Faking It (Curing Without My Book)

Alana and SCB have already thrown down the gauntlet, so I will follow along as best I can. Like Alana, I hate being forced to pick actors and actresses as representations of my style. As much as I enjoy movies and TV, I find them completely irrelevant to my life in general. So let it suffice to say I'd like my home to be Modern, Multicultural and Tidy. I am sick of the word "ethnic" as a grab-bag of cultures so I feel like Multicultural encompasses our tapestries, statues, rugs and art like I wish Modern would encompass our furniture and overall style. And good lord do I want it to be TIDY in here. I have never done the one-room cure and without a book, I am going to wing it from Alana and SCB's answers. It's not quite cheating.

Art styles that I like are Art Nouveau and Deco, ornate but not in-your-face about it. Artists I enjoy are more of a mix, including Michelangelo and Henry Moore, I like sculpture with clean lines and a little heft to it. I like Asian-style wood block prints and music posters for their firm grasp of shape and space and what I now think of as retro styling. And I love a nice botanical or otherwise vaguely academic-looking print.

This is in my office. From Aesthetic Apparatus. I love CAKE.

I look to the past for my style cues more than I look to popular culture. My current love is old WPA posters and Bauer pottery and I want to get a job so I can invest in some new decor for my new casa! Also, I find it weird to advertise for things I am not a fan of - thus I have a CAKE poster that I love but I would never have, say, a Justin Bieber poster, no matter how attractive the typography. Same with the WPA posters - I desperately want the Lassen poster because I love driving through there, I would feel weird with a Mt. Rainier poster instead as I have never been there.

Delving into my personal history doesn't tell me much. My last place we lived at for about five years and I was happy there. Painted everything and fixed it and puttered around making it my little nest. Before that I was single and rented random rooms, I usually painted or shampooed the carpets but I wasn't at any of them long enough to really make any serious conclusions about those places. Furniture was from Tarjay and disposed of via Craigslist when no longer needed, the things that stayed were art and it is all always framed and matted. No pants hangers to hang art from here!

Anyways.

What are its problems?
1. It's not coherent. It needs to be a room that can function for multiple purposes, and storage is NOT one of the main ones.
2. It is cluttered. Still.
3. I don't love the layout or the lack of light sources. It's really a one-person room right now. Antisocial, maybe.

If the house could speak, what would it say?
Pick a paint color, all those random swatches look silly in here. And get a Swiffer or something, my corners get dusty where the rug doesn't cover me.

What do I want to do more of?
Relaxing. I want to be able to read comfortably in here and do projects, not just sit at my computer.

How would I want someone to describe my home room eight weeks from now?
1. Relaxing
2. Serene
3.Comfortable (is this redundant with relaxing? maybe.)

And so it begins...

Everybody Is Doing It

The Cure, that is! Officially an invention of Maxwell Gilllllingham-Ryan of AT fame, now less fun on the website and more fun among the blogs! There is a whole-house version and a one-room version and I am definitely going to pick a room to do. But post-move, there is so much to do! So I have to decide:

The office, which needs a wall color, a rug pad and general increased levels of organizing and coherence,

Or the bedroom, which likewise needs a paint color, but also a rug and a tv stand and a bunch of art (or a tapestry?) and even more organizing and whatnotitudes. I am thinking this might be a case of biting off more than I can chew right now.

Picture Post!

So this is the living room with our giant couch in situ. When people come over we pull chairs up on either side of our wacky hexagonal coffee table. It's wacky. But free. And if we leave the chairs in place then you can't walk around. It's weird. The desk on the left is on wheels so it isn't always there. And those speakers look TALL. Art is really coming soon, I swear.

The view of the stereo corner from the drumset. Can you see the banjo?

There's the drumset. Kitchen/dining area hasn't really changed. But there is art up in there. Some of it is a little small but I like it.

 Still the kitchen.

 Still need a cabinet/buffet over in that corner, it is a disaster.

That stuff up top doesn't look terrible. It kills me that the cabinets don't go to the ceiling, though. WASTED SPACE.

Paint swatches in action. And a bedskirt. Still no art here either, though. I am debating a tapestry on that left-hand wall. And I love the shape of that lampshade. The tv is on a nightstand that my dad made in woodshop when he was in school. I never made anything that cool in woodshop, sigh.

Dresser needs a lot of love, still. And the current paint swatch front-runner is actually to the right of the mirror, whether you can see it or not. So this room needs a lot of work. Once I commit to a paint color this will be the first room to get painted.

And the office, with my ratty chair. I am terribly tempted to sell that loveseat and get a comfy armchair in there instead. And you can barely see my new awesome rug. But it is what is slowing me down from immediately painting this room green like my old office. And I still need more storage. Lots more storage.

So there's some action shots for ya. Now I just need to calm down and pick a room and deal with it. I want to do everything at once so now I just work in the garden while the sun shines. And there will be pictures of that too, soon!

The Literary Antidote

This is lush and hilarious and I am really enjoying it. Call it a palate cleanser after the bleak and grim. It is set in Peru in the 40's and so far I am a huge fan. Apparently there was a movie version made in the 90's with Keanu Reeves. Go figure. Hilarious and South American are two phrases that do not come to mind. I will update when I finish but so far this book is just what I needed.

Also I swear I will take During/After pictures tomorrow.

I Might Have Joined A Book Club

And I may or may not regret it. At the very least there will be food and I get to play with the baby. And meet new people. However, the book is The Girl With The Freaking Dragon Tattoo. I know there have already been several reviews posted among my blogging buddies so based on a vague recollection of them I traded some used books in so I didn't have to pay for it (no library card yet, lazy me). And I will trade it right back in. I did a power-read this evening so I am maybe 60% done with it. And OY. I forget how much I dislike violent books. My mom did try to explain it to me at one point because she couldn't decide if she wanted to recommend it to me or not, and she was hung up on exactly what I am hung up on. How is it drawing attention to the violence against women by luridly describing it and using it as a major plot point for the whole book? Would you not have to write the book if there was no violence against women or would you not be able to? 

And yet, little bits of information keep getting revealed so it is a total tease and I want to know whodunit. Ergh.

Is there a word for a male Mary Sue? The Indiana Jones/Robert Langdon charming academic reporter who is loved by all the ladies and can do no wrong? And of course all the female characters are beautiful, if troubled, and they all adore him.

I fear I will derail the book club discussion. I will have to see if they have a reading list of their past choices so I can make an informed decision if I stick with them. Although, meeting most of them might help, too. If it's just an excuse for a girls' night and they are cool ladies, I might be able to roll with it. But I sure have to get a library card if that's the case.

Anybody want to send me links to their old reviews so I can back up my potential rant?

Oh There Will Be More Pictures Soon

But before that, a question. What is your favorite thing to do with lentils? Soup? Grain salad-type things? I have lentils that need using and am stymied by their existence. Or just uninspired. They make me think of split pea soup and bland green mushy things. But I know this is just my lack of imagination.

Last load of stuff comes tomorrow. This includes the barbecue, patio furniture and bicycles, but more excitingly, the rest of my kitchen stuff (I miss you, knives!), the loveseat, and the rest of the art. So there will be pictures, and they will include art on the walls! Right now they are too bare to photograph. Also the rest of my lamps are coming, so it won't be so darn dim.

Still No Pictures, But At Least A Return To Updates.

I have been in this house officially for almost a week now. Here is what I've done:

Bummed around and watched the first half of the new season of the Venture Brothers. It is getting progressively weirder.
Celebrated my nephew's eighth birthday.
Investigated several grocery stores and used furniture stores. No furniture finds yet. Grocery stores are hit and miss. Whole Foods is even more expensive here, the Raley's is weird and dirty (it was the nice one in Reno) and the local option (Lunardi's) is shockingly expensive for some things and perfectly reasonable for others. Trader Joe's is exactly the same as in Reno. So it is a mix between Lunardi's and Raley's for respectable produce so far and TJ's for soy products, juice and other random specialty items. WF may be a better deal for bulk stuff. Also Lunardi's has THE BEST BREAD EVER. God I love being back in bread country. Also I need to find my local farmer's markets since they are year-round here.
Rearranged the living room so the stereo and speakers will fit. I don't love it.
Begun hanging up art, whether it is in places I still need to paint or not. It still looks better than bare dirty walls.
Begun testing paint colors for rooms that still need paint. So far my blue is not gray enough. Baby blue was not the goal. But it still needs to dry more before I can write it off completely. It is drying darker...
Un-papered and painted the entire linen closet. This was the first project before Matt got here. It was bright green with flowered wallpaper. And spiders. Now it is white with white acrylic liners and looks nice and clean. Clean is big here.
Done a mild amount of yard cleanup, planted an azalea and some herbs.
Made a few real meals, including possibly my best-ever batch of curry cauliflower soup. I need to get new bulk spice sources.

I need to take some before/during pictures of the garden. More interior pictures will ensue sooner than later, probably once I've decided on a paint color. It should rain all week so that will keep me out of the garden for a bit.

 And as a closer, here is a little friend that I have inherited. He is not really that little, standing almost 6" tall, but he is a good reminder of how I remember this house, full of love (and knick-knacks). I need to corral the existing knick-knacks and give them good homes, but right now this little guy is on the windowsill right above my computer to keep me company.