Home sweet apartment!

As promised, please allow me to show you around my new place! Well. Parts of it. Obviously I'm not gonna show you like...the bathrooms, or the guest room/office, which is currently a cat shantytown (by which I mean it's full of half-empty boxes). But parts of it look pretty legit! Almost like actual functional grown-ups live here! Let's look, and I shall regale you with tales along the way. Also a quick disclaimer: these are all cellphone pictures, because I didn't think to pack my camera. Worst. Blogger. Ever. 

Living room! So, this was the hardest to pull together. We started out with no living room furniture at all, so we had to shop around for a couch, coffee table, and entertainment center thingy, then wait for it all to get delivered. We ended up getting everything from Rooms to Go. The entertainment center came first because it was a floor model, so it came from the store rather than having to come from a warehouse. You'd think that would mean it was faster and easier to get, and you'd be right if they hadn't first brought us the wrong one. It worked out eventually though, so I won't complain too much. 

I'm obviously really fond of all the furniture we got (or else I wouldn't have picked it),  but the entertainment center is probably my favorite part. I just think it's super interesting and stylish, plus it's nice solid wood, so it'll last for ages. And since it was the floor model, it was an attractively discounted price. The bookcase is just a simple Room Essentials brand one from Target (there's another one just like it, but shorter, in the bedroom). The small table by the door (from Ikea several years back) is just temporary--at some point I'd like to replace it with something more decorative, maybe a little art deco number of some sort. For now it's a good place to keep sunglasses and things that get misplaced on the way in or out the door, like wallets and phones.

The chairs are, again, and surprising no one that is at all familiar with my Target addiction, from Target. They're lightly padded and are actually surprisingly comfortable, especially considering how affordable they were. If you're wondering why the table from by the front door is over there hiding behind the table, it's because the day I took this was the day our couch was being delivered, so I scooched it out of the way. That table, by the by, is actually a source of great pride. It cost us a whopping fifteen dollars. Yeah, I said it. FIFTEEN DOLLARS. Of course, it started out life looking like this:

I mean, it was assembled. I'm just not great at forethought and didn't think to take a picture of its starting point until I'd already gotten it disassembled to get it home from Goodwill. You can see it started out with some uninspiring laminate on the tabletop and plain wooden legs (feet? I feel like the legs are actually the brass part, which would logically make the wood parts the feet, but...then aren't the little balancer thingies also called feet? Or are those toes? Someone help me, table anatomy is not my strongsuit). But I really liked the unusual silhouette, and I had a vision for what it could be. A bit of sanding, some primer, and two coats of shiny black lacquer later, and it's a sassy little beast. 

 

Speaking of sassy beasts: bonus cat picture! It kind of vaguely shows off our lovely wooded view (we got an apartment on the back of the building, so our balcony is relatively private and quiet), so it's sort of on topic. Mostly I just like to give the people what they want, and what the people want is cat pictures. I assume. 

Here's the rest of the kitchen. The island is movable, but it's really useful where it is, providing valuable prep space, so it's most likely going to continue living there. The walls by the table desperately need some sort of art or shelves or SOMETHING, anything to make them less bare, but as you can imagine, decorating the walls is lower on the priority list. So for now, let's just pretend it's a minimalist statement.  

And of course, the most important part of any domicile: a nice comfy bed. One of the things I was most excited for about this apartment was the fact that the rooms are surprisingly huge: big enough for this king sized monster. I know the picture doesn't show much detail, but the bed frame is from Ikea and has four gimongous drawers underneath for bonus storage. Our closet is respectably sized, but we also have a lot of stuff, so extra storage is always welcome. The mattress was a gamble, since I bought it online without having tested it out at all. The reason I made this leap of faith? It was only around $300. For a king size, 8 inch memory foam mattress. With free shipping, even! That's a steal. I got it through Sears, whose return policy on mattresses gives you 60 days to return or exchange if it turns out to be hideously uncomfortable. Luckily it's a damn DREAM to sleep on, so we didn't have to worry about that. The duvet is a linen/cotton blend set from Target that I got on clearance for half off, and the sheets are the Pure Beech Jersey set in black, which I got from Bed Bath and Beyond and used a 20% off coupon on. I tell you this because I am a long-time evangelical when it comes to these sheets. They're well under a hundred dollars, even in king size, come in some fun colors, and are easily the softest sheets I've ever touched. I've had several sets over the years, and I recommend them every chance I get. Seriously, go feel the sample at BB&B if you're in the market for sheets.

And now, after detailing the glory that is that bed....I think I'll go crawl into it for the night. 

So how's Georgia? PEACHY. Get it? Because...peaches...? Sorry.

So I moved! Oh wait, let me back it up a second. I got married! Following the age-old adage of "pics or it didn't happen," allow me to prove to everyone that this handsome fool was actually silly enough to marry me. I know, I don't get it either. 

Look how cute we are! Gross. Anyway, so we got married on July 18th, went on a glaaahrious honeymoon to Cancun, and moved down to Augusta, Georgia a month later. It was kind of a pain to be married and still living apart for a month, but, you know. Sacrifices for love and all that good stuff. 

And now we're (mostly) settled in! I've only been here about a month but I'm already loving the area. Everything I could possibly want--grocery store, movie theater, bookstores, even a shopping mall--is a five minute drive from home. And if we're feeling REAL crazy and drive a whopping fifteen minutes, we can be in downtown Augusta, which has tons of local shops, restaurants, and cool things to check out.

The actual task of making this apartment feel like home has been a trial at times, but I'd call our place maybe....85% done? We haven't tackled the second bedroom yet; it's going to be used mostly as an office, but we're planning to custom-build a desk that will go all along one wall and have enough room for both of us to have our own workspaces. It'll require some work, not to mention a two-hour drive each way to Ikea for the parts. But that's a post all its own! Beyond the office, all we really have left is small things, like finding cool art to put on the walls, and functional nightstands so we don't have to sleep with a little pile of books and glasses and phones in the bed.

Now that things are starting to quiet down and I'm establishing some sense of a routine, I'm ready to get back into posting here. I think I'll shoot for two posts a week; maybe some combination of Monday or Tuesday and Thursday or Friday. I know I've been...sporadic, at best, for quite a while now, but sometimes you just have to focus on your life so the important things don't pass you by. Hopefully you'll stick around to see what happens next! Well, I can tell you what happens next. I post some pictures and fun tales of the new place, later this week. Spoiler, I guess? See you there! 

Friday Favorites: Seemingly Quite Shallow Right Up Until The End Edition!

FAVORITE THING TO LOOK AT: PRETTY STAR-SHAPED LIGHTS

     I've been eyeballin' these at Target for a few weeks now and finally decided to pull the trigger because, seriously, look at them. They're glowy and star-shaped, and you know I love anything star or moon-shaped. Plus they give off a good amount of light for the time frame when I'm not ready to go to bed yet, but need to be calmin' down the ole brain-grapes.

FAVORITE THING TO DO: PLAY THIS GAME AND YELL "DAMN IT YOSHI"

     I've been loving this game since Jen and Jason gave it to me for my birthday. I'm kind of awful at it though. I get greedy for perfection, so I'll go back to get that one last coin, then die and not finish the level. The struggle, she is real. But it's really fun anyway, and Yoshi makes the cutest freaking sounds you will ever hear in your life when he gets wings,  to the point that I actually get a little upset that I can't just go see a Yoshi in a petting zoo or whatever.

FAVORITE THING TO SLATHER ON MYSELF: THIS LOTION SMELLS LIKE FREAKING DELICIOUS

     Um. I feel like I kind of said it all in the title, but let me try and find some other things to say about it. It's a really thick lotion that smells like strawberry-flavored candy and is, in fact, very moisturizing? It definitely doesn't smell like literal fresh strawberries (the minute someone invents that scent I will buy stock in it and bathe in it indefinitely), more like strawberry cake. Which is obviously fine by me because I like to smell like one delicious confection or another at all times.

FAVORITE METAPHOR FOR POSSIBILITY: THESE FABRICS

     These babies arrived in the mail from fabric.com the other day, and since then I've grown quite fond of gazing lovingly at them and imagining all the things I could make. The pink skull fabric, I want to use to make a simple short a-line skirt, because I think that would make a suitable visual representation of my personality: looks normal and cute from a distance, but then when you get up close you go "ahh this is actually kind of weird and macabre and I'm maybe a little scared?" The other two fabrics I honestly just wanted to have in my possession. There was no goal in mind for them, I just wanted the option to make something out of them should inspiration strike at a later date. I'm told this is how craftily-inclined types start fabric stashes. I'm fine with that, I'll build a big ol' fabric hoard and sit on it like a dragon. No shame in my hoarding game. 

Well it's no "forever comfy," but it's a damn sight prettier than that too.

     Have you seen the infomercials for the Forever Comfy? It's pretty convincing. It will make your butt comfy forever. For all eternity. In this lifetime and the next, you shall have the comfiest bum. I want it kind of badly, but also not at all because I'm not an arthritic 80 year old postman who needs to shore up his La-z-boy's defenses before plopping down to watch golf and eat a microwaveable Salisbury Steak. So. 

     Anyway, I needed a new cushion for my desk chair, because the one I had was not squashy enough to suit my needs, and it was also bought as a placeholder while I looked for something better, but it did that sneaky thing where it hung around for like eight months without me noticing. Originally I wanted to buy a new chair entirely, because the one I use is actually a decades-old kitchen chair that is badly warped and incredibly uncomfortable, but it turns out chairs are expensive and I am le poor. So the next best thing was to get a new cushion, and when I couldn't find one that was the right dimensions and suitably cute, I realized it was time to engage the craftiness ray. I picked up a cushion filler thing-jig and a nice geometric print duck cloth that matches the accent colors in my room (like the dark blue throw pillow on my bed and the various blue tones on the back of my desk), as well as a zipper so the cover could be removable for washing purposes (important because I sit at my desk and do my makeup, and apparently I put makeup on like a toddler, so it gets everywhere). And then...

     Cue the record scratch sound, because I couldn't actually find the motivation to stitch it up. I go through phases with my DIY-ing, where for a while all I want to do is craft this, sew that, make this, but then for a long time I might not want to make anything (except food. I always want to make food). Or sometimes I wake up with a weird urge to clean, and all I'll do is clean for three days. I dunno, it's a weird process. 

     But whilst I was out the other day my mom decided she felt like sewing, so she made it for me to surprise me when I got home! She's the best. And she even took all the pictures in this post so I could blog about it. Did I mention she's the best? So! Here's how she whipped it up. 

     After cutting two pieces of fabric that were two inches bigger on all sides than the foam, she folded the edges over half an inch on one end of each piece of fabric, ironed them down, then laid the zipper on top of the folds and sewed it in. 

"Put a picture of the zipper in, that's the most impressive part!" she says. I know this picture is from later on, but we're talking about zippers now, so whatever.

Then she opened the zipper and sewed a half inch seam on the remaining three sides.

     For the corners, she opened up the seams and lined them up. The cushion was three inches thick, so she measured three inches edge to edge as pictured, then sewed across that line. Then when it's turned right-side-out, it looks like this! 

     And that's it! I came home and found my chair looking all snazzy like this.

     And the best part is it makes that chair of angles and sorrow a thousand times comfier. 

Curiouser and curiouser...

    So the theme for Evie's nursery is... Alice in Wonderland! Jen and Jason figured that she should get a similarly literary nursery to keep the bookish theme going from one nursery to the next, and Jen has always loved Alice in Wonderland, so it was a natural choice for them. But they wanted to keep it classic, not Disney, and ended up with a very classy, subtle take on what could be a crazy over-the-top theme. Let's peruse! 

     My mom made these curtains from scratch when shopping around didn't turn up any inspiring options. The Alice in Wonderland clock on the wall was ordered online, but it doesn't actually keep time, so I don't think I'd recommend wherever it was bought from even if I knew. 

     Jen's had this old chair since college, and the pillow is hand-made, again by my very talented mom, from a fabric panel and leftover scraps from the curtains. The baby blanket on the back of the chair was crocheted by Amanda, because GOD WHY IS EVERYONE I KNOW SO DAMN TALENTED, and the rug is from Target.

     More amazing custom things! My parents collaborated on this tea party chandelier. It was originally just your standard builder-installed light fixture, but my mom painted it green, added some crystal trip to the top, and hunted around various thrift stores for teacups and saucers, then my dad drilled holes in them so they could be attached to the lamp. 

     Are you getting tired of "oh, it's custom" yet? My dad made that picture frame after we saw one in a store that was similarly shaped but cost well over a hundred dollars. 

     I guess technically this isn't directly thematic, but it was cute and Jen liked it when she saw it at Hobby Lobby (can you tell we like to shop there for home stuff?), so once it was painted the room's main colors, up it went. 

     Finally, this cute little detail. This lightswitch cover is from Etsy, and it's just a tiny little thing that adds a ton of personality.

     I don't know the names of the paint colors in this room, but the walls are a creamy warm beige and the ceiling is a classic baby pink that reflects softly onto the walls in a really dreamy way! 

Harry Potter Nursery II: Now in 3D!

     Ok so it's not actually in 3D, I just like to make my post titles sound like summer blockbusters sometimes. But let's be honest, 3D blog posts would just give you a headache anyway. The reason this gets a sequel title is because Jen and Jason moved a few months ago, so the nursery situation underwent some shaking up. It's mostly the same elements, with a few new things thrown in for fun. The biggest difference is that this room is so. much. bigger. than the old one. Let's have a look around, shall we?

 

     Hello, friend! This is the same owl light and bird cage from the previous house. The cage is from Hobby Lobby, nobody remembers where the owl lamp is from because our heads are filled with air dead flies and bits of fluff (obscure Harry Potter reference: engage!). 

     The wall art is custom, made by my best friend Stephen because he's at that level of talented where you want to hate him for it but then you're like "ehhh, he's a good kid." 

     This is new! They're a bunch of Harry Potter character illustrations from Etsy, framed in deliberately mismatched frame styles to visually reference the paintings in the staircase at Hogwarts. 

     And over here is the old-timey style trunk, which is also from Hobby Lobby, and an ornately framed Ikea mirror. 

     The wall color in this room was color-matched to Benjamin Moore's Woodlawn Blue. In the old nursery they didn't want the walls to be too blue because it would look like a boy's room, but that's the other exciting thing about their new house: the twins each get their own nurseries now! I'll be showing you Evie's on Wednesday, and it went in an entirely different decor direction...

This is where the magic happens.

     By which I mean this is where I sit when I wake up at four in the morning and I need to know how long narwhals live and it cannot wait until morning (30-40 years. Also did you know that the word narwhal comes from Old Norse "nar" meaning "corpse" and "hval" meaning "whale," because their skin is the color of a drowned sailor? CORPSE WHALE. If you don't think that is the most metal freaking thing ever then I don't even know what to do with you).

     Disturbing but educational intro aside, today I thought I'd share a bit about where I do all ma workins. I go through phases where I get a leeetle obsessed with looking at other people's workspaces online in an effort to find inspiration for my own. When you work from home I think it's especially crucial to keep your work area organized and pleasant, or else you'll end up sitting in bed on your laptop, which wrecks your sleep habits because your brain is a fragile little goofball and if you do your work the same place you sleep your brain gets trained all wrong and every time you climb into bed you suddenly have all the thoughts in the world like you looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Says like, every sleep doctor ever (apparently a sleep doctor is called a somnologist, google tells me. The more you know insert shooting star here). Plus you start to lose all sense of where you do life things, so then it's "well I can have a snack while I work" and eating in bed and before you know it you're one of the future humans from Wall-E. Bad news all around. Anyway, the point was that I wanted to show you guys what my current work set-up is. 

     SO. Lemme tell you what we're looking at. I recently added a second monitor to the situation, which obviously made me twice as productive (citation needed). My dad recently replaced his computer and asked if I wanted the monitor, so I figured "hey, yeah, that could actually be really helpful" since I'm always looking for ways to force myself to do work at my actual desk. And it has worked out really well. I've got the external  monitor set up as an extension of my laptop's screen, so I can swap windows between them easily, like if I want to have a document I'm editing for a client open on one screen and the APA style guide open on the other so I can double-check the formatting of how to cite a radio address with a host, a speaker, and a ghostwriter who received acknowledgment, or what have you. Plus this way in my down time I can be watching Game of Thrones and pinning Daenerys-inspired braided hairdos on Pinterest at the same time. Timesaver!

     Originally I had wanted to be able to just plug it all together and close my laptop, hence the keyboard, but apparently the wifi on my laptop can't work when the lid is closed, for boring technical reasons relating to wifi antennas and other such things that I do not care about. But that just led me to the two-screen setup, so it worked out just fine. I kept the extra keyboard because the external monitor is bigger and a lot easier to look at (constant vigilance against the scourge of eye-strain, people), so it's my "main" screen, and it felt weird to type off to the side. I can still scooch it back if I need the space to work on a physical manuscript (or a place to sit my cereal bowl, let's be honest). 

     Other than that we've just got my makeup brushes and liners and such, which has to stay here because this is also where I get ready in the morning (hence the mirror behind the laptop). Which leads me to my other recent switch-up: the system of boxes I've got going on the upper shelf. I'm always trying to figure out a way to store my makeup that isn't a huge mess to look at but doesn't make everything hard to get to. Previously I had pouches up top and a clear organizer on my desk that didn't really keep me organized. Now all the boxes sit up there (open, so I can pull them out and grab stuff easily. Except the black and white box on the left, which is lipsticks. I don't need to get in there as often; I don't wear much lipstick anymore because I like to kiss on my baby niece and nephew all the time and I'm scared of being the crazy aunt that leaves lipstick marks everywhere) keeping my stuff corralled but accessible. So, from the left it's nighttime skincare stuff in the first brown box, morning skincare in the second, my usual everyday makeup in the pale pink box, then on the other side there's other eye makeup in the white box, palettes underneath, and finally blushes, foundations, and powders to suit all my varying skintones throughout the year, ranging from "shining full moon white" to "only safely viewable through a pinhole in a shoebox." Man, being a girl is effort. 

     So for now, at least until I find a new tiny inconvenience to rework my entire system around, this set-up is working really well for me. It's organized, it's functional, what more could you ask. The only problem I can think of is that the plant up top on the left (remember that bulb I was growing?) is OUT OF CONTROL and looming over my head as I type. It's a little disconcerting. Look. 

     I admire and fear it all at once. I don't even know. 

Quick Fixes: Annie get your glue-gun.

     You know how sometimes you'll just be going about your day when you notice something...off? Just a tiny little thing that isn't quite right about your house or your life or whatever, and you think, "Oh well, it's not that big of a deal," but then you can't get it out of your head and suddenly it's been like a month and you've been slowly simmering up a nice rage stew that's about to boil over because OKAY SERIOUSLY LET'S JUST FIX THE DAMN THING. You know that feeling, right? Well, this bedskirt was one of those things for me.

     Do you see it? Do you see what was worming it's way through my brain, slowly driving me to madness? It's one of those bedskirts that just has elastic at the top, so you can wrap it around your boxspring instead of putting it between the boxspring and the mattress. Which is a cool idea and all, but my bed has a little tray thing with slats across, so I can't use it that way. So I thought it would work just fine if I wrapped it around the wooden frame on the long side of the bed, then tucked it inside at the foot of the bed, so it hangs inside the frame, unimpeded by slats. Genius! Except not! Because that meant it slipped all over the place and was never hanging right. So I added some velcro dots to the skirt and the frame, and they worked for about a minute before the adhesive on the velcro dots gave out. SOOOO I took the hot glue gun to it and attached them more...permanently (MUAHAHAHA. I dunno. Felt right). Now they hold the bedskirt in place and at the right height and all that good jazzy stuff. But then. BUT THEN.

     The corners. The corners didn't lay right because they're switching from outside the frame to inside on one continuous piece of fabric, if that makes sense (does it? It can be so hard to step outside my own brain sometimes). SOSOSO. The solution here was just a simple slit at the corners to allow the bedskirt to switch over from outside to inside the frame more... seamlessly. And if you're wondering why I set that up like it was a pun, it's because it's totally a pun. I didn't do any seams. (Ba dum tssss). Instead I took the glue gun to it again, just folding a tiny bit over on each cut edge and gluing in a little hem to keep them from fraying/avoid ugly raw edges.

     Are you ready to see the infinitesimally small difference that had a huge impact on my sanity? Ok, here we go. Ta-daaaa.

     I feel like this really shouldn't be so gratifying to me, because normal people probably wouldn't even notice it (I mean, I'm guessing. I don't actually know any normal people, I don't think), but like I said. It was one of those THINGS.

A Fun Fact About Me...

     ...I am never, ever content. Well, when it comes to my decor, anyway. I always have to be adding, changing, rearranging something. I don't know why. I'd blame it on astrology but I'm a Cancer, the crab, and all that says about me is that I'm a sensitive recluse (accurate) who tastes delicious in butter (?). Anyway, so remember how juuuust the other day I talked about switching out my bedding? Yeah, I bought another new set.

     See, it turns out I really missed my old sheets, but I couldn't just put them back on because they were legitimately overdue for replacement -- just too worn and dingy to carry on. I had kind of taken them for granted until I bought the microfiber ones, which were soft, but not oh-my-god-I-will-rub-my-feet-on-this-for-ten-minutes-before-going-to-sleep-each-night soft. 

     The other thing that was driving me nuts was that since the microfiber fitted sheet didn't have elastic all the way around, it came off CONSTANTLY. I have a stupidly deep mattress (because I insist on keeping a 3-inch memory foam topper on it -- no regrets, it's amazing), so maybe on a normal sized mattress it would be fine, but with all the tossing and turning I do when I'm having a random night terror about neon pink and yellow scarabs crawling up the wall (I don't know man, I don't even know) it popped off every single night and bunched up everywhere. 

     So I bought a set of the kind I used to have, in a pretty blue color. These sheets are elasticized all the way around, and they're also a lot stretchier, so the annoying bunching problem is solved. 

     And I know you can't tell from looking at them, because they just look like any old sheets, but HOLY FREAKING GOD THEY ARE SO SOFT. And I don't bestow that caps-lock-iness lightly, because I have the sensitive skin of a Victorian noblewoman and I'm really persnickety about my tactile sensations. I'm that person that goes through stores touching every single pillow and blanket and sweater and either "ooooh!"ing or recoiling in horror. Fear me, germophobes, for I have touched textiles all up and down the eastern seaboard. I'm really good about washing my hands though, so there's that. 

     Um. Right, back to the point! These sheets that I'm so in love with are the Pure Beech Jersey Knit Sheets. I got mine from Bed Bath & Beyond, where queen size in light blue ran $69.99 at first, but came down to around $55 with a coupon. That's pretty spendy for me, but I haven't even had the slightest anxiety about spending money on these, because getting into bed every night since I got them has been a serious treat, and I wake up in the morning feeling like a freaking butterfly emerging out of my silky-ass cocoon. I wanted to give everyone a heads up  that I believe they are discontinuing a sort of artichoke green color and a deep pink grapefruit-y color, since they aren't listed on the website anymore and in store they had those colors marked down to $9.99! NINE NINETY NINE. Amanda bought a set of the dark pink ones just because she didn't want to lose money on that deal. Point being if either of those colors tickle your fancy and you want the nicest sheets your face could possibly drool on, go check out your BB&B and see if you can find them, cause that's a hell of a deal. 

     Actually, my searching their website for that link up there led me to discover they also have something called the "Ultimate Luxury" sheet set from the same brand, so that's probably the nicest sheets your face could possibly drool on, but they're considerably more expensive. Not gonna lie though, I actually winced and groaned aloud at the thought of how amazing they probably are. I think I might have a real problem with sheets. My Gatsby would just throw a bunch of breathable organic-fiber sheets around and I would sob and say "They're such beautiful sheets. It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful sheets." 

Quick Fixes: Bedding Swap!

     I don't know what's come over me, but I'm definitely in a mood for quick fixes these days (spoiler alert: Monday's post is another one). It's like that need for instant gratification my generation is so known for finally caught up to me. 

     Today's quick fix is probably the number one easiest way to update a room and give it a new feel without having to actually...you know, work or anything. Switching out the bedding! I decided I wanted new sheets because my bamboo sheets, though super soft, were looking really grody and worn through, and the cream color looked especially off-putting against the white of practically everything else in my room. I also decided I wanted a new comforter, because I do this thing every once in a while where I convince myself I am a quilt person, and I do want to be, because quilts are lovely and have a lot of personality, but when you get right down to it I'm a comforter person. I always end up missing the plushness of a comforter. I find it...comforting. Go figure. And as someone who has the shaky, easily rattled disposition of a chihuahua, I need all the comforting I can get. But enough chit-chat! Let's look at pictures! 

Oooh, somebody got her grubby little paws on the Orton filter to make it look extra dreamy...

     The comforter set was actually a pretty easy choice, because I'd just convinced Jen to get this style, so I knew exactly where to find one. I guess I thought it was a really really great idea, so I copped it for myself too. I got it at Stein-Mart for a cool sixty bucks, which I thought was pretty reasonable since it's queen sized and came with two shams and a bedskirt (that I did not use because it was kind of tragic-looking, but still, it counts for something). 

     Then I picked out these navy blue and white polka-dotted sheets. I went with that pattern partly because I wanted to bring back some of the blue that I used to have in my room, which kind of got phased out a bit over time as I added more white and pink, and partly because there weren't too many options that would have matched and I figured "hey, I've never said no to navy and white polka dots before, why start now?" They're microfiber, so they're reeeeeeeeeally soft, and they were only twenty dollars. Since they were so cheap they do have that annoying thing on the fitted sheet where there's only elastic at each corner, not all the way around, but for the price I won't complain too much. 

     So my cloud-bed grows ever more literal in its design. I'm pleased with how fluffy and light it is, and it does brighten the room a good deal in comparison to my old quilt, which had gray and yellow in the design that kind of made it look like it was always dirty, even though it wasn't. The only weird thing is that since the air in the house is so dry the comforter makes a truly RIDICULOUS amount of static. I can run my hands along it at night and it lights up like it has actual bulbs in it. Naturally this means that the first night I slept under it I spent half an hour frantically googling "very staticky blanket fire hazard spontaneous combustion," but apparently it'll be fine once it's not so dry and I'm only at risk for spontaneous combustion if I'm an extremely heavy drinker or live in coal-mining country and go to bed covered in coal dust. So unfortunately my dreams of being a coal-miner are now out of reach, but other than that, yes, pleased as punch! 


     

Gold on the Ceiling...Ok, tin but whatever.

     Check. Out. What my dad put up in the kitchen this weekend. 

     This epicness is the new tin ceiling. It's super fancy and historical looking and makes me feel like I should pop on a monocle and drink tea from fancy china with my pinkie out. It only took a day and a half-ish to install, probably because my pops is superhuman and never runs out of energy, so he just works and works and works until everything's done. I did not inherit that trait. I'll work until I feel like I've made a good amount of progress, then spend ten minutes googling videos of goats jumping or whatever before I feel refreshed enough to start up again. I have methods, don't judge. Anyway, we're all basically colonial-president-level fancy around here these days.

     The tiles are from American Tin Ceilings, and they were pretty pricey, but it's something my mom has wanted for a long time, ever since seeing all the gorgeous old tin ceilings in Downtown Fredericksburg. Plus you just send them the measurements of your room and they draw out all the plans for you, so that's nice. There's lots of other really beautiful options, too (go here if you fancy a looky-loo). These are the 24 inch tiles, so they're not too small and busy or anything like that (although I think small tiles could be cool in the right room, or even as a backsplash). 

     So next time you're thinking "Hey, I need my house to look at least 30% more like a set from Downton Abbey," maybe a tin ceiling is the answer! 

From fail to...slight less...fail-y....I dunno, these puns don't write themselves, you guys.

     So remember when I re-did that lap desk? Yeah that turned out to be a total failure. It sucked the first time around anyway because of that whole thing where I had forgotten why I freaking hate Mod Podge so much, but even after I finally thought I had it done with spray adhesive and clear lacquer, it ended up not working out. 

Booo, hissss.

     As I had feared, the paper pulled up on the edges and got torn up. Luckily I had a backup plan. See, it had occurred to me about an hour after I finished, as ideas tend to do, that if I was going to go with white and gold stripes, why didn't I just paint the damn thing in the first place? But at that point it was too late. 

     Which brings us to me tearing off that paper in big, satisfying chunks. I thought it would be miserable to scrape it all off, but it was actually alarmingly easy. But once it was all gone, there was this...

     The spray adhesive had left a sticky lumpy mess behind that I couldn't just paint over, so I took some sandpaper to it. Once that was done, I took some white spray paint to it...

     ...which was HORRIBLE AND PATCHY AND MADE ME FEEL SCREECHY AND THE SCREECHING ALARMED THE DOGS. I seriously had a rage meltdown at this stupid spray paint. It sucked so bad. I kept doing nice thin coast like good spraypainters are supposed to, and it just...never got any better. Once I'd done a truly stupid number of coats and it dried it didn't look quite as terrible, but I still glowered at it for a while before deciding if I even wanted to keep going. I was at a point where I'd put so much work into this stupid lap desk and it still looked like crap, so I kind of felt like I should just trash it and go buy a new one somewhere. But I persevered! Mostly because if I hadn't I wouldn't have had anything to post about today. Except maybe "I tried to do a project but it sucked because I suck at everything DESPAAAAIR" and I feel like I do those posts pretty often as it is, so. Anyway.

     After I gave it a good long while to dry, I taped off some stripes with Frog tape, since that's supposed to be le so much better than regular painter's tape. I just eyeballed them, because that's how I roll. 

     Then I went to town with my gold spray paint and pulled the tape off as soon as I was finished. Well, technically I waited long enough for me to fumble around for the tape packaging and read through all the "don't eat this, you'll die" warnings to get to the directions and find out if I was supposed to wait or not. Then I pulled it off. It felt like an accomplishment that I didn't have any color bleed underneath. 

     The stripes ended up covering most of the lingering patchy weirdness, and once I coated it with clear lacquer and brought it into its habitat it didn't look messed up at all (high praise). 

     So I guess I'm...satisfied with it? It works, it looks nicer than its previous incarnations, and it shouldn't peel up or chip or anything strange like that, and at this point I'll take that as a win. I know, I know, I'm almost too inspirational: "DIY! Take a drab thing and turn it into something that you don't entirely despise!" 

It's curtains for you, my pretty!

     I dunno, sometimes I like to indulge my inner weird-guy-with-a-curly-moustache-tying-someone-to-a-train-track. Whatevs. 

     But to get to my point, now that we've got the puns and wordplay portion of the day out of the way, I finally found new curtains! You may recall me whining about how I couldn't find any I liked anywhere on the whole internet. Well, I finally did! I ended up going with one of the first options I looked at: the Ikea Ritva curtains in white. They're a nice medium weight (so, thick enough to block a little cold, but thin enough to not block much light) with a faux-linen texture, and they came in a nice, super-long 96" option that only ran me about fifty dollars. Total. For both windows. Yeah, that's a bargain. I wanted extra long curtains so they could be hung extra high and be the height of the room. Home decorate-y types always say that makes your rooms look taller and grander, and damn if they weren't right. Granted, part of the effect comes from the curtains being white (vs. the dark blue I had before), which will obviously make the room feel more open than a dark color. But it makes quite a difference to the feel of the room; it feels bigger, more grand, and brighter. But enough blathering, let's look at pictures at different times of day because I was overly-enthusiastic and, as a result, perhaps a bit over-thorough!

     Here's the morning (complete with cat-butt) shot, where you can see what I mean about how these curtains still let in lots of light. 

     Here's a late-ish afternoon picture, mostly just because this is my favorite time of day to be in my room. It's all cozy-feeling and warmly lit and delightful and I like to take my naps this time of day. What, I'm secretly a granny, ok? 

     And here's just after sunset, when I think the tallifying effect of the longer curtains is most noticeable in person. 

     Regardless of time of day, I'm really happy with how a simple curtain-swap changed the whole feeling of the room. I seriously spent at least ten minutes the night they went up just staring at them and smiling to myself in satisfaction. Is that weird? Nah, right? It's fine. It'll be fine. 

A weather "event?" What, like a gala or something?

     So here we are, east coast friends, once again on the cusp of a weather "event" that's going to bring cold and snow and ice and misery upon us. Oh well. I'm trying to make the best of it -- if nothing else it's a stellar opportunity to wear all my sweaters at once -- but I must admit I'm not looking forward to another round of winter weather. Mostly because, here at least, snow isn't a pretty winter wonderland thing where it's all fluffy light pretty snowdrifts and junk (I feel like that's a thing in Canada? I dunno, I've never been to Canadia-land. I'll ask a Mountie next time I meet one. Also, did you know that Mounties are actually totally badass? Like they'll chase you straight over the border into the States and shoot you down with a submachine gun if you try to flee after, I dunno, stealing a moose or whatever? Fun fact). Here it might be pretty snow for a couple hours, tops, but there's always a layer of gross slush and ice underneath that just makes it treacherous to try and get anywhere and mucks everything up with gray ice-goo.

Shit, weather.com, you ain't messin' around, huh?

     But the bright side of a weather mess like this is it's a great excuse to stay in bed bundled up like a burrito all day. Unless you have a job that won't be closed due to inclement weather and you have to trudge out there no matter what to keep society from falling into chaos -- like working for the power company, Dad -- in which case, sorry that you have to do that, but thanks for preventing the collapse of our nation's infrastructure, I guess! I work from home though, so here's how I'm getting ready to spend a few frosty days indoors. 

NEW INSULATING SHADES! 

     Hey look, a solution to all my complaining about how cold my room is! These replaced the room-darkening pull-down shades I had before, and it's a massive improvement. They keep my room noticeably warmer because they're honeycombed, so there's an extra layer of air pockets to keep warm air in and cold air out. It used to be that you could step across the threshold into my room and instantly feel the drop in temperature, like a ghost lived in here with me. Now it's much closer to the temperature of the rest of the house, and I can sit at my desk over by the window without fear of losing fingers to frostbite now! The added bonus is that they're not room-darkening, they're just "light-filtering." I consider this a plus because I don't like to wake up in a dark room, and my room faces west anyway, so it's not like the sun busts in here at dawn. I need the light to be able to come in and help me cobble together some semblance of the Circadian rhythm I seem to have been born without. With these shades I can keep them shut at night to prevent all the heat from getting sucked right out the windows without having to sacrifice the morning light. Yay! 

THE HEATED BLANKET THAT I PROFESS MY LOVE FOR EMBARRASSINGLY OFTEN!

When I first got this, I hooked it up that night and without my contacts in, I could swear it went up to 11, Spinal Tap style. I was crushed when I realized it just said H for "high" or "hot" or "hell yes" or whatever. 

     I know I talk about it more often than some people talk about their children, but I seriously think I have become a person for whom a heated blanket is a necessity. This could be because I have the cold tolerance levels of a 95 year old chihuahua, but whatever, it's amazing. There's nothing cozier than pre-heating your bed while you take a shower, then climbing in like a human hot-pocket to combat the after-shower-shivers (serious condition). 

THAT WORK THING I MENTIONED I DO!

     This weather event, be it snow/ice/raining men, will at least be productive for me because I just picked up two new books to edit, just in time to keep me from going crazy if I get stuck in the house! I've been editing a lot of research papers and citation lists lately, which is still fun because I get to learn about things I otherwise wouldn't (and even citations can be kind of fun because it's basically just rearranging and formatting things according to a set of prescribed, if somewhat arbitrary, rules, which is supremely satisfying to anyone with a slightly compulsive personality), but I always get extra excited about editing stories. I mean, getting to read books for a living is kind of a dream gig, yeah? 

     I hope if you're in an impacted area you're all keeping warm and entertained however you so choose, be it working, catching up on a month's worth of missed sleep, or marathoning all the Harry Potter movies!