the illest bookcase ever

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

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

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.

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?)

.

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?