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qosI spent Saturday moving some 700 books off the bookcases in my 'office' that flooded last week (or at some undetermined time previous to that), unfastening the bookcases from the security brackets on the wall, and moving the bookcases out of the room so I could take up the carpet underneath them. It was a most-of-the-day project, and I ended up calling my mom and asking her to come over to help me with her sense of proportion and style because I have a poor visual-spatial sense, and was feeling overwhelmed by trying to find good places to put them while I worked on the office.
It's a good thing she agreed, because I would never have realized that three of my bookcases could fit against the wall opposite the three built-in bookcases in my living room. Now I have lovely symmetry, and will be able to have almost all my books in one place. The fourth bookcase has been set next to the one already living in my foyer.
Of course the next task is to get all the books back on shelves. Fortunately, I have a nearly up-to-date card catalog in Excel, which has been helping. And I had wanted to re-shuffle them anyway. I got 1/3-1/2 up off the floor yesterday, and the rest are going up this morning.
Then I go back into the 'office' - which I think is going to become the 'studio' - and scrape the wall where the old paint is bubbled. The two external walls are painted concrete, the internal ones are finished. The paint bubbled on the external wall under the window. (Have I mentioned the basement has intermittant problems with water??!!) Today I will scrape the bubbles off and wash the walls. Next Saturday I will paint the walls yellow, re-do the white trim, and paint the metal air duct white.
I'll have to take a break at some point next Saturday to accept receipt of the couch my mom and I bought after our dinner break. I've been using a love-seat sized futon couch, which used to be in my Ex's home office. It became my bed after we separated and then sold our queen-size set, then came out to be a sofa after I got a new bed a year ago. It's not bad, as futon couches go, but I don't particularly like futon couches. I don't like the wood frame, the non-cuddly surface, or the way half the futon sticks out on the back side, taking up space. The only thing I have liked about it is the cover, which is a multi-colored, paint-spatter look -- but that doesn't go with the decor I'm trying to develop in my living room.
The new couch is officially "eggplant" colored. The surface is micro-fibre and looks almost like suede. It has the perfect proportions (for me) for seat depth, width (my living room is rectangular, and the couch needs to go across the short width), back height, and comfiness of the back and arms. I want my living room to be a place that embraces a person when they come in. I want a couch I can curl up in. This one is perfect. Even the price was right.
And as it happens, the Ex has not yet spayed our daughter's no-longer-a-kitten that he brought home last summer, and a week ago she took to peeing on his futon couch, ruining it. (Have I mentioned that I am not a pet person? I have one small creature living with me, and she is more than enough - and she's potty trained!) So he gets a futon couch back (which I had already offered, and been declined) and we all come out winners. Except the poor cat, who still is neither spayed nor allowed to breed, making her one intensely frustrated little she-cat.
It was also nice to have Mom affirm one of my decorating ideas that I had been debating for some time. My front door is at the end of a short hallway that opens into a square room that is too small and transitional to be anything but a foyer, but large enough to call for some kind of decor. I have a rather large collection of movie stills and press photos (courtesy of my eBay habit) that have been living in plastic sleeves in notebooks. I've been wanting to paint two walls of the foyer black, use stencils to put an irregular border of white stars on the top of the walls, and then frame my best photos in silver and display them on those two walls. But I was nervous about having black walls. My mother - who I always think of as conservative - immediately replied, "Oh, no - the black would be perfect! Especially if you're using it as a backdrop to a lot of framed pictures. I think it's a wonderful idea." So that will probably be my next project.
In my copious free time, of course, when I'm not studying. But I've been in this house for four years now, it's past time I got motivated to make it look like I want it to. This is my first "just mine" space: I own it, and I don't share it with another adult. I can do what I want with it, and it's long past time I overcame my intertia and lack of confidence and did what I could. I did re-paint and re-tile my bathroom two years ago (the tiling did not go well, but it's a vast improvement over the piss-over-pondscum linoleum that had been there), and it's time to move forward again.
It's a good thing she agreed, because I would never have realized that three of my bookcases could fit against the wall opposite the three built-in bookcases in my living room. Now I have lovely symmetry, and will be able to have almost all my books in one place. The fourth bookcase has been set next to the one already living in my foyer.
Of course the next task is to get all the books back on shelves. Fortunately, I have a nearly up-to-date card catalog in Excel, which has been helping. And I had wanted to re-shuffle them anyway. I got 1/3-1/2 up off the floor yesterday, and the rest are going up this morning.
Then I go back into the 'office' - which I think is going to become the 'studio' - and scrape the wall where the old paint is bubbled. The two external walls are painted concrete, the internal ones are finished. The paint bubbled on the external wall under the window. (Have I mentioned the basement has intermittant problems with water??!!) Today I will scrape the bubbles off and wash the walls. Next Saturday I will paint the walls yellow, re-do the white trim, and paint the metal air duct white.
I'll have to take a break at some point next Saturday to accept receipt of the couch my mom and I bought after our dinner break. I've been using a love-seat sized futon couch, which used to be in my Ex's home office. It became my bed after we separated and then sold our queen-size set, then came out to be a sofa after I got a new bed a year ago. It's not bad, as futon couches go, but I don't particularly like futon couches. I don't like the wood frame, the non-cuddly surface, or the way half the futon sticks out on the back side, taking up space. The only thing I have liked about it is the cover, which is a multi-colored, paint-spatter look -- but that doesn't go with the decor I'm trying to develop in my living room.
The new couch is officially "eggplant" colored. The surface is micro-fibre and looks almost like suede. It has the perfect proportions (for me) for seat depth, width (my living room is rectangular, and the couch needs to go across the short width), back height, and comfiness of the back and arms. I want my living room to be a place that embraces a person when they come in. I want a couch I can curl up in. This one is perfect. Even the price was right.
And as it happens, the Ex has not yet spayed our daughter's no-longer-a-kitten that he brought home last summer, and a week ago she took to peeing on his futon couch, ruining it. (Have I mentioned that I am not a pet person? I have one small creature living with me, and she is more than enough - and she's potty trained!) So he gets a futon couch back (which I had already offered, and been declined) and we all come out winners. Except the poor cat, who still is neither spayed nor allowed to breed, making her one intensely frustrated little she-cat.
It was also nice to have Mom affirm one of my decorating ideas that I had been debating for some time. My front door is at the end of a short hallway that opens into a square room that is too small and transitional to be anything but a foyer, but large enough to call for some kind of decor. I have a rather large collection of movie stills and press photos (courtesy of my eBay habit) that have been living in plastic sleeves in notebooks. I've been wanting to paint two walls of the foyer black, use stencils to put an irregular border of white stars on the top of the walls, and then frame my best photos in silver and display them on those two walls. But I was nervous about having black walls. My mother - who I always think of as conservative - immediately replied, "Oh, no - the black would be perfect! Especially if you're using it as a backdrop to a lot of framed pictures. I think it's a wonderful idea." So that will probably be my next project.
In my copious free time, of course, when I'm not studying. But I've been in this house for four years now, it's past time I got motivated to make it look like I want it to. This is my first "just mine" space: I own it, and I don't share it with another adult. I can do what I want with it, and it's long past time I overcame my intertia and lack of confidence and did what I could. I did re-paint and re-tile my bathroom two years ago (the tiling did not go well, but it's a vast improvement over the piss-over-pondscum linoleum that had been there), and it's time to move forward again.
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Date: 2004-04-04 11:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-04 02:41 pm (UTC)I ache everywhere!
Decorating
Date: 2004-04-04 12:44 pm (UTC)Did you tile your bathroom yourself? I'm thinking of doing that as well but am a little intimidated.
Re: Decorating
Date: 2004-04-04 02:48 pm (UTC)I used the press-and-stick tiles, and still have not forgiven the Home Depot "expert" who gave me incorrect information. They can be a good way to tile, but what the packages don't tell you (and the Home Depot person didn't tell me, but some friends did after the fact) is that you need to also get some adhesive with which you pre-treat the floor, and rent a roller to press them down after laying them.
I spent hours cutting the tiles to exactly the right shapes, since my bathroom floor has some strange borders, and I wanted to cry when I realized that the tiles were not staying in place after application. So now I have cracks between some of the tiles that all fit perfectly when I first laid them. I haven't had the heart or the energy to re-do the project.
What I really want to do is make sure we've got all the water problems fixed, then save up and get a professional to install Pergo or other flooring. In the meantime, I'm going to paint the raw floor and put down some thick area rugs.