A Few Things.

Happy New Year and all that jazz!

1. I'm still alive. 
    
2. I meant to get out an Operation: Christmas Cheer, Step 3 post before Christmas. Obviously, I failed at that, so let me sum up what it would have consisted of: bake delicious stuff (these turned out surprisingly well for Christmas morning) and watch Christmas movies/shows (Elf, A Muppet Christmas Carol, SNL Christmas Special: check)
    
3. Aside from Christmas-related crafting, I lost a lot of my creative drive in December, and am currently fighting against my annual January-induced, month-long malaise. But I have some ideas that might be worth changing out of my pajamas and leaving the house for. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, one of my best friends has finally moved back to the States after way too many years away, and in the process of getting ready to move her stuff out of storage, she unearthed this gem:

Hi, my name is Lisa, and I'm a DIY gifter.

It's not an addiction I'm particularly proud of, and I fully blame Pinterest and HGTV for feeding what was originally an innocent "Hey! I like to make things!" mindset.

I made this for Katie when I was living in Pennsylvania, working at a job I hated in a town I hated more. I had no friends, I lived alone, and I had way, waaaaaay too much free time. Katie's a marine biologist, so it's not a completely random choice of subject matter, but it wasn't until I'd finished it and proudly shared my accomplishment with Adrienne that it was pointed out to me how it bears a certain likeness to a certain part of the male anatomy. 

Yup. High on all that focused crafting excitement, I'd inadvertently made my best friend a three-foot-tall painting of a jellypenis.

This, of course, didn't stop me from giving it to her, because I have no shame. (That same year, I made Adrienne a giant wreath out of dictionary pages for her Christmas present, and had to then construct a house-shaped frankenstein box in order to ship it to her. I've been informed that it almost immediately fell to pieces upon arrival. Those were dark days.)

Nowadays, I try to rein in the urge to automatically (blindly) make someone their gift and, at the very least, pair a small-scale project (ornaments, for example) with something legit that they might actually want. I haven't managed to go cold turkey yet, but I have hope that one day I will be perfectly happy just purchasing nice things for my friends. Nice things that don't look like floating orange penises.

Unless, you know, that's what they asked for.

Operation: Christmas Cheer, Step Two

I used to hate Christmas music. I blame it on a life that involved driving everywhere I needed to go — enduring those Godawful 24-hour Christmas radio stations — and relying on our town's mall for most of my shopping needs. It wasn't until I was back home in Michigan for Thanksgiving that I realized my blessed current existence:

No car = no radio (and no frantic jamming of the Seek button to flee from "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer")

City living = no mall (and no parking nightmares, or piped-in Christmas slow jams, or hordes of children crying because they've been waiting for Santa for 45 minutes)

Bliss.

Now I realize that I don't hate Christmas music, I just hate not being able to choose what kind of Christmas music I get to listen to. So I made some Christmas playlists to share — now you can be forced to listen to the kind of Christmas music I like! Isn't the Internet grand?

Just kidding. Step Two of cultivating Christmas cheer is to listen to whatever kind of Christmas music makes you happy. If that means the local radio station's 24/7 offerings, or jazz-exclusive renderings, or indie acoustic covers, go for it. And ignore your eldest brother when he inevitably starts criticizing your taste in music. That's Grinch-like behavior and it will. not. stand, Matthew!

In the meantime, feel free to try these out as you're wrapping those presents you've been putting off for weeks. As you'll see, I consider the Home Alone soundtrack to be the utmost in classy offerings, but I'm always looking for more good songs. What favorites of yours am I missing?

DIY Ornaments

I may not have my own tree to decorate, but I still have some pretty strong opinions regarding Christmas ornaments. To me, decorating the tree isn't about following trends or trying out a new theme every year. I'll take a messy macaroni ornament over a glittering, mass-produced trinket any day. Don't get me wrong — I'm just as easily swayed by pretty, shiny things as the next person. But the perfect Christmas tree requires the perfect mix of nostalgia, cheese, pretty, and tradition. It's a proportion that I think our family tree manages to nail (when my brothers and I are around to keep my mom's ornament collection in check).

For every trio of bright gold ball, detailed wise man, and sparkling santa, you need gems like this:

(Yes, that's an angel made out of construction paper, a paper plate, and yarn. And yes, it has only one star-sticker eye. I love it.)

For every ceramic gingerbread house, wooden nutcracker, and embroidered angel, there's this:

I believe this is Mrs. Claus, after a brutal attack by the family dog several years ago. Mr. Claus might not have survived that one. (The one-eyed theme is not intentional, I promise.)

It's all about balance, people. Great Christmas trees are cultivated over many, many years, not purchased in one swift attack on the Macy's ornament section. Which is why I've started the tradition of making ornaments for my friends who have reached the stage in their life where they actually have their own Christmas tree. Namely, Adrienne. (Katie, you're next!)

Per my Christmas tree philosophy, I try to do an even mix of tasteful and hilariously random ornaments. Last year's batch included this sad whale:

This year, I continued the felt theme because, well, I love felt. We've already established that I tend to craft like a second grader.

This year's batch, however, is clearly fourth grade-caliber. Felt sushi rolls, an embroidered vinyl record (or alien boob — you decide), an embroidered starburst thingy, and a clay ornament with the Brooklyn bridge. More specifically, an illustration of the Brooklyn bridge that Dominik did for their wedding invitation.

Can we talk openly about the fact that wedding-related ornaments and ornaments meant to celebrate a couple's first year of marriage all suck? After extensive research, I've found that the majority of them to fall on either end of the following spectrum:

The goal here is to strike that perfect balance of sentiment and taste, or what I like to call the "Aw" factor. And let me tell you, it's hard. One wrong step and you're embroidering the Webster's dictionary definition of marriage or modpodging a rhyme that references both cowboy boots and Jesus. 

But I think what I ended up with here is an acceptable offering, and — even better — a really easy method for making customizable ornaments. Ready? Here's what you need:

Materials

• Oven-bake clay (I used Fimo)
• Waxed paper
• A printer

That's it.

First, roll out your clay and cut into your desired shape. Don't tell your roommates, but the cookie cutters in the kitchen are pretty handy for this. Next, use a skewer or other makeshift tool to carefully poke a hole near the top for hanging the finished ornament by.

Bake the clay the for the proper amount of time until hard — the instructions will be on the wrapper, so try not to throw that away when you get caught up in the nostalgia of crafting with clay again. 

(Once baked, I gave the surface a light sanding with fine grit sandpaper. This might be completely unnecessary, but we all know that I'll take any excuse to break out the sandpaper.)

Next, figure out what image you want and insert it into a basic word document, sized to fit the surface of the ornament. I went with Dominik's drawing because (1) I really like the look of the simple lines and (2) the restaurant where we celebrated their wedding day was at the base of the Brooklyn bridge. Can I get an "Aw"?

Take your waxed paper and cut to the size of standard printer paper (or smaller, and then just tape to a piece of paper). Feed it into the printer and then press the magic button. Take the paper with the printed image and carefully place, ink side down, onto the surface of the ornament. Use your thumbnail to emboss the back of the paper and transfer all of the ink onto the clay. Then, simply peel away the waxed paper.

MAGIC.

Use your fanciest string, ribbon, or thread to add a loop and you're good to go. I also wrote Adrienne & Dominik's names on the back, along with their wedding date, because I'm sappy like that.

Congratulations! You can now go back to making tacky ornaments that your mom will try to "forget" to put out each year. But you will always find them and prevail, because no tree is complete without something like this guy:

Operation: Christmas Cheer, Step One

Christmas — like birthdays, snow days and New Year's Eve — loses approximately 87% of its magic when you get old enough to start worrying more about bills than whether or not you'll get the Nerf bow and arrow set that you asked for. When you're an adult, it's a choice to get into the holiday spirit, not a given. And now, two weeks into December, after endless days of rain, missed buses, lost wallets, and long workdays, I. am. ready.

Step one for gaining some Christmas cheer: Decorate.

I know, I know. You have a million excuses not to. Christmas is less than two weeks away. Your apartment is tiny. You don't want to spend the money. Blah blah blah. The solution I came up with trumps all those complaints.

Rather than dealing with a full-sized (ha, not gonna happen) or even miniature tree, I snagged a bunch of greenery from a flower shop on my way home from work. I prefer the long needles for a simpler, more classy look, but you go with your gut. For $8, this bunch was hefty enough to perfectly fill an old, industrial-sized olive jar that I had on hand (confession: I've had this since my days of catering in college, hoarded from a food prep day. My only regret is that I didn't snag more). But let's be real, you can't just toss a bunch of branches in a jar and call it a day.

I nested a pint glass inside the jar and surrounded it with old wine corks. On the off-chance that you're not a part-time bartender and don't just have piles and piles (seriously) of these hanging around, feel free to get creative with what you have. Live in the suburbs or the sticks? Collect some pinecones, acorns, or even rocks. Depending on the size of your vessel, you could fill it with clementines — they can get pretty tiny. Even just some plain kraft paper gently crumpled could look lovely. Go crazy. There are no rules, except for maybe one: try not to spend any money.

I filled the pint glass with water to help with making my greenery last and did my best to arrange the bunch into an evenly distributed bouquet. Since my choice of greenery doesn't have very strong branches (it's mostly needles), I opted against putting lights on the tree and went with a garland of gold stars that I had instead (see, Adrienne? I hang on to your gifts, too). The lights that we had from last year's tiny tree were perfect for winding around the base of the arrangement. (If there's one thing I would be okay spending money on, it's lights. They're the secret weapon for easy Christmas decorating and an instant fix of warm and fuzzy feelings.)

Nathan bought some battery operated candles to put in the windows last year, and while I was rummaging around for those, I came across the makeshift marquee I had whipped up then, too. Up it went, along with some candy canes we've had since last December. (Seriously, does anyone actually eat those?)

Note: In my opinion, the easiest way to fill space on a blank or otherwise just awkward wall is with a clothesline arrangement. Whether it's with twine and actual clothespins or fishing line and binder clips, I've used this method in every place I've lived since college. It's great for displaying all your favorite photographs or other two-dimensional keepsakes, it's easy to switch up, and it takes about five minutes to set up. Plus, it's especially useful for holidays and special occasions.

Makeshift tree? Check. Christmas lights? Check. Banner & candy canes? Check. All that was left were the snowflakes.

You learn a lot of important things in the second grade that stay with you for the rest of your life: Don't pick your nose. Stop, drop, and roll. And, most importantly, how to make some pretty sweet snowflakes with just printer paper and safety scissors.

Whether your snowflakes look like authentic cumulus offspring or bizarre, tribal-like symbols, you can take pride in knowing that, either way, they look really cool from the street.

I'll admit that the snowflakes took a little time, but then again, I'm always looking for an excuse to rewatch old episodes of obscure TV series. The rest of it, though? The tree? Took about as long as it did for me to make and enjoy a glass of hot spiced cider and bourbon. (Step 1b to cultivating Christmas cheer: booze.)

You can do 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. 

Date Night Win: Picnic on the Charles

It's officially winter, and while other people are gearing up for holiday cheer and cozy fires and pretty snow, I'm filled with dread.

I've long suspected that I am, physiologically, just not built for the cold. I'm someone who gets a chill just from sitting. Inside. While wearing three layers of clothing. Every winter, I waddle around like an overstuffed sausage because the only way I can manage to leave the house is if I've armed myself with an especially thick pair of long johns under my (logically) skinny jeans.

As I type this, I'm rapidly losing feeling in my fingers and my nose is like a half-melted ice cube: cold and drippy. It was 55 and sunny today, people. This doesn't give me much hope for when the actual cold weather arrives.

All this meandering whining is to say: I'm feeling nostalgic for those blazing hot summer days.

Dock along the Charles River

One of the great things about living in Boston is getting the "Major City" vibe while still being in close proximity to the ocean. Like, hop-on-the-T close. Some days, however, a trip to the beach just isn't in the cards. For those days, I've found the Charles River to be a pretty solid stand-in.

This past summer, on one of the hottest, most humid days of the season, Tim and I packed a picnic and rode our bikes to the docks by the river. We spent the afternoon napping, reading, and watching the boats go by, and it was one of my favorite dates yet.

Fellow Bostonians, keep this in mind for next summer. Use it as your shining beacon of hope to help you get through this hellish period that some people are dumb enough to call "the most wonderful time of the year."

Here's what you do:

FIRST Grab your (1) bike and pack a (2) guilty pleasure book and (3) pair of shades. (I think I was actually reading something way more embarrassing at the time, probably with a pink cover and a picture of a sassy cartoon lady walking a dog.)

THEN Put a couple bottles of your preferred (4) ginger beer in your backpack (mine is the house-brewed Minuteman from Brookline Liquor Mart), along with a (5) lime, and a (6) piece of fresh ginger. If you're not the type to walk around with a knife in your pocket at all times (yes, even at weddings) like my boyfriend is, maybe grab that, too. Fill your dad's old army canteen with whatever (7) rum you have on hand (Kraken is good for this), and you are officially prepared to enjoy some riverside Dark and Stormys — the ideal beverage for watching boats as they both sail majestically and capsize hilariously.

A NOTE Alternatively, you could take the T to the Hynes Convention Center stop, get off, and walk to the Esplanade from there, but why would you want to? Riding your bike beats being crammed into small quarters with a dozen other sweaty people any day.

DON'T FORGET On the way, stop at the Super 88/Hong Kong Supermarket and purchase a couple (8) bahn mi sandwiches at the food court. The lady there is nice and says you're pretty, and the sandwiches are a steal for under $4. 

MY BOYFRIEND SAID IT WAS OKAY If you're feeling brave, cool off with intermittent jumps into the Charles. Yes, it sounds sketchy, but the river was officially cleared for swimming in 2013, when the first public community swim in more than fifty years was held. Technically, you should only swim in it on official, sanctioned days, but sometimes it's just too damn hot to follow the rules.

Small Victories

I DID IT.

After many, many, many hours of sanding and messing around with goopy chemicals, I met my goal and self-imposed Sunday deadline for finishing the chairs! (Sort of!)

If my life was a movie — which I often imagine it is — there would have been a perfectly lit closeup of me, carefully blowing away the last bit of sawdust from my pristine, gorgeous, smooth-as-silk dining room chairs. I'd wipe my brow and tuck back an errant strand of not-frizzy hair that had escaped from my gorgeously messy ponytail, stand up, and survey my work. As the chorus of We Are the Champions filtered in, I'd look on in pride at all that I had accomplished.

Instead, what happened was that my hands had cramped up so much from sanding in all the little crevices and corners that that I said fuck it and called it a day. And then proceeded to clean the entire dining room and put everything back into a semblance of order. And then collapsed.

The good news is that I did pretty much finish. There might be a few bits here and there that need additional sanding, but that will require the light of day for me to spot; and I'm still going to try to lighten the caning a bit, but that is it! No more power sander! No more beating the sawdust out of my clothes so furiously that I accidentally drop items off the front balcony and into the bushes! No more swallowing and inhaling sawdust! Probably!

It's important to note that I wouldn't have finished as much as I did without the last-minute help of a recently-returned-from-Alaska Nathan. Unlike Andy, who has mastered the art of retreating to his room and/or making excuses about hardware store phobias, Nathan is for some reason always willing to entertain my crazy project ideas. And, more often than not, he'll even pitch in — without me asking, I swear! (Honestly, the depth of his generosity is a little baffling. I imagine it can be attributed to his rural upbringing and overall Gentle Giant demeanor.)

So, huzzah. I'm done. Mostly. Pictures to come when I actually find myself at home while the sun is still shining.

Of course, the manual labor might be done, but the hard work is still to come: 

CHOOSING UPHOLSTERY!

Craigslist 101

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there are people out there who've never used Craigslist, but my aunt texted me last week to get the lowdown and ask for help selling a set of bunk beds they've had at their house since the dawn of time. I'm especially happy to assist because (1) Craigslist is amazing and (2) if she sells the bunk beds, that means I never have to sleep on the top bunk again when I stay over at her house. (It's dangerously close to both the ceiling and ceiling fan. I'm not sure how there haven't been more fan-related injuries in that house.)

If you've had internet access in the past ten years, you probably know about Craigslist, the online equivalent of a newspaper's classifieds section. It's actually been around longer — since 1995, when it existed in the form of an email list of San Francisco events put together by Craig Newmark (Craigslist's namesake). Today, there's a Craigslist page for most major cities in the United States as well as in countries all over the world. 

In my personal experience, Craigslist is legitimately great for a handful of things: finding apartments, finding jobs, buying and selling stuff, and being a hilarious source of entertainment. If you ever need a good laugh, just take a few minutes to peruse the Best of Craigslist section. It's a goldmine.

Today, we're going to talk about selling things on Craigslist. I've sold some stuff just here and there on CL, so I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I peruse the listings often enough as a potential buyer that I've taken note of what makes an ad stand out from the rest.

Some key things:

• Complete information: Cut down on the back and forth emails with flaky "interested" parties by providing all the necessary information up front. In my aunt's case, this would include things like the size (full dimensions, plus what type of mattresses the frame holds); how old it is, approximately; if there's any damage; if it's easy to disassemble and reassemble, etc.
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• Clear pictures from multiple angle: Strangers don't want to trek over to your house just to look at something any more than you want that parade of strangers coming through your house. If you're selling something more complex than an old DVD collection, you should include at least four photos of the item, showing all relevant sides and detail shots, if necessary. Make sure the shot is well-lit and focused — there's nothing like a blurry picture to make potential buyers think you're a schlub who shouldn't be trusted.
  
  
• Correct spelling and punctuation: I'm clearly biased, but you don't have to be an English major or professional writer to compose a decent sentence. Take the time to re-read your posting or have someone else look it over for you. The more competent you seem to be, the more likely you are to get serious buyers.
  
  
• A story: If you want to go above and beyond, it never hurts to add a personal touch. One of my co-workers was explaining this the other day when she was talking about selling things on eBay — even something as simple as explaining why you're getting rid of your old camera makes you seem more like a real person. And you know who I want to buy things from? A real person. Because real people respond to emails in a timely fashion and answer my questions and make the trade process easier.

If all else fails, just have fun with it! There's a reason that legitimate advertisements use humor so often when trying to lure in potential customers.