Tuesday, March 8, 2011

NOTEBOOK: IKEA and Fixing the Apartment

In late November 2010, I ordered a custom door for my bedroom.  I live in a basement apartment and pay a ridiculously all inclusive low price, so there are clearly compromises, including the Super Mario-esque pipes everywhere, the bizarre architecture, the oddness of the shower/bathtub (I think tall people would have trouble showering in it), the need for maintenance people and other fix-it people to pop in to fix something going on upstairs and the lack of a bedroom door.

The bedroom door issue wasn’t that big of a deal, until the Great Flea War of 2010 and the fact that I no longer want my cat to have access to my bedroom.  The custom door arrived in early December 2010, and then just worked as a blocker, as I was waiting for a friend to help install it, who then never helped.  This weekend, Raheem and I tackled the project and BAM.  I now have a working bedroom door.  Every time I open and close the door I get pretty excited.  It’s so freaking easy.  Trust me, after two and a half months of moving the door every time I wanted to get in my bedroom, this seems like a miracle.

IMG_0048 Couple that with organizing all my writing and journals (that is only one pile of journals, to the left, that I sorted—in total I currently have 52 journals, some which weren’t exactly filled, so don’t be too impressed) and I have accomplished two large house projects recently.  Which means that now I can start thinking of new projects!

And I did.  I went to IKEA yesterday and bought that string of lights (the GLANSA) that I wanted and strung them around my bedroom, over the bed.  I absolutely love it, BUT now I want to add more.  I think some organza twisted in it (I found organza cheap online), to create a bit of a canopy would be good.  And then my mind started racing. 

How cool would it be to create a bit of an indoor forest in my bedroom?  I already have pipes that, painted a dark brown, would emulate tree branches.  Some fake leaves twisted around and strung around would create the forest canopy.  I have a gigantic long wall in the bedroom that would probably look pretty awesome with a forest mural. 

The inspiration is something like the Florence + The Machine video for Cosmic Love (be warned, ad on start-up).  I don’t want a trillion hanging lightbulbs, but the forest + lights idea seems cool.  Plus the organza + lights on her dress are the inspiration for the “canopy.”

The forest mural will probably have a Charles Vess touch to it, mostly because I love this Vess piece (yup, drawn for Sandman), called Companions to the Moon:

Vess Titania Faeries And I like this forest piece, too, which I found via Cool Showcase:

Forest_by_Andead

I realize that I’ll be doing a lot of repainting when I move, but since I’m not thinking of moving any time soon, I’ve decided that I want to make this apartment cooler than any other space I’ve ever rented.  I’ve never really been compelled to make any space quite so personal, so if I go overboard, I suppose that would be why.

But, I think it would look pretty cool, personally.  I’ll let you know if 1) I actually end up doing it and 2) how it looks.

Which brings me to my fantastic IKEA score of the day.  I have been dying to have these LACK shelves for awhile.  And yesterday I saw this on the display room floor:

IMG_0005

Yes.  Reduced from $20 to FIVE BUCKS!  I HAD to have them.  Of course, the color is not my top pick—it was the walnut brown color.  But I decided that at 75% off, I would make it work.  So I picked up two.  One will go in the living room, above the couch, the other in my bedroom, above the dresser.  I just have to find the studs.  Which means I just have to figure out my stud finder tool thingy.

I think my house is pretty much an IKEA catalog shoot waiting to happen.  Seriously.  All my main pieces are IKEA.

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