I Guess This Is Growing Up

We ditched a lot of our furniture when we moved. "I'm making Dan get rid of his dresser," I told my mom. "Oh..." she replied, "you mean the one that's made of cardboard?"

The idea was to buy new, nicer furniture, that we'd keep for a long time. Furniture that was carefully selected, rather than dug up from Mom's basement or picked off the trash. Grown-up furniture. 

Grown-up furniture is great, but it has its own pains.

Our dining table arrived today. It's beauteous.

($) Our last apartment was too narrow for such an extravagance, so we ate off a desk. A dining table that was actually designed for dining means we could fit more than two chairs around it. So I ordered a few more of these:

($$) But that's not all! The new apartment has a big granite island in the kitchen/living area, requiring new stools in order to sit at it:

($$$) All that together cost about eleventy billion dollars. But what of clothing storage!? Although we have two (!) closets in our bedroom, a luxury I've done without since 2006, t-shirts are in boxes on the floor. So I ordered a pair of blue dressers, to be arranged as in the photo below:

($$$$)

We haven't bought a couch yet. ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

Finally, Dan and I have been test-driving cars and looking at local day cares (∞ $). Like David Sedaris, I tend to sweat when discussing sums over sixty dollars, so the large cash outlay, while not unexpected, has been giving me The Shivers. Raising a child I can handle. Buying that child a dresser? AHHHHHHHHRGH.

LAMPS PLUS

Now that we're moving to a grown-up apartment, Dan and I are likely going to purchase some pieces of furniture that cost over $200 (although that $200 sofa we have is awesome, so whatever). One piece I've always loved is The Arc Lamp.

Its real name is the Arco Floor Lamp, and it's a mere $2,995 from Design Within Reach, excluding shipping and tax.

It's the big shiny thing.

Isn't it beautiful?! Did I mention that Dan and I recently came into a large inheritance? Oh wait, we didn't. No Arco for us.

However, at the end of our NorCal vacation last week, we spent a night at my aunt's place (great trip. Separate post). A chrome-colored lamp arced out over the living room. Knowing that there is no way my aunt paid over 3 Gs for a light fixture, I asked about it.

"Lamps Plus!" she said.

Again, the shiny thing.

 Yes! Lamps Plus carries almost the exact same goddamn thing for a fraction of the cost!

I have no idea what else we'll buy for the apartment. I'm taking a breather on cribs. But at the very least, it will be stylishly lit.

I'm Proud, But Should I Be?

A few months ago, I decided to clean up the top of my dresser.  It had been a disaster for two years or so.  "I should take a 'before' picture for the blog!" I thought.

So I did:

Oof.  Mountains of jewelry, boxes, a pointless lamp (do you really need extra light on your dresser?), pens (?), loose coins and bobby pins.  How could I live like this?  Easily, it turns out, as two minutes after taking this photo, I got distracted by the cats playing with a paper bag and forgot about it for six months.  My guess is that I just stopped wearing jewelry and therefore could avert my eyes whenever I walked by.

Because of this, it is with only limited pride that I share the "after" picture, taken after a manic binge of spending at Muji.

Because of my innate tightfistedness, purchasing overpriced acrylic storage containers was painful (I htink the two boxes on the left were about $100 total), but I made myself do it, and I made myself buy all the appropriate inserts that I would usually try and cheap out on so that the boxes would actually serve their intended purpose.  It worked.  I'd been attempting to get everything into my jewelry box on the left and let it all pile up and pour out like lava.

If the nice people at Muji would like to now attack my desk (not pictured; it's too depressing), my door is open anytime.

Spicy

Maybe it's because I'm almost thirty and therefore turning into a crotchety homebody, but I'm really excited about my new spice jars.

On a recommendation from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, I decided to go Type A on my old spice storage "system," which was basically "shove everything in the cabinet and keep the Old Bay* near the front."  I ordered 24 totally cute 4.5 oz glass jars from Amazon (also available piecemeal at Crate and Barrel), and they arrived yesterday.  I broke them out at dinner, after Dan, Melanie, Willis and I had devoured a pot of ricotta gnocchi, a peach tart, and two bottles of wine.  Pros of having family over for funtimes: no one cares when you start labeling jars at the table.

Then this morning I removed the Saran Wrap boxes and stray rubber bands that had taken over one of our drawers, scrubbed it out, and attained this beautiful, perfect, ALPHABETIZED, Martha-Stewart-like, Katie's-mom-would-be-proud Spice Zen:

WAIT!  The labels aren't straight!

There we go.

I have room for a few more jars and a couple more spices to decant, but this is just so so sooooo much better.  No more cursing because I KNOW I have nutmeg but can't identify it by feel as I fish behind everything else in the cabinet, not that that happened yesterday or anything.  

Having this one piece of perfect organization makes me feel like I can do anything.

*I make a lot of Bloody Marys.

THE WALL

I was very over the wall in the living room.  So I took everything down.

Rearranged it all on the floor.

Bianca observed with skepticism.

You know what?  I'm also over all the yellow.  So I painted.

Who's OCD?  I am!  In that light, let's make newspaper patterns of all my picture frames!

I thought I took a picture of all the newsprint bits arranged on the wall, but I didn't.  So just take my word for it: I hung up all the newspaper thingies on the wall, rearranged them until they looked good, measured where the nails should go (kind of like this), nailed the nails into the wall, and then tore down the newsprint and OMG THIS IS WHAT I ENDED UP WITH:

A picture of Pippa Middleton's ass.

On my wall.

Arranged like this.

Ugh I need to straighten out everything with Fun-Tack and a level but I've had like three glasses of wine so let's not do that right now.  It's a work in progress.

DIY

More inspiration for the headboard I will probably never make!  Nail planks together and add a cool pattern!

Image from Design Sponge (obviously), which has directions for putting this together (basically... nail planks together; paint).  I like this mostly because of the stencil; I think.  The untreated wood is cool but doesn't seem that comfy for leaning back with a book.

Speaking of stencils, while Dan was away I had grand designs of doing some massive home improvement project that he would then inevitably not notice once he came home.  I wanted to take down the hideous light fixture in our living room, but there's some funky wiring there and I didn't want him to come home to a dead wife on the floor, so instead I decided to get rid of this thing:

The lettering on my "EAT" mural never had the graphic look I'd envisioned, and since we have a ton of open storage in the kitchen (that sliver of shelf you see off to the right holds all of our pots, pans, cookbooks, bowls, plates, and random appliances) it all looked very cluttered and a little faux-down-home for my taste.

Naturally, I was too lazy to re-organize the open storage, or take all the crap off our fridge, so instead I did this:

Covered that EAT sucker with primer and a thin coat of white semi-gloss, covered the whole thing with a random pattern of painter's tape, and filled the grid in with leftover "greige" that I used on our coffee table and entryway, and a blue paint sample I bought last year for the sweaty dresser, mixed with white semi-gloss so it would dry with a bit of shine).

I like it!

Rough Life

Dwell is having a sale. I don't technically need any more bedding, but Dwell's is the best , and they have sales only rarely. So shouldn't I buy another duvet set that looks exactly like the one we already have, only in red? No? Too much?

Le sigh. Make me happy and go buy it for yourself, okay?

New Plan

Remember how I was going to make a fancy custom headboard?

Me neither. Let's be honest: Dan and I live in a rental. We don't plan on staying here all that much longer. It's silly to take on a major, potentially expensive project like an upholstered headboard without having any idea how it would fit into our next dwelling. On the other hand, I want our bedroom to look nice. I kind of hate it right now (blah blah blah good problem to have blah blah blah).

New plan!

My favorite DIY-ers, the relentlessly upbeat John and Sherry of Young House Love, had given me the original make-your-own-headboard idea with their cheap-o upholstered art store frame. While I rejected that method (since our headboard will back up to a window, it has to have legs), I didn't realize they had another, cooler option: screwing together IKEA Lack tables.

The full directions look easy, and Lack tables are cheap cheap cheap (like $5-7 each) - so my estimate for the whole thing is around thirty-five bucks. The only issue is color. Available from IKEA and in the general scheme of our room are white, pale yellow, and light blue:

Except that our bedroom is already a frothy sea of gauzy, suffocating pastels that seem ready to strangle the cats with its Easter-egg softness. Perhaps the headboard should be bolder - perhaps I could use this Ikea Hackers idea and cover the tables with fabric. Perhaps I should stop thinking about this and start going into work earlier. We'll see.

Assorted Mundane Photos

We had people over on Sunday, which means we had to clean up the apartment.  Revolutionary solution for our chronic messiness: guests.

It's been snowing off and on, mostly on, for the past few days.  Yesterday's flakes were large and fluffy and dissipated the moment they contacted earth (perfect snow); today's are wet and floppy and sticking like crazy (nightmare snow).  You could see the street when I woke up, but an hour later:

In a breakfast meeting on the 42nd floor, however - flakes fly upward.

We ate our bagels as newly minted snow globe residents, pretending not to notice.

Recently Percolating...

Dan and I don't have a real bed - and I want one.  Me me me!  Gimme gimme gimme!  My problems are so serious.  I'm like a character from It's Complicated.  Anyway, I checked out options on my last IKEA trip, but nothing there really spoke to me (also nothing would fit in the car).  After some internet sleuthing, I began to think I could make one.  Well, not a whole bed.  But a headboard.  I could do that.

The relentlessly chipper John and Sherry of YoungHouseLove made one out of a wooden art frame, usually meant for canvas:

Looks nice and sounds easy, but we want something to lean against.  This is a little flimsy for our purposes.

Then I found this one on Design*Sponge.

Holy.  Crap.

The writer made that!  By herself!  There's a how-to video and everything.  PLUS, her cat looks just like Bianca.  SOLD.  DONE.  DOING IT.

I am not yet sure where I will obtain the necessary large piece of wood, craftsman to cut said wood, swaths of fabric, or two-inch upholstery foam.  But it's going to happen.  Probably just in time for us to move.

Victory: MINE

It was time. High off success with herringbone, I knew it was time to re-tackle my nemesis: The Sweaty Dresser. I did it right this time. I emptied the drawers and dragged them onto a tarp in the living room. I sanded them. I sanded them a lot. I scraped as much paint as possible from the dressers and then... sanded some more. I primed, let fully dry, and applied a first coat of shiny white paint. I let it dry again. A full day! I've never had that kind of patience. Then coat two. I let it dry some more.

The dresser was looking pretty good. Smooth. Glossy.

So... should I just let it be, and have a shiny white dresser?

Or do I press my luck?

Y'all, I live on the edge. Plus I'd bought that green paint sample. So I taped off some stripes willy-nilly, and held my breath when it was time to rip it all back.

It worked! It worked. It is dry, hard, and smooth to the touch. Paint sweat, no more.

I am so done.

I Did It! I Did It!

I admit it, guys: the Sweaty Dresser was getting me down.

"Can I even be called a wife?" I asked myself. "Even Betty Draper could repaint a dresser, I bet."

So, I went through my list of "someday" projects, picked one, and gathered my tools.

Using our landlord's ladder, I taped out a herringbone pattern as best I could on the wall. Our walls are quite high - even with the ladder I couldn't reach the top, so I cut the pattern off rather than risk death. For good measure, I decided not to do it all the way down to the floor, either (that one was just laziness).

Then I started painting. I used leftover paint from our living room - the semi-gloss from the furniture, and the flat paint from the walls. They're similar colors (one is just a shade lighter, from the same paint chip), but I figured the different finishes would make a nice contrast.

Coat one...

Break time...

It's so important to take breaks.

Coat two...

Then I ripped off all the tape...

And voila!

I am fucking delighted with how it turned out. It looks so chic with that coat rack I picked off the trash. I'm tempted to bring the pattern over to the wall with the coat hooks, but for now, this is more than fine. Thanks, Design*Sponge, for this great idea! It didn't even take that long - under two hours from start to finish, and as I used 100% items that I already had, it was f-r-e-e. If you're looking to punch up a wall, this is something I would highly recommend.

EAT

On a whim, I recently painted this mini-mural on our kitchen wall, while Dan was at school, emphatically directing guests and residents of our apartment alike to consume their edibles.

Eh, I'm not sure whether I like it... it's a little corny. Then again, don't we need some corniness in our lives? In any case, it would be easy to paint over. I waited for Dan to notice it, and see what he thought.

And waited.

And waited.

Four days later, when Biz was over, I told her that Dan had not yet realized there was a new, large, cartoon-lettered sign on our wall. She didn't believe me.

"Maybe he just doesn't like it," she said, helpfully. "And he doesn't want to say anything bad."

Geez, awesome! I gave it one more day and then pointed it out.

"WHAT?" he said. "No. That has not been here since Monday. You just did that. You did it this morning. A week?"

I no longer feel bad about making any and all aesthetic decisions for the house.

The Tale Of The Sweaty Dresser: Continued

Last we left off, the dresser in our bathroom went from looking pretty good...

...to looking like ass.  Smash and Biz came over last weekend and were like, Meghan, what the F is up with this assy-looking storage unit.

"It looks even worse than my manicure," said Smash.

Even Carla and Bianca were like, Megz, for realz, get with it.

(Okay.  That was just an excuse to post a cat picture).

FINE, guys, FINE.  I'LL FIX THE G-D DRESSER.  

I caved and bought a sample-sized jar of green paint that had not been tinted with anything edible.

I sanded the shit out of the sweaty green paint, to remove as much as possible.  The friction even burned my fingers a little, I was sanding so hard.

I taped off the white stripes.

I filled in the background with green paint.

I let it dry (mostly - just to the point where it would no longer drip).

I pulled off the tape.

And pulled off half the white paint with it.

So... it still looks like ass.  Just in reverse.  Reverse ass.

It's not an improvement.

Food Coloring Paint: Not So Much (aka The Tale Of The Sweaty Dresser)

The saga continues. Remember how I painted our bathroom dresser with food coloring paint? I thought it would be cool to add more tint to the batch as I did each drawer, for a three-toned look.

At first, it totally worked.

But here's the thing: food coloring is water-based. And if it isn't fully dissolved into the latex paint - ie, if you use a lot of it - it can "sweat" out when it's damp. And where is it often damp? The bathroom. So a few showers in, the lowest drawer started looking a little schwetty.

I didn't mind the look, but it was also kind of a disaster waiting to happen in terms of staining everything that entered the room. So I rubbed off as much of the excess coloring as possible and tried to disguise the cruddy-looking, splotchy results with diagonal stripes.

It... kind of worked.

Oh wait, no it didn't. Not at all.

I'm taking a breather on this one. The Tale of The Sweaty Dresser will return after I mini-muralize the kitchen. Stay tuned.