

2008-08-17T14:10:00.007-04:00

i found a sublet! and the entire experience has been so lovely that it is kind of reinforcing everything i started this project to embody (and it hasn't even gotten off the ground yet!)

plodding home from the gym friday after work, i idly decided that this would be the weekend i would get this taken care of. i've been looking pretty steadily since i found my new apartment, but i think i just decided that two weeks was enough time, and this was when i was going to make it happen.

saturday i saw a craigslist posting for a sublet ending october 1 (perfect!) but starting immediately - eek! still, i figured i'd get in touch with them and go see the place, and then see what i decided. i spent most of the day hanging out with a friend, and eventually made an appointment to see the place at 9pm. and i loved it! it's a 4 or 5br, 2 bath space that takes up the upper two stories of a three story house. it has two balconies, a nice big backyard, a large kitchen, two living rooms and a guest room, and it's two minutes' walk away from the porter square t station. i got a great feeling from the house and the new roommates, and i have been saying for a couple of weeks that porter square is the last frontier.

i work at kendall, stayed off of central when i was visiting boston, currently live in harvard and was couchsurfing at davis when i first arrived. i am frequently in inman on walks to the cbc, occasionally find myself around lechmere, and have even spent a bit of time in union square. all i need to do now is get comfortable in avon hill, teele square and porter, and all of cambridge will have become my playground in three short months.

anyway, the catch was: how was i going to find someone to take my current room on almost no notice? i decided to work my hardest to make that happen, but not stress about it - if it turned into a big ordeal, it almost certainly wasn't supposed to work out and i'd find something else.

i posted it on facebook, on couchsurfing, on the csail listserv. i asked my housemates. one of them said that she wouldn't mind someone from craigslist, which is the one thing i wasn't doing because i wasn't sure if craigslist could be relied upon to turn up someone i felt comfortable leaving in my place on such short notice. so, i posted it (no pictures) and waited.

i heard from ten people in as many hours, but i made my first concrete appointment with the first person who wrote back. he liked the place, so i canceled all my scheduled appointments and called my potential new housemate to see if her room was still available. and it was! so then i packed up all my stuff. it has only taken me an HOUR; i'm so impressed with that.

i am probably 85% packed and all of this will only take one trip with a regular sized car. (i am putting off renting a zipcar because i am still sore about those late fees from wednesday.) i am waiting for paul to get here and pay, and then i'll figure out the handoff of the keys with him; i am going to porter to pick up my new keys tonight between 4 and 5. this is what i love about boston; in 24 hours, two people have found housing and for me, the transition is getting pretty close to seamless.

this morning i woke up early to clean the house a little. i'm leaving my couches for the moment, so i didn't have to worry about moving any furniture, but i made my bed (for the first and last time) and tidied up the bathroom. then i tackled the kitchen: i put all the dishes in the dishwasher, washed all the surfaces, scrubbed the stove and stovefront, cleaned out the sink, microwaved the sponge full of water to steam off some of the crud and then washed the microwave with the hot soapy sponge (this is a genius idea; i don't know where i got it but it makes everything so much easier), and then swept. it was kind of lovely to be up early in a clean house with no one else stirring - it reminded me why i'm so energized by the idea of living alone! (cleaning is only wonderful if it is up to you how long something stays clean.)

after paul left, i sat around online, calling people and trolling craigslist for cabinets - it never ends. eventually, i got up and very calmly and efficient packed my belongings away. the last things i have to do are:

-pack a small amount of ceramics
-pack my clean laundry
-wash my comforter and stack it
-wash all the linens i am leaving, as well as the ones i have left in my closet this whole time, for paul.

and then i'm done. i just checked out zipcar times and it looks like the lot by my house should be filling back up around 7; i will keep checking with people i know and hoping i don't have to worry about it, but bostonians with cars are in demand and few and far between. if i have to zip, it's not the end of the world.

when i was in the kitchen earlier, packing up my groceries in the boston organics box i received this week (they fit comfortably enough so nothing will shake or move too much, but the box is not quite full), i thought about how elegant, almost graceful this whole move has been. no stress, no sense of wrenching pain or detachment. just me, up in the morning, happily scrubbing down surfaces and subtly redefining my sense of home.

this sublet will be the seventh (yes, seventh) place i've lived in for a substantial amount of time between now and last may, the last time i was living in a place where i had a lease. and that doesn't count any of the times i was traveling and therefore staying with a friend. but it's the seventh and final; lucky number eight is coming up in six weeks, and i feel remarkably calm (not to mention damned efficient) right now. next stop, porter!

dear craigslist: $50 = nice for the price

2008-08-15T20:24:00.006-04:00

i seem to be turning into the queen of fifty dollar sofas.

when i scored an amazing vintage settee in newton for fifty bucks, i thought it was a fluke. but when i saw an entire french provincial sectional listed for fifty bucks, i was sure there must be a corpse stuffed in among the springs in pieces; why else would you be that eager to get rid of such a fabulous couch on the cheap?

of course, this particular couch has been a bit of a fiasco: a hellbent cab ride to pay for it in medford before someone else bought it, followed by late fees for the ensuing ziptruck and the actual rental fee itself. with situational inflation, it is totally a $135 couch before i've even picked out new fabric. WHICH IS STILL THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY, if not quite as deeply mentally satisfying.

it has to be said that my new sectional is a violent shade of orange, and that this, along with its dark brown wood edging, makes it look like it was savaged at length by the entire decade of the seventies. but beyond that, it has BEAUTIFUL lines. i am dreaming of it in a popping shade of peacock blue with lime green, sky blue or chocolate brown edging ribbon and spray gold wooden parts, and the effects is two parts audacious to one part chic. here is a vision of one man's trash and my new treasure:

coming soon, if you live in harvard square, to a living room near you.

my new apartment/twig by twig ground zero

2008-08-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

is wonderful.

there are many listable qualities that make that the case, which i'll get to in a minute. but the main reason it's an amazing place is because i found it. it was the 59th apartment i saw.

i was thinking about this the other day, about how good things come to me, if they come to me at all. i am not, and have never been, what you might consider a lucky person. prestigious scholarships, spelling bees and sporting matches, the lottery: you name it, i've failed to win it. what i do have going for me, and what i've been lauding in college essays and despairing of, at times, in my private life since i was old enough to remember, is scrappiness.

i am a stubborn bitch; if i want something, reeeeeeally want it, i will find some way to have it. there are times when i wish i wasn't so immovable; the depth of my perseverance can be surprisingly limiting at times. but, like a heat seeking missile programmed to "good design," i seem to keep pointing myself in a direction and barreling off in search of grace.

so, the apartment - is 500 feet away from where i currently live! it's on a side street extremely close to harvard square (look up the corner of sumner road and irving terrace in cambridge, and prepare to be envious), in a U shaped building with a pretty grassy courtyard area. the building has 30 units, all one bedrooms; my windows look out on my zipcar lot.

the apartment has five main areas for decoration and design. this is all from memory because i haven't been back since the showing, but here they are:

1) the foyer. the first thing you see when you walk in, this is a small anteroom/receiving chamber whose walls hold the doors to the bathroom, bedroom and exterior hallway, along with the doorway into the living room. from what i remember, there are two wall areas on either side of the bathroom door, plus some nice divided wall space to either side of the exterior door (which sort of puts me in mind of the doors in antique schools, with the glass upper half and the number written in gold on it).

2) the bathroom: it's a beautiful bathroom! those small hexagonal bathroom floor tiles, large window, lots of space (it's a long rectangular room) that is built to accomodate the piece de resistance of the space: an antique soaking tub. i have had a hard time finding pictures of the exact style, but it is essentially a clawfoot tub without the clawfeet - same shape, but the tub sits directly on the floor. and LOTS of wall space outside the dedicated bathtub area, which has one of those oval suspended rails that means i can make floor to ceiling, super dramatic curtains that will wrap around the entire bathtub.

3) the bedroom: windows, soaring space behind the bed (this place has fairly high ceilings, which is really lovely), what seemed like way more closet space than i'll actually use, room for a queen size bed! for someone who has lived in studios for years now, i can't stress the importance of the fact that i, at 5 foot 10 and 22 years of age, am FINALLY going to have a bed that's tall enough for me to sprawl all over it. i always favored having large sitting furniture over large sleeping furniture (my red couch, therefore, is longer than my mattress), but now i can have my cake and eat it too!

4) the living room: it's a relatively small and cosy living room, which i'm okay with. it has funny dimensions and sort of cuts in and out at one point; i can't remember if that's because there's a built in bookshelf, or not. but there is more than enough room for a good desk with lots of storage above it on a wall (there's the teeniest indentation in the wall forming a suggested alcove, actually), and then leaving the rest of the room for seating and some book storage. i have my eye on so many things for this room: an antique hutch, a french provincial sectional, a set of pigeonholes for sitting on the desk even though i'm really almost sure i want wall-mounted storage for craft supplies and things... i will need a stud finder to make this space work!

5) the kitchen: the kitchen is vast. it's another long, rectangular space, with an exit down to the laundry room. right now it's set up as an eat-in kitchen, but i think i will put my settee there once i get it finished and reupholstered (it's at the end away from the bulk of the cooking fumes, plus i've always thought it would be nice to have a seat in the kitchen and now i can do that!) also, if i remember correctly, it has glass fronted cabinets that rise to almost ceiling height.

that, in a nutshell, is it. there are so many period details that i feel like it encourages an audacity that boxier, more contemporary designs might not support. i'm turning over color palettes, inspirations, feelings for each room. i want them all to feel welcoming, quirky, intelligent, fun.

i am leaning towards an updated funky schoolhouse feel for the foyer: coathooks, mirror, clock, entryway table (made of what? a telephone bench, a sewing cabinet, an old time radio?); a kind of decadent victorian lounge feel for the bathroom; sparse, comforting minimalism and large, simple shapes in the bedroom; a curio shoppe meets louisiana carnival vibe in the living room, and a soda shop/apothecary feeling in the kitchen.

the last thing about this apartment: i have no lease; it's tenancy at will. this means that this project is already changing and growing. i think this is still going to encompass all of my time in boston, which makes it a bit more mutable. i don't know when i'm leaving, and the indefinite nature of that will make it so much more of a challenge to think of this as a transient situation. i love my job, i don't know when i'll go to grad school, i am in love with this space... these are classic signs of city-nesting. my challenge is to do all that and still know when it's time to go.

buying a new camera; the photo guy at work tells me that my old one would cost more than it was worth to fix.

i found it

2008-08-07T01:29:00.000-04:00

and it's beautiful and perfect. i am exhausted right now, so more on this later, but: i move into my new apartment on october first.

the good fight

2008-07-25T19:55:00.000-04:00

wednesday marks the two month anniversary of my search for an apartment.

the past week of this, in particular, has been particularly fraught. i've met with at least one agent a day the whole week, and when i found out on tuesday after benefits training that i lost a lovely one bedroom around the corner from my current sublet, on line street, i started crying at work. (yes, it was in the elevator. but it was still two weeks into the job; i need to get it together.)

then i realized that i was trying to cheat despite myself. if i am willing to wait months before buying a couch, shouldn't i take the same care with choosing a house? remembering to take the time isn't the problem: i have been. i am not willing to settle for anything less than lovely on this. what i need to do now is admit to myself that whatever i find that is worthwhile is going to take time, and accept that, and love it instead of panicking.

i need to stop despairing and trust that it will come, and that i will know it when i see it. (and that everything will align so that i can take it when i see it. as my mom keeps calling from her vacation in ghana to tell me, i only need one apartment.)

does this mean i will have roommates and sublet for longer?

yes.

does it also increase the chances that i will get exactly what i need and make it work?

when i find it, you can be the judge.

2008-07-20T01:13:00.000-04:00

the apartment search continues. cambridge seems to be out, for my price range (i found a great job! but i would need to be making at least five grand more a year to live somewhere borderline nice, and ten thousand to be assured a great spot. which is insane, because anywhere else besides new york and san francisco, this would be a very comfortable living wage).

so: no news. i gear up to spend half my pay on housing and i'm a little anxious, wondering how i will find an apartment and turn it into a home.

compromise

2008-06-26T14:54:00.001-04:00

the place i'm moving into actually has a fair amount of furniture in flux, because some of the roommates are leaving, some are arriving, etc. so i am tentatively going to be acquiring some things, if i really fall in love with them, and getting the project off the ground slightly more slowly.

(this is probably for the best, considering that otherwise i will be rolling into a new apartment in september with nothing to sit on and no place to sleep.) i still need to fix my camera, but i am starting to look at couches; a step in the right direction.

hiatus (!) (?)

2008-06-23T12:37:00.001-04:00

so i've just agreed to sublet a room in a 4br, 1 bath in harvard square, the better to facilitate my search for a 1br in neighboring inman square. the point being that i've only just begun this project, and it's already on hold! which is frustrating.

but i've found my first acquisition: an ikea fusion table and chairs from the girl i'm couchsurfing with in somerville, natalie. i'm looking for the perfect apple/fern green fabric with which to reupholster the seats (because boring black pleather never set anyone's imagination on fire). plus, this gives me two months to get my camera fixed...

splashdown

2008-06-16T14:14:00.001-04:00

i've arrived in boston! i got here friday and am currently housesitting/couchsurfing in somerville.

it's extremely strange, and slightly unsettling, for me to see all of my stuff spread around a stranger's house; as i'm typing this (from my computer, which has colonized natalie's coffee table), i'm looking over the edge of the screen at my massage table, which holds my discarded husk of an interview suit. it's propped against my suitcase, which is more properly a massive green duffel bag that is currently messing with my head.

i am perfectly capable, or was, of filling that bag to bursting and then taking it with me places along with other suitcases. this time, i kept piling things into it, and managed to put in every shoe, undergarment, and article of clothing i own - and there was still space. i felt like mary poppins; had i been filling it on top of a table, i'd've been deeply suspicious.

the apartment search is on in full force; i'm trying to brave the grey skies of a boston june and psych myself up to go view an apartment in a part of town that is cute, but much too far away from all that is holy. i fell in love with inman square on saturday night, and i have a friend looking into leads for me there. once i can find a place, the three boxes i somehow managed to pack the best and the brightest of my life into can be shipped to me, and i can get started: at work, with this project, with my life.

the rules!

2008-06-10T15:22:00.000-04:00

so it occurred to me that i need to be clearer about what exactly will guide me on this project. for example, what is okay and what's not? here is a list, in no particular order, of thoughts, guidelines, and vaguely outlined sketches of what i'm going to be trying to do for the next year.

everything i buy for my home will be unique, wonderful, and something i've fallen entirely in love with. i can't promise that the odd purchase from target won't sneak in, but i'm going to try to cap things from chain stores at no more than twenty dollars each. everything else i'll try to source from dumpster dives, craigslist, ebay, thrift and vintage stores, and trades. (will trade massages towards certification for your mid century modern table lamp!)
this does not apply to clothing. i thought about it, and i've definitely gone through my wardrobe in the spirit of this project and purged everything that wasn't essential, fabulous, or both. but at the end of the day, i repurpose my look a lot, and i need the flexibility of being able to do that quickly.
if i don't love it, i won't buy it. if i don't have it, i'll live without it. this means that i may not have a desk or a couch for a relatively long time. when i do get one, though, i'll be wedded to it, so whatever i find will have to be worth the wait!
i will catalogue everything that i own. some things may be grouped generally (i am, for example, thinking in particular of one big photo with all the paperwork i have to deal with). but i think that knowing exactly how much i have, for better or for worse, can only really help me in terms of having a life that is a known and manageable quantity. besides, think of the insurance ramifications!
at the end of this, i will give the lion's share of what i've accumulated away. this one is one i'm still thinking about. a big part of the reason i wanted to do this project anyway is the fact that i travel a lot, and i have absolutely not figured out where i want to be in a permanent sense. but i'm also a nester and a packrat, because i tend to get more attached to belongings (and, to be fair, put more thought into selecting them) than most. in some ways i'm trying to take all of these things - the nesting, the attachment, the selectivity and the impermanence - to their absolute limits. i think it's going to be a huge test for me. but i do have to say, at the outset, that everything i acquire is something i am going to be doing so under the understanding that it is probably not mine to keep. weird!
i want your feedback! this project is kind of off the wall even for me, and i'd love any comments/input/covetous attempts to lay claim to the fabulous shelving i'll eventually procure that you have to offer me. i also expect to have a fair amount of projects because of the level of customization i want this to get to. so down the line, if you have great advice on how to reupholster a couch or refinish a hutch or hang potentially illegal ceiling lighting - or, even better, if you live in boston and you want to come help - drop me a line! let me know what you think; i think that one of the most interesting aspects of this project is going to be seeing what happens when i turn my home into, for all intents and purposes, a community with a history and a destination. i'd love for you to be part of that!

i'm still thinking about how to organize everything and what the smartest way to begin is. i think it will be with a visual/written catalogue of everything as i unpack it, once i move into my apartment. let me know if there's anything i've told you i wanted to do that i forgot to record here, and i'll come back and add it. (alternately, let me know if there's something you think i should be doing, and i'll consider it and possibly add that too.)

2008-05-29T18:07:00.001-04:00

what would happen...

-if someone moved to a new city after college with only the absolute fundamentals?
-if a running catalogue was kept of every possession acquired, and nothing could be bought absolutely new?
-if that catalogue was interactive and totally public?
-and if, at the end of a year, each of the pieces of the nest that had been built, twig by twig, was bartered or given away?

watch this space.