oh, goodness

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

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

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.

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

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.