Things!

Here's what I've been up to this winter:

1. Listening to the Pitch Perfect soundtrack on repeat. Sometimes it's the only thing getting me through the godawful commutes to and from work. Just try listening to this and not feeling happy. (Sequel's coming out in May. Who else is excited?)

2. Rearranging the built-in bookcase. Not much changed, but now everything fits in an orderly manner, which soothes me. Some people do yoga, I organize.

3. Learning how to make cheese and ketchup from scratch. (Really.) (I know.)

4. Eating way too much cheese.

5. Finally getting stuff up on the walls in the dining room. There are two camps of thought when it comes to hanging things. One states that you should carefully measure everything out and tape up paper templates and I think use toothpaste to help mark where the nail should go or something. The other is a more "just start hammering" mindset. (I'm with the latter — is anyone surprised? Our walls are in crappy condition to begin with, so I'm not too worried.)

As Andy put it, the ink blot posters are "a little Rorschach for our shack." I originally bought this pack of cards, then scanned my favorites and ordered prints from Snapfish. There was initially a mistake made with my order, and delivery was delayed by all the snow, but it worked out in the end (and props to Snapfish's customer service for helping me out, too).

6. Taking a Jamaican cooking class. I'm obsessed with the jerk chicken we made.

7. Using the hallway to showcase my postcard collection. The wall was looking a little too bare without the Christmas banner. Clothesline presentation FTW!

8. Treating the gym like a second home. It was one of the few things both open and accessible during all the blizzards, and I've reached the point where I feel weird if I don't go for more than two days in a row. Good for my body, bad for having any free time ever after work.

9. Enjoying having the apartment all to myself...for this week. Not gonna lie, if it wasn't winter and freezing, I'd probably be doing this. (There's been plenty of singing and bad dancing, though.)

10. Counting down the days until I escape to Florida. I'm in desperate need of a legitimate vacation, and this one will combine two of my favorite things: warm weather and Katie! What could be better?

A Different Kind of Retail Therapy

If I had to pick a moment that perfectly encapsulated my adolescent awkwardness, it would be this: 

It's the seventh grade. Despite feeling the scarlet mark of "new girl" even after a full year in Michigan, I've managed to wrangle an invite to the most glamorous of middle school events: the bat mitzvah. I'm wearing black platform sandals, a shiny, spaghetti-strapped dress from Kohl's, and am rocking a flowering vine tattoo on my bicep, courtesy of the airbrush artist that's set up near the drinks table. I don't yet realize that I have curly hair, so my shoulder-length bob is brushed to maximum bushy capacity. Unfortunately, I'm still several years away from the magical straightening effects of my braces — which, coincidentally, color-coordinate with my blue dress! (On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I've at least graduated to contacts at this point.)

Awww yeah.

Most of the night has been spent dancing enthusiastically to the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync, but the DJ soon switches to the first slow song of the night. One by one, boys that are still several inches shorter than me ask some of the more popular girls to dance, and then just other girls, period.

I remain on the sidelines. And it sucks.

When shopping at places like The Goodwill Store, it's so tempting to be like those seventh grade boys and pass over anything that's less than perfect. You walk up and down the dirty, unswept aisles and wonder where your mint-condition MCM dresser is, where your $6 Tulip chair is to be found. (I don't know where one does find those things, but I'll tell you this: it's not at the Allston Goodwill.) You leave behind the endless array of novelty mugs, the assortment of grandmotherly baskets, and the small Dollar Store frames that come with black and white images of Girl Laughing To Herself or Perfect Family in Park.

But friends, you (we!) are missing out. Because some things just need a little help to reach their true potential. In my case, that involved prescription acne cream, copious amounts of mousse, and the self-awareness to finally, for the love of God, put down the stretchy choker.

As for these frames? All they required was a single can of quality gold spray paint.

(Sidenote: How great/awful is that plastic shower curtain I use as a dropcloth? When we moved in, our realtor gave us a care package that included this shower curtain, a sponge, some individually wrapped aspirin, and plastic hooks. I dare anyone to come up with a more random assortment of move-in goodies.)

During my original jaunt to Michael's a few weeks back, I selected a can of Krylon Metallic Gold, excited to pick up everything I needed in one place. Mistake! The Krylon came out as as greenish-gold, that shade you might see on furniture from the 70s or cheap earrings that have started to turn. I'm sure I'll find a use for it, but not for this project. So I went to Blick's and coughed up the couple extra bucks for a can of Montana Black in what turned out to be the perfect shade of gold. Lesson learned.

I laid out my dropcloth, opened the windows for as long as I dared to in the middle of January, and got to painting. First a couple thin coats of primer, then the gold. My strategy was to pick frames with an interesting shape or textures and try to ignore everything else that may have been hideous about them. It was hard. 

Really hard.

But I pressed on. I embodied the spirit of an enlightened 13-year-old boy, looking past superficial blemishes in favor of hidden beauty. 

And now I have this.

A nearly complete collection of interesting frames that will make some great wall décor in their own right. Don't get me wrong, I love art as much as the next person, but I'd rather collect stuff I like at my own pace than just splurge on a bunch of prints that are just so-so, all for the sake of filling the ginormous blank wall we have in the dining room.

A couple more frames (i'm hoping for one or two non-rectangular ones to balance out the mix), along with the completion of my other secret project, and we'll be good to go. Unless, of course, my progress is stalled again by yet ANOTHER blizzard.

Moving south is looking more and more appealing with every passing day.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

Behold, let there be rug.

Just as I was psyching myself up to drop a hefty sum of money on a rug online, I received a text from Andy. While he was home for Thanksgiving, he spied a stash of rugs his mom had in the basement and, being the amazing roommate he is, asked if we might be able to take one off of her hands.

UM, YES PLEASE. Andy's mom is officially my fairy godmother of rugs. Seriously, who is this fabulous person?

Obligatory terrible-quality image to give you an idea of how big this thing is:

In a word, massive. It takes up nearly the entire room. And as soon as it was unrolled, the dining room immediately started to feel like a more hospitable place. Rug? Check.

So now I have no excuses to put off the upholstering project any longer (yes, I'm as sick of hearing about it as you). I've been obsessively scanning Joann Fabrics' web site, Etsy, Fabric.com, and the deep recesses of the web for something, anything, that might feel like The One. A big problem is that the patterns I gravitate toward aren't ones that are going to fit in the space — not with the chairs I have and the rug that I'm now working with.

(It's weird to try to separate what parts of the apartment are truly "my" taste, and what just organically came about because of the space and what we had to work with. That's not to say that I dislike how things are, just that if I had to start from scratch, things could easily go in a completely different direction. I like a little bit of every style, it seems.)

Another problem is the fact that I've become unbearably indecisive. About everything. And it's really slowing down my creative process. So I've decided — hello, 2015! — to cut the crap and stop spiraling into endless "What if?" circles every time I'm faced with a decision. As I told Adrienne during one of my many rants, "Failure IS an option. And that's okay."

No more worrying about the money. No more worrying about picking the wrong color, the wrong size, the wrong whatever. In the words of a famous multinational corporation, "Just do it."

On it.

The Dining Room: Today

In the spirit of full disclosure, I suppose I'm required to show the dining room in all of its bare, abandoned-looking glory. This hurts me more than it hurts you, I promise.

The flowers really help, though, huh?

Okay, so it's not THAT bad. It's not like there's a dirty mattress in the corner and a bucket of homemade moonshine brewing by the window (yet). But when you compare it to the other spaces in the apartment, it feels so...sad. Neglected. Boring.

We're three people with vastly different work schedules, cooking levels, and aversions to social gatherings. In short, we don't really host too many dinner parties here. (Read: none.) But we've been known to have some roommate dinners, and I know that while I am more in the habit of eating at my desk, on the couch, or, shamefully, in bed, Nathan and Andy like to settle in at the table every once in a while for a meal or just to do work. That alone warrants the need to finally wage full-on decorating war up in here.

This built-in here is awesome, and we clearly make good use of it. Between two former bookstore employees and a girl voted Most Likely to Become a Librarian by her brothers, we have a lot of shelf fodder. While it's nice to be able to keep all the booze and accompanying paraphernalia behind closed doors and out of harm's (and dust's) way, I'm thinking it might make more sense to bring that stuff out of the cabinets and onto its own makeshift bar cart. We already have a table in the corner that's essentially going unused, or maybe we could even get a legit cart. The point is, we have the space, and as you can see...

...things are getting a little crowded in there. Plus, it would give me an excuse to create a pretty bar setup and have a place to store my bartending gear other than in an OR dry bag in the back of my closet.

We all know the deal with the chairs and, while I really have nothing against the table itself, I do think we should eventually replace it. It's just not very big, and it'd be nice to squeeze two chairs to a side and have the option of seating six. Technically, it's a loaner table from one of Andy's friends, so I don't think I'll meet much resistance if I find something better.

The rug is a placeholder, borrowed from Nathan's room where it used to reside. I'm still on the lookout for something bigger and better. Possible news on that to come.

Here's our makeshift stereo center. Hoo boy, is it rough. Nathan threw a blanket over the top of it, and when I lifted it up this morning to take a better look, I can't really blame him. Technically, it is a functioning piece of furniture that serves its purpose well. If you want to be more picky and superficial — which I always do, when it comes to décor — it's boring and ill-suited for the task at hand. Ideally, we would find a corner piece that fit more snugly into the space and offered additional room for storage. Having searched for that particular shape for a couple months now, I'm ready to give up on that pipe dream and settle for something that's simply better than this. 

I told you there was a llama here somewhere.

Annnnnd just for funsies, a shot of Nathan's terrariums that he made for the lichen he smuggled home from Alaska. Aside from the fact that they're adorable (and on-trend!), I'm mostly just impressed that they're still alive. 

Now for the fun part: lists!

GOALS:

1. New rug
2. Reupholster the chairs (fiiiiiiiiiiiinally)
3. Reorganize the bookshelves and drawers
4. Attempt bar setup elsewhere in the room
5. Find a replacement piece for the stereo equipment or, barring that, fix up what we have
6. Keep on the lookout for a larger table
7. Decorate those bare walls!!
8. Clean the light fixture
9. Make the dining room feel as welcoming and lived-in as the rest of the apartment

Piece of cake, right?

Stuck.

If, like my mother, you're wondering what the heck happened to those chairs I was moaning about, here's a little something to get you off my back:

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that they're never going to be perfect. See how it's darker around the edge of where the caning is? There lies the remnants of the old stain that, despite my many attempts, I haven't been able to banish completely. (I might give it one more go before I completely admit defeat — I just need to do it while the guys are out so I don't have to witness the inevitable "Really? This again? Is the apartment ever going to stop smelling like chemicals?" look.)

There's also just some naturally occurring variation in the color, because the chairs are constructed of multiple, different pieces of wood. Strangely, I'm okay with that. I'm actually pretty okay with the whole thing, in general, which is good because I've had moments of sheer panic over these chairs where I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking "OMIGOD WHAT HAVE I DONE??"

I'm just kidding. Kind of.

My anal obsession with the lingering stain, aside, I'm in the home stretch. All I really need to do is pick out new fabric and slap it on those cushions. (I'm also going to work a little Frankenstein-like magic on the foam cushions themselves, but more on that after I put my plan into action.) The issue I'm facing, though, is this: the dining room is a total blank slate. There's nothing but dark wood and empty walls — no real direction to influence what color or pattern (or lack thereof) I choose. This would be a blessing — a license to run wild, really — if not for the fact that I can't get past the idea that what the room really needs is a rug. A big one.

Which leads me to this: how can I pick the upholstery fabric when I don't have that rug to work with? What if I pick some crazy pattern that makes it impossible to find a rug to coordinate with it?

I have this thought cemented in my brain that the dining room can't get just any rug. No, it needs something amazing that goes with the other ones we already have in the apartment. All of the doorways in the living room are so large that they make the whole office/living room/entryway/dining room area feel like one giant common space. That, in turn, makes me feel like I have to come up with some cohesive style that isn't too crazy different from room to room. (The kitchen, with its buffer zone of hallway and pantry, doesn't suffer from this problem. As such, it's noticeably different from the rest of the common spaces.)

So. The rugs. Here's what we're working with:

First up is the rug in the living room, which, as you can see in the photo, is within easy sight of the dining room. 

Next we have the rug in the entryway, which shares doorways with both the living room and the dining room. Similar floral pattern in a slightly different color scheme.

Finally, this is the rug that's in Andy's office, which doesn't share a doorway with the dining room, but is still within easy sight. This rug has a decidedly different pattern and vibe from the other two, but the geometric qualities, color scheme, and vintage look help it mesh just fine. 

For months now, I've been scouring the Internet for a vintage rug that shares some of the qualities found in the ones we have, but for the size I need (between 6'x9' and 8'x10' to keep it from looking dinky) and the budget I'm willing to part with, it's proving damn near impossible. I thought I had a good Craigslist lead last week, but in my attempt to barter, all lines of communication went cold.

I'm thinking now that maybe I try plan B: get a big-ass neutral rug and just layer a vintage one on top of it. It could work; I've found a bunch of rugs that I love and can afford, but they were all just too small on their own.

This is what I've been looking at:

Via Apartment Therapy.

Via Honestly WTF

Via SAS Interiors

So, what do you think? Should I continue my search for the perfect Persian, big size and all? Layer something smaller over a neutral jute or sisal rug? Throw away this notion of cohesion and go for something modern and different? Or maybe do some layering, but with a bunch of neutrals, like in the seventh row of images here?

The Living Room: Today

Hey, remember this space? And Curious Andy, scoping out the neighborhood?

I figured it's probably time to take stock of the living room, seeing as it's considered the gathering space in most homes. A place to come together, share how your day went, and, of course, watch your roommates play endless rounds of Tecmo Bowl on the Nintendo. (It's football. I'd never heard of it, either. I stick to my Donkey Kong.)

The real hero of this room is Andy — or, Andy's relatives, if you want to get technical, because a lot of the big pieces were hand-me-downs from them. Andy might not show much interest in decorating, but the stuff he brings to the table is choice: that massive antique rug and the kick-ass old school desk are both his, and I LOVE them. In fact, it's because of Andy (I'm not just buying into the trends, I promise) that I'm kind of obsessed with perfectly aged, faded Persian rugs. As you'll see, he brought a couple more with him.

The sofa and loveseat were acquired through a carefully orchestrated Craigslist deal that I set up a good month before we even moved into the apartment. This pretty much never happens and I'm not sure how it did this time, but what matters is that we scored two major pieces for a couple hundred bucks, and I got to watch Andy and his friend, George, try to maneuver them up three flights of stairs. God bless them. There was a lot of pivoting involved. 

The Mission-esque coffee table (and to think, when I bought it, I didn't even know what Mission style was!) was another Craigslist score. I think in the first two months that we lived here, new things would appear so often that my roommates stopped even asking. I was a Craigslisting machine. (Fun game: drink every time I say "Craigslist" on this blog. Have fun blacking out.)

In a rare instance of Pinterest not misleading me, I got that huge black and white picture printed up at Staples using the engineer print option. It's a shot from my trip to Glacier National Park, and I like that it works both if you take a second to decipher what it's a picture of, and also if you just take it in as an abstract mess of shadows and shapes. $7, people. It's not forever, but it's a nice place-holder until something better comes along.

Look at that rug! So evenly faded. Such a lovely variety of colors — not too red, which is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to Persian rugs. And while the pattern is, yes, floral, it has a geometric quality that keeps it from feeling too precious. I've been hunting for something similar to put in the dining room for...oh, probably six months, now. No luck yet.

This is the iron base of the old green school desk that belonged to Andy's dad (possibly grandfather?). In the middle, there, you can see initials crafted in with the whirls and flourishes. Awesome. 

Also, we randomly have a wooden duck figurine. I don't know why or who it even belongs to. There's a llama floating around somewhere, too.

So if the rug and desk are Andy's major contributions, Nathan is responsible for everything music-related that you see. The guitar, the mandoline, the...other...instrument that's hanging on the wall — those are all his, and they're gorgeous pieces. I may or may not have enthusiastically encouraged the idea of him displaying them in the living room.

Also, if you can kind of make out the speakers that are in the left and right corners of the frame (the right one is sitting on top of the record stand), as well as the one that's visible in the previous picture, underneath the desk, those are all part of the surround-sound system he rigged up around the room. Using speakers he got at thrift stores, white electric tape, and plastic grommets for holding wires in place, he wired the whole room for sound. And if you were in the room yourself, you probably would never notice that it was all done old-school DIY.

Oh, and those pillows are Nathan's, too. He'd never heard of HomeGoods, and when I told him to check there for a rug for his bedroom, he was gone for more than THREE hours. From the sound of it, he was overwhelmed by all the stuff and suffered a décor-induced blackout. The only evidence of this trip are those pillows.

One last example of Nathan's ingenuity:

Yes folks, what you see mounted above the doorway between the living room and Andy's office is a homemade projection screen.

(The light in the living room is one of those string globe pendants that I attempted a few year back. There are zillions of tutorials online for them if you look; I didn't follow any one method.)

When unfurled, it provides us with a movie screen the size of the doorway, and to this day, I still think it's the coolest thing ever. We may not own a TV (a fact that baffles everyone I tell that to), but we have a digital projector that lets us play movies (there's a DVD/stereo setup in the dining room that I'll show one day), online video, and even video games. I know it's officially winter when someone caves and breaks out the Nintendo or Super Nintendo.

The black geometric wreath thingy is a craft project I did a few months ago while Nathan was exploring the tundra. When he came back and saw it for the first time, he thought it was made of metal, but it's actually just cocktail straws and floral wire. Ta-da!

Just for funsies, here's our entryway, which is practically part of the living room, itself.

Another awesome rug. The table and chair are all Andy, too. 

Hooray! Another space I'm not ashamed of. 

Back Balcony: Today

I've tried to ignore it as long as possible, pretend it wasn't true, but the time has come to accept the facts: summer is over. With the dropping temps and falling leaves, it's become necessary to begin disassembling the porch paradise I worked so hard to create these past few months. 

Let's take a moment to reminisce, shall we?

I didn't spend much time out here last summer — we moved in the first week of September, and I was a little distracted by getting my room set up and dealing with the pit of despair that was the kitchen. But this year, I was ready.

Our apartment is blessed with not one, but two balconies. Growing up, I thought balconies were pretty much the coolest thing ever, and guess what? They are! The front one is small, just large enough for a bistro table and two chairs, but this puppy is roughly six feet by twenty feet. Plenty of room for the very sophisticated wine and cheese parties I will hypothetically throw when I decide that I'd rather make friends and be sociable than sit around in my sweatpants and re-watch all seasons of Friday Night Lights.

No matter how far-fetched my motivations were, it was enough to get me moving. At first, I foolishly thought that a good sweep and scrub was all the floorboards needed to be barefoot-friendly. It certainly went a long way, but in the process, I ended up loosening a lot more of the flaking paint and saw up-close how nasty the potential splinters could be. 

Right. Put a rug on it! Or two, to be more precise. I ordered these from Costco, and felt very strange doing so, as my only previous experience with Costco typically involves following my mom around their warehouses and eating as many free samples as I can find. I'm pleasantly surprised with these because they were (A) relatively inexpensive, (B) large enough to cover some decent real estate (I chose the 5'3" x 7'4" because of the dimensions I was working with, but there's a larger option, too), and (C) neutral but not boring.

I'll be the first to admit that the final look is a little...not great. It's a big improvement (there are actually places to sit now!), but I expect it to look a little different next summer. A little better.

This bench was actually the first piece I bought, and at the time I was just thinking "It's low enough to slide under the window if I need it to, and it's big enough to squeeze two, and it's fairly nondescript and neutral." This all remains true, but compared to the rest of the stuff I ended up adding, it's kind of...boring. I've tossed around the idea of weaving some kind of rope or twine through the top slats, but there's a really good chance that will look terrible, so it's on the backburner for now. Maybe I should paint it? Ideas?

The pillows, I stole from the living room, because the funky pattern felt like the look I was going for, but something else — more of a large-scale, blocky pattern in a contrasting color — might be more suitable.

I bought all the large plants from Home Depot while on a post-paycheck high, and they fulfilled their duties of being hard to kill and brought in some color. I added the gold triangles to the pots because, while at Michael's one day, I impulse-bought some Rub n' Buff and, aside from having the most ridiculous, vaguely sexual name ever, it's AWESOME. Guys, I can make anything gold! (And for a while, I did.)

Please avert your eyes from the rocking chair. That's Andy's. He owns more rocking chairs than anyone under the age of 75 ever should, but I just don't have it in me to banish it. If he wants to sit in his rocking chair, thoughtfully stroking his beard and reading weirdo poetry books, who am I to say no? I will need to recover or replace those cushions, though, if the chair is here to stay. I draw the line at Old Lady floral patterns.

This chair. I've had such a love-hate-like-hate-mildly enjoy relationship with this thing. I bought it on Craigslist and the person lived smack in the middle of downtown, so it took me forever to find a place to park long enough to pick it up and the whole process sucked. It was one of those situations where you know the end result really isn't worth it, but you've already wasted so much of your time/energy/money/life force that you lie to yourself that it is.

And it only got worse from there.

I was initially attracted to this chair because I was smitten with these Acapulco chairs and wanted something similar for myself. This one has cute metal legs that are also easily removable for storage (See? I can care about practical things, too), and the shape was nice and curvy and actually comfortable. But when I put it outside, it kind of blended in with everything else: brown railing, brown/tan rug, brown bench. See, that chair used to be BROWN. And I went ahead and decided to paint it turquoise! Why not, right?

Hahahahaah oh, Lisa. You blonde idiot.

It was a hellish, time-consuming process that I'd prefer never to repeat, one that involved a lot of careful taping, multiple coats of primer, many, many, many coats of color, and a coat of clear protectant. There may have been several trips to Dick Blick and not one, but two different hardware stores, too. Sigh.

Pillow cover was a West Elm clearance purchase that I stuffed with batting from Michael's because I was feeling too stubborn to shell out for a pillow insert, too. The perforated metal tables are originally from Urban Outfitters but were snagged from Craigslist. Duh. The hammock (yeah, I have a hammock on my balcony, no big deal) used to be Adrienne's and is technically for camping. Don't care. It does the job. 

One last piece of advice: When you finally buy those lovely strings of globe lights from Target that you know will add just the right amount of ambiance to your space, and you string them up and find that you didn't space them out evenly enough and there's a good two feet left over at one end, LEAVE THEM BE. Listen to your wise boyfriend, and do not focus and obsess on that extra two feet that's just hanging down. Because when you inevitably try to re-string the whole thing by yourself at 10 o'clock at night, you will break at least five bulbs. Because you're trying to use a staple gun one-handed while balancing on the railing of a three-story structure. 

Just saying.

Inspiration Board: Nathan's Room

True story: It took my roommate, Nathan, three months of living in our apartment before he finally unpacked all of his boxes — and even then, he progressed only from having piles of boxes all over his room to having piles of books all over his room. To this day, the only furniture he has is a futon, two small bookcases, and a lap desk. A small desk lamp (sans desk), two gigantic bikes (dude's over six feet tall), and a disproportionately small rug round out his decor.

Another true story: After five years of working in a thankless retail job here in Boston, Nathan quit and decided to spend his summer of freedom on his family's ranch in Colorado. Two months passed with no word from him until Andy and I received an email saying that he'd been exploring the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains in Alaska and, among other things, we should definitely re-sign the lease for another year.

If you say so. Check!

Weeks went by before we got another update: he'd since gotten a job as a camp cook/horse whisperer/latrine digger in the Brooks Range and as soon as he got his paycheck, he'd start making his way back east.

That particular update was more than two weeks ago. No word since. Anxiety levels: rising.

No offense to Boston, but it just can't compete with the Alaskan wilderness. I know it, you know it, and I'm sure Nathan knows it, too, which is why I'm starting to feel a little like he may have changed his mind and decided to become a permanent fixture of the tundra.

But maybe, just maaaybe, if his room here got a little touch of that Western wilderness feel, he'd be more likely to return and stay put! (Disregard how flimsy this logic is. I miss my roommate.)

I present to you, Nathan's Room: a Kaleidoscope of Awesomeness.

1. 4040 Locust Asher Ikat Duvet Cover, $99   2. Pharmacy Floor Lamp, $126   3. Magical Thinking Vintage Glaze Lamp, $89   4. 4040 Locust Angled Wood Headboard, $349   5. Rainier Creek print, $17

6. Steppe 6-Drawer Dresser, $1,599   7. Admiral Hanging Mirror, $18-$24   8. Light Gray Emilie Flatweave Sweater Wool Area Rug, $375   9. Bear Hug print, $18   10. The (Original) Bike Shelf, $299   11. Moving Mountains Throw, $100

12. Emerson Shelving, $400   13. Retro Art print, $33   14. Locust Bison Wood Storage Bin, $59 15. Woven Wire Trashcan, $29   16. Turkish Kilim pillow, $60   17. Greer Leather Recliner, $2,499

Disclaimer: I'm not insane. I realize that someone who just quit his job is not going to be shelling out this kind of money on anything. (I'm gainfully employed and wouldn't buy most of this stuff at its current cost.) This is just — say it with me, now — innnnnspiration.

That being said, with some patient Craigslisting, DIY elbow grease, and strategic sales-shopping, I'm confident I could pull off something fairly close to this. Fingers crossed I get the chance.

My Room: Today

From ominous, possibly haunted beginnings, it's progressed to this.

My room came together a lot more quickly than the kitchen because (A) I needed somewhere to sleep and (B) I actually had pretty much all of this stuff when I moved in. This time. When I first moved to Boston, I only brought with me whatever I could cram into my 2000 Honda CRV. It was a surprisingly substantial amount, but left me with a lot of major pieces to acquire. AND ACQUIRE, I DID.

Hello, Bed: the mattress was a much-appreciated gift from Adrienne's husband, Dominik. He's a pretty tall guy, and that in combination with the fact that he now has to share his bed with another person on a daily basis makes me feel confident he won't be asking me for his Full-sized mattress and boxspring back any time soon. At least, I really hope not. The frame is a Craigslisted Ikea Fjellse that I stained to match my nightstand. My bed was previously owned by a college student moving back to her home in Africa, was yours?

Nightstand: Aside from my dad's trunk, this is one of the few pieces I brought with me to Boston. I Craigslisted this back when I was working for Men's Health and living in Emmaus, Pennsylvania (an experience that has made me swear off the entire state for, God willing, the rest of my life). It was originally this weird orange-maroon color, and the top was a ridiculously heavy slab of marble. I initially spray painted the whole thing an obnoxious shade of lime green because, I figured, if you can't have questionably ugly furniture when you're in your early 20s and live alone, when can you? I later stripped off alllllll the paint, replaced the marble with wood, and stained it. It's really not the best quality piece of furniture, but I LOVE IT. Mmmm...woven panels and tapered legs.

Bookshelf: Craigslisted for the entry of my last apartment, it used to hold Adrienne's and my shoes, boots, etc. that were used on a regular basis, because — and I can't emphasize this enough — it's just a crappy bookcase from Target or something. You know those people who fill their apartments only with furniture and knick knacks that have a rich back story or are genuine, vintage designer pieces? I'm not one of them. I make do with I have until I can find/afford something better. It doesn't actually hold too many books because I'm the last person on the planet under the age of fifty who still loves going to the library.

Desk: Purchased from West Elm. Hahahaa just kidding, yeah right. CRAIGSLIST. Are we seeing a pattern here? The top is some crappy manufactured fake wood thing, but I love the legs. I might make a new top one day. When I've completely run out of other things to do with my life.

Dresser: Craigslisted from a cute couple in the Back Bay. They responded to my email request, they told me, because I said that I "LOVED" the color. And I do! It's one of those things that I would never buy if I saw it in a store, and would never think to recreate the look of, but it feels really perfect with the rest of my stuff in here. We ended up trading road trip tips when I went to pick it up, and I told them which parks in Utah to set aside time for. It was the kind of exchange that warms my cold, dead heart. The third drawer is kind of broken, but still functions, so I ignore it. For now.

Things that nobody other than me cares about: My pineapple lamp from HomeGoods! (Holy crap, something purchased at a real store.) Gallery of vintage-style National Parks post cards were collected on my cross-country road trip. Prints are care of Marc Johns and Berkeley Illustrations and posters are reprints of lovely WPA National Parks designs. Everything else was collected over the past five years from various sources, because I would totally be a hoarder if not for the fact that sustained clutter gives me a panic attack.

And one last thing:

Flock of paper cranes: Frustrated with the soul-crushing boredom of a summer magazine internship I did just before my senior year of college, I took to folding these at my desk whenever I was left without a task to work on. Which was 90% of the time. These have been with me for five years and have survived SIX MOVES, bless their little paper wings.

So that's the bedroom. A couple helpful hints you might never have thought of:

1. Wool blankets make EXCELLENT blackout curtains, and can cost less, too (check your nearest Army Navy store, which will either be sketchy or awesome. Possibly both). This time around, I used pins instead of sewing to create the pocket for the curtain rod so I can still use the blanket if the time comes that I need to purchase actual curtains.
2. That trick with using binder clips on the desk to keep cords corralled? Works like a charm.
3. Rugs are annoyingly expensive, so if you just need something basic and not too huge, sewing together a couple smaller ones is an easy, inexpensive option. In my room, I have two smallish jute rugs that I sewed together with clear fishing line, and since it's a flat weave but still has texture, no one has ever noticed. (Bonus: they were purchased at Kohl's with some of their ubiquitous coupons.)
4. Try propping open your coffee table books (or children's books with beautiful illustrations — I'm looking at you, Leo Lionni) to show off the pages as art. 

The Kitchen: Today

The kitchen has been my arch nemesis since the day we moved in. Ruled by a run-down refrigerator covered in a fine spray of brown rust, it featured walls the color of snot, impossibly placed grease splatters, and an overhead fluorescent light that defied all reason and taste. It had barely any counter or storage space to speak of, and just being in it kind of made me feel dirty.

The good news is that its truly offensive state motivated me to get to work on it immediately.

BEHOLD: The fruition of countless hours of OCD-esque labor and a lot of Craigslisting. (Also, I promise I'll figure out how to take non-shitty pictures of my apartment. At some point. In the future.)

Here's what I've done so far:

1. Repainted the cabinets (as soon as we moved in), trim, beadboard and back door (later) with a fresh coat of white paint
2. Stripped the cabinet hardware (as soon as we moved in) and spray painted it oil-rubbed bronze, along with the hardware on the back door (later)
3. Refreshed the janky refrigerator with a coat of white appliance paint
4. Acquired the kitchen cart in the corner
5. Haggled back and forth at a garage sale for the pièce de résistance, the island*
6. Lined the interiors of the bare, unfinished cabinets with paper**
7. Hung (well, Nathan did the actual hanging part) the ladder spice rack
8. Installed a magnetic knife rack
9. Brought in three stools for hanging out in the kitchen
10. Repainted the stupid, pointless spotlight on the far wall to match the rug (unpictured) that's under the island
11. Installed a towel bar over the gaping hole where the left drawer next to the sink is supposed to be***
12. Removed the 70s light cover and replaced it, for the time being, with a somewhat crappy, homemade drum shade

*I did a lot of haggling because this was the first major purchase I made for the apartment on my own. The guys weren't convinced that we needed an island in the kitchen because neither of them cook, so they didn't realize how necessary countertop space is. Without the cart or the island, the only counter space is what amounts to 1.5 square feet on each side of the sink — half of which is usurped by a drying rack for the dishes. It wasn't until after I brought in the island that Nathan and Andy realized what we'd been missing and, bonus, it provides a bunch of storage space, too.

**The true purpose of the entire cabinet/sink structure is really just to emphasize how much our kitchen was not built to be a kitchen. It's a crappy structure made of poor-quality chipboard and lumber that's probably exhaling splinters and dust particles all over our dishes and pots on a daily basis. I try not to think about it too hard, because when I do, I realize that the bottom half has no dividing walls between the compartments and our pots are brushing elbows with all of our cleaning supplies and their chemical-y goodness. I need to find a solution for this.

***When we moved in, the drawer that is supposed to be there was missing, because the drawer front had apparently fallen off and our landlord was going to fix it. That may or may not have happened, but we'll never know because the drawer has been lost to the chaos that is my landlord's two-steps-away-from-an-episode-of-"Hoarders" apartment. I gave up on the idea of it ever coming back and chose instead to mask the hole with my awesome, acid-green dish towels.

Besides the major additions and changes, adding in all our stuff really helped. Plants, DIY "art," and the ladder spice rack all made a huge difference.

• Vintage cranberry prints (Andy)
• Framed illustration of ducks and food (Ikea bargain frame + page from Edible Boston)
• Virtually indestructible zizi plants and brightly colored pots (Ikea)
• Constellation map (Wrapping paper from PaperSource + Bulldog clips from Dick Blick)
• Appalachian Mountain Club calendar (Nathan)
• Framed photos of food (already-owned Ikea frames + more pages from Edible Boston)
• Ladder for the spice rack (a Craigslist "Free" section find)

All items and decor were either (A) Craigslist finds, (B) previously owned items, (C) DIY creations, or (D) gifts.

The pantry got the same treatment as the kitchen when it came to the built-in storage and hardware, and I ripped off the countertop's plastic sheeting and replaced it with black vinyl contact paper. It's held up surprisingly well for more than a year of use, but it could use some touching up. I didn't touch the pink walls because I was still trying to respect the whole "no painting" rule that's in our lease. My resolve has weakened with every passing day, however, and I feel like any day now I'm going to say fuck it and paint both the pantry and kitchen walls a different, more acceptable (but still neutral!) color.

That's it for now. I still have a lot more I want to do, but at least now I'm not ashamed when people come over, and that's really the important thing, right?