Things to do in 2014

In 2013 I posted a list of 100 things to do in the year, based off of a marvelous post from Summer Pierre's blog . I accomplished 28. It was interesting to actually write down goals though- not just weekly projects, or long-term plans, but a mixture of "hey this is neat I want to do this," and "this is a concrete step I need to take into adulthood or whatever."
But try as I might, it's February and this year I've only thought of 50. I didn't want to just Ctrl + P last year's list, though there are some repeats. Maybe it's because I'm a little consumed with trying to find paying work right now, but I can see myself more easily adding things after I've posted it, because then it's out there. Or maybe it'll stay at 50. I'm decisive!

things getting me through finals week and moving

1. Baking. Lots of baking. Partly that was due to Thanksgiving, but also because of oh my god I'm gonna die I'm so stressed out cookies om nom nom nom. Expect some recipes soon.
2. The episode of Angel where Cordelia gets her haunted apartment. It's the best episode of anything in television history.

I feel you so hard girl. 

3. Mischievous kittens.
4. Painting my nails- black to match my soul.
5. The beautiful twinkling lights of Manhattan. If you're not from the area, you might not know that the weekend after Thanksgiving the city emits even more light pollution than normal in the form of string lights bedecking every mid-town business and Upper East Side biddie's townhouse. I love it.
6. Thinking of things to put on my 100 Things To Do in 2014 list.
7. Thinking about actually being able to do those things when my freaking finals end aaaargh. 

bedroom plans, part 2

After a short Thanksgiving break, we're back! 

 

-My wall color choice is fascinating- gray. I know, right. I want something on the wall, but the current color can't decide whether it's yellow or tan. Also, I remember being extremely impressed with my friend's gray room in 9th grade and loving the color on the walls, so I'm pretty sure it would look nice.
-I need a good way to store records, as my collection is growing and may soon escape the book shelf I'm storing them on. I've seen some Expedit units being used as good record storage, and I could use the top to hold my player as well. Currently it's sitting on a small trunk, but I need storage too and I can't use the storage if the record player is on top. Major world-shattering problems obviously.
-I like having a big table top for a desk.I'm hoping that by getting rid of the GIANT dresser that's taking up a lot of real estate in the room now I'll be able to re-claim some office space. Right now I'm thinking that I can just get a nice piece of ply, sand it, stain it, and slap some hairpin legs on it and be happy. For storage I can stick a locking file cabinet underneath.This desk is pretty cheap too, so it could work.
-After a recent robbery, I'm definitely feeling a place where I can lock up my laptop in a place that's hard to carry out. Enter: file cabinet that can fit under a desk. Obviously not against the industrial look too. I'm not linking this- it's from Office Depot, go wild.
-There's a (fake) Eames molded plywood chair just hanging out in the basement and it kills me every time I see it down there. It doesn't really fit with the rest of the house's decor (antiques), but still.
-More band posters! Have to maintain my punkness somehow. Check out Lemuria, they're the best. 

bedroom plans, part 1

   So in a short while I'm moving back to my dad's house. I was trying to think of an exciting way to start this post, but that's about the gist of it. My dad lives in a town in Westchester co. New York that could easily double as the setting for Hocus Pocus if they needed to make a gritty re-boot. It's a nice enough place- you feel safe, but there's still a tattoo parlor.
   Since I moved to New York for college, I've lived there intermittently- a month here and there during vacations, the longest stretch being an entire semester when I commuted from there to the city. That semester was a miserable one, partly because my schedule made sleeping consistently and enough impossible, and partly because I was very unhappy with living there. My room was not really my own. On the few occasions I was there I couldn't do anything by myself; I had to rely on others to take me everywhere. The latter I've solved quite easily (hello new-old car), but the former I'm still planning out.
   The room was planned for use by me, but designed without any input, and now I always feel like I'm in a guest room. Let's change that.

Let's take this left to right:
- Let's get this out of the way: I'm a boring Manhattan Nest/Door Sixteen devotee- whatever. This pattern is so simple and lovely and cheap cheap cheap! I noticed Target ran out and then re-stocked so maybe the blogosphere loving this rug ran up sales? I don't know, but I need to get it before it runs out again. (here)
-Hygge and West removeable wallpaper. Not sure how my dad/stepmother would feel about wallpaper, but I have a small wall I think this pattern would look lovely on, and it's removeable! Again, another Manhattan Nest find, but I swear I have other influences (lies).
-The Lillesand. Sadly discontinued at Ikea, I still love the lines of this bed. My ultimate would be an old iron bed, but I have a feeling I can find a cheap Lillesand on Craigslist- I saw one in a Salvation Army for $30 last month but had nowhere to store it. Urrrggh.
-My middle school love for Riot Grrrl has not lessened over the years and Midge's print is awesome. I need some cool art, because right now I have nothing.
-This is the Patchwork Dresser from West Elm. See that price tag? Naaaah son. It's also not quite the shape I think I'll need either. Right now I'm thinking I can paint and stain an inexpensive Tarva dresser from Ikea. I can have more control over the stains and hardware, plus get a tall boy (do other people call 5-drawer dressers tall boys or is that just my mom?)
-Speaking of Ikea, a Hektar floor lamp might be in my future. I have the baby version mounted on the wall next to my bed in the apartment right now, but depending on how the new layout works, papa lamp might be called for. I've been lusting after it for a while online but I recently saw one a friend's place in person and it is fairly huge, so it's definitely something to consider.

   I have a lot of other plans, but I can't shoot my load all at once.Tune back in, catch you on the flip side and good night and good luck,.

Christmas Time is Here

   The night started off with string lights. The night ended with blood and lube on the kitchen table. This is going to be anti-climactic.

   So I got it into my head this year that I was going balls to the wall on Christmas this year. New York is awash in twinkle and glitter from mid-November on so I came back from Thanksgiving ready to go. My Charlie Brown tree is adorable, but lacks omph. We need a big tree. Unfortunately, the whole dorm aspect rears its head again. Even if we could have them (despite fire hazard/buggy concerns), my roommates and I don't have space for a tree; the only spot that's not less than 4-5 feet wide is directly in front of our bathroom door.

   So obviously, the solution was to go flat. I went to Home Depot this weekend to help my dad and drool over the 20V DeWalt drills and spotted these hooks.

   Tiny. Good for hanging lights. Hmm.

   I remembered that A Merry Mishap made a really cool Christmas tree out of string lights a while back (here) and I thought that might be the solution. More interesting than a decal/construction paper and I could re-use the lights. Sold.

   The second step, of course, was to go back to Home Depot when I got back to Manhattan because I forgot to get lights the first time. Check it:

   I cannot tell you how excited I was. I was all set to post this and go I BOUGHT A BILLION LIGHTS FOR FOUR DOLLARS YOU ARE KIDDING ME SUCK IT DUANE READE. But if you pull the sucker move of actually reading the price sticker then you'll see that $3.12 is the price price a) clear lights b) only 100 of them c) definitely not the lights I actually wanted. So I ended up paying like $10, which is still really good, okay?

   When I got home I was planning on roping my friend Lindsay into helping me string them up, as she's been crashing with me for a couple of days. Unfortunately, she had some excuse about "being at the library" and "not failing my senior thesis class." Sure, whatever, Grinch.

   My roommate Katy helped my sitting at the kitchen table, reading things on the internet and occasionally saying nice things when I decided to lay down on the floor.

   So first thing you want to do is made a big triangle on the wall with a pencil. A straight-edge is helpful but I don't have one of those. I do have this art however:

My room doesn't look like this anymore.

    Draw some lines with the edge of your anatomy art. Don't take pictures, that requires three hands.

   I had to start my lights by plugging them in at the only outlet in our common area, which is directly behind the kitchen table. After plugging it in and stringing it around a door, I put some little hooks on the bottom  and and started to zig-zag the lights, adding hooks as I went.

   Then I got frustrated when hooks started falling off  all willy-nilly and vaguely remembered something about pressing Command hooks into the wall for 30 seconds and stopped to read the back of the package. Shit. You're also supposed to let them sit for an hour. I threw my one-by-one plan out the window, put all of my hooks up at once and gave them the span of an episode of Arrested Development to set until I went light crazy again.

   None of the hooks have fallen down again and it's almost been 24 hours, so I'm going to go ahead and say that's the right amount of time.I strung more lights, and ended up with this.

   I was...okay with it. But the left side didn't have the same line the right did, the the "trunk" going off to the framed doorway looked slapdash. That's right around the time Lindsay came home with chocolate milk, red food coloring, a Ziploc bag of hand sanitizer, and hair gel and asked if she could use the lube in my RA stash bag of condoms for the residents. All the ingredients for making props blood.

   I whined about the tree for a little bit, we tweaked and now I'm pretty happy, despite the zig-zags in the string itself (they'll be gone next year when I can roll and train them properly, ugh).

   I don't like that the doorway asymmetrical and not framed, but the tree is an actual triangle shape now and when we decide on a star it will look like it's shooting out a stream of wonderful lights. No trunk either, but I am eyeing wood wrapping paper at The Container Store that I know I shouldn't, but probably will buy.
  
   And one with the lights on, just for kicks:

With that settled, I helped Lindsay make the blood for her props class, and testing the water v. gel qualities of different packs of lube. 

   Do you hear a ring ting tingling? I do.

In the beginning, there was a Michael's receipt

Hey guys. Grab a seat. Not on that soap box, that's mine. Listen to the tale of how I've ended up at the sad, sad point that I'm at in my life: starting a shelter blog (with minimal shelter).

So over the past couple of years, I've gotten really into interior decorating, (really, reading about interior decorating- I'd always had interest in the actual practice) after stumbling onto Apartment Therapy via some research on apartment rentals. My interest surprised me at first, but thinking back, the pieces add up. In short: insomniac little girl who reorganizes DVDs and bookcases becomes creative writer at arts high school, renowned mainly writing goofy humor columns, then moves to NYC for college and flips the bird to her high school sweetheart, English Lit, while hopping on the back of Technical Theatre's motorcycle and riding off into the sunset. End run-on sentence before presumed life-long unemployment.

Are you effing kidding me where's the stuff about DIY and making knock-off West Elm pendant lights out of egg cartons, and EAMES SHELL CHAIRS?

Calm down, this blog will mostly be about not my past, but my present fails. So here's the deal: currently, I don't actually have a place of residence where I can change like, anything. Daniel Kanter always has very funny spiels about how people who say they can't do anything to their apartments are dirty liars, and he's pretty much right. Except: I live in a dorm. Yikes. I'm even a Resident Adviser so rule-breaking is uber-forbidden, because I'll get fired.

But, but, but: I'm planning on getting a place (with roommates) sometime in the summer. Originally, I was going to start this blog then. However, my good friend Lindsay suggested I start it now: "Think of how cool it would have been to read a blog with tips on how to decorate in a dorm!" Plus, I could always use another creative outlet.*

*Thing that makes me procrastinate.