Salty entries and manufactured ugliness

If you hadn't noticed, I love finding what I need at thrift stores or making it myself. Unfortunately, there are some things I just can't make or find on an efficient timeline.

This is the entry. It's cute and small and cold, and with the snow it has gotten very wet and salty. I was holding out for a while, hoping I would find a great rug without resorting to a department store.

No such luck. For the sake of the floor (and my landlord) I ended up getting an industrial-looking rug and boot trays. They do a good job, but they're just kind of boring. 

They weren't even deeply discounted! It seems odd to pay department store prices for the things I like the least in the house. Maybe I'll get crazy and paint them or something.

Is there such thing as cute industrial mats?

Surprises in the toilet paper

Sometimes I leave little surprises for myself, like extra chocolate in my lunch bag or a note written on the coffee table covered by a book, just to keep life interesting. When you live with other people you frequently come home to find things different than when you left, but that doesn't really happen for people who live alone. Unfortunately, sometimes my surprises get other people.

Lovely thing to leave a house guest, right? 

I used to do this when I shared a bathroom with 4 women, and they never knew who would get stuck with it. 

All you do is cut a slit in the paper tube and drop food coloring into the toilet paper from the inside. You won't notice anything until the last 3rd or so. 

Do you ever leave surprises around the house? Are they funny or mean?

Tile coasters

This is not a terribly exciting project, but they're just so cute that I had to show you. There's a fun store full of bizarre junk (and treasures) on Wealthy called Phil's Stuff. Phil has a collection of really beautiful painted tiles that I've been wanting to use for a while.

I've been looking for ways to pick up the hand-painted Italian theme in the living room, where these pillows have been on their own.

Polaroid ceiling

Ok, I lied; they're not polaroids. But I really do have pictures strung across my ceiling. See?

This all started when I decided to string Handel's Messiah across my ceiling for Christmas. 

Directions here.

I finally took the letters down after 2.5 months, and my ceiling felt really naked.

So I looked at the few decorations I had up in the living room and decided to mimic the clothesline look I already had in the picture frames. 

I kept up the command hooks from the letters, and just re-strung twine in the same pattern.

I pulled the twine tight enough that it would hold several clothespins without sagging to head-height.

Then I got on a chair and hung 80 pictures back to back. This way you get a different view from each point in the room. 

This batch of pictures is mostly family, friends, important trips, and fond memories. It's a reminder of the people and experiences that have shaped me.

How do you display pictures? Which ones get places of honor in your home?

January Cure project

As part of Apartment Therapy's January Cure I had to select a trouble spot in the house and document the mess with pictures. I was going to cheat and not do it, but then my friend Ruth stepped up and posted her pictures, and I knew I had to too.

This is my desk and dresser, which turned into a dumping ground for suitcases, mail, tax forms, scarves, and anything that didn't have an established home.

So I made a list of all the things I wanted to have available on my desk, and measured them. I was about to build my own organizer when I found a great one on Target's website, and decided that was a lot easier. I would have loved to find one in a thrift store, but people just don't donate desktop organizers (especially nice ones). 

Look how beautiful and friendly! I even have my planner open to this week.

The scarves are now hung on the door, which brings color and pattern to that side of the room and makes them a lot easier to sort through.

I had already made these binders a few years ago out of scrap fabric. I just sewed covers to fit the plastic and secured it with hot glue. It was fun to have personalized binders in school, and now they're cute on my desk.

I paid more for these file folders than I would normally, but it was the only way I could get myself excited about filing receipts and bills. 

Viola! Pretty and usable. Totally worth the effort.

Sleeping over... in my own guest room

You know how first time parents are really nervous about parenting? They get super anxious about who holds the baby and leave way too many emergency phone numbers on the fridge. I think I'm the same way about hosting house guests. I want to make sure everything's ready!

This is my first time setting up a guest room, so I read up on some of the essentials online. I ignored a lot of the advice (use only white linens, leave a variety of new magazines out, build a guest bathroom, have a new bathrobe for each guest) and followed one that seemed important: sleep in your own guest room.

So I did, and this is what I learned!

• the rug sheds like you wouldn't believe
• the door squeaks loudly when it closes
• the room gets really hot with the door shut
• it needs a mirror
• a clock would be helpful
• electrical outlets need to be easy to find
• there are way too many pillows for the bed
• there isn't a convenient place for a suitcase
• the built-in light is awkward and too bright at night
• the room feels empty with white walls and white ceiling

I made a cute landing spot complete with color-coordinated books (thanks, Jane!) and an art print I finally framed as part of Apartment Therapy's January Cure. 

I moved the bed to more attractive (and accessible) spot. 

(See the awkwardness before.)

Look! Cute lighting! This room is pretty heavy on the blacks and grays, so I'm trying to pull in as many natural elements as possible. I chose lamps that are easy to turn on and off in bed and don't take up much table space. And I added power strips under the end tables on each side, for easy charging.

A basket in the closet catches extra pillows, and now there's a mirror on the back of the door.

Didn't this turn out beautifully? I just guessed on the frame, knowing that I wanted a natural look to offset the black and white. The proportions worked out perfectly! I spray painted the background that came with the frame and attached my print with double-sided tape (yes, originally meant for windows). I like that this is the focal point of the room when you're in bed. 

Still to come: gray walls, a suitcase table in the closet, and more house guests! 

The little things, like carpet bits

My first week in this house I noticed little bits of carpet stuck to the stairs that seemed to have been there for a very long time. Finally this weekend I sat down to pull them out. Really, who rips out carpet and leaves chunks of fibers behind? This is what I pulled out:

Lovely, right? Look at those sad, banged-up stairs. 

And check out the dust! I know, I probably should have tackled them earlier. But, honestly, stairs have never been high on my priority list. 

I finally spent an hour dusting and polishing them, and inhaled enough Pledge to get a small elephant high.

No one will ever care but me, but sometimes those little things matter.

Have a lovely, carpet-bit-free day!

New paint coming soon!

I have the best landlords. Really. Every year they re-invest the profit into the house, through storm windows or new furnaces or patched plaster.

I'm getting new paint.
I know it's silly compared to a new furnace, but my furnace is in great shape and the walls upstairs are not. They look like they stopped coming clean several decades ago. Remember that horrible texture?

The guest room is coming along, but I would like to have a darker color on the wall. That, and I have no patience to scrub all the stains off. I'm going with Behr's "Squirrel", which looks even better on the wall.

I love how it turned out in this room from Design Sponge: