Long Weekend

When most people ask what your plans are for the long weekend, they

don't want to hear "working on my apartment". Even I, once I was into it, didn't want to. Saturday was originally forecast as rainy, with weather improving as the weekend went on. Instead, it was a gorgeous day, and the only thing that kept me from blowing off Betty was 1) I rode my bike yesterday and 2) I'll ride and kayak tomorrow, and Monday is open to what-evs.

That said, I didn't get a lot of dramatic changes done. I re-organized the storage locker and move more stuff down there. I put away crap in the living room so, except for a couple of pieces I plan to Craigslist, I see what it will look like.

I got out to West Elm and bought a night stand and two lamps. The night stand is from their "Madison" line, which seems on the way out, but is exactly what I've wanted for two years. The lamps are basically cube-canvas, about a foot high, and are the kind of thing I like. There was another lamp, on sale for $19, marked down to $16, that's basically a glass vase with butterflies on it.

I ought to mention, I also received a late-shipping five-foot shelf from West Elm, but not the brackets meant for it. So, we play the waiting game.

I got some things hung. Ideas on what remains.

I finished painting the hallway. I forgot to buy a new paint tray, and was stuck at home waiting for the nightstand, so I did it all with a four inch brush. Not too bad, and a slightly different texture than the areas where I used rollers. Still, it matched, and that allowed me to hanf art and a set of coat hangers.

it doesn't interrupt the flight path from the entry as much as I had feared - it's actually quite workable.

I also got some work done in the bedroom, which had been largely ignored. I had to have a nighstand net to the bed - it was driving me nuts to reach up three feet every night and morning for my glasses, or to check the alarm - and it also bothered me to not have a lamp within arm's length from the bed. So, the lamp and nightstand solve that issue.

That being said, here's the story on the nightstand. Good points: it's been marked down in price, from $200 to $150, to $99. Further, West Elm is having a sale for the Memorial Day weekend of an additional 15% off, so even paying for delivery ($40) it's still just over half what it started at. So Yay!

Except - some assembly required. That's OK, I'm actually pretty handy. The components weren't labeled really well, though I will say that West Elm consistently labels screws well. Assembly was straightforward with one sizable exception: the feet.

It's really hard to write about this in a civil tone. I spent an a=hour alone just on the feet, and in the end, could not finish the job with the parts supplied. Basically, the feet of the nightstand are cut blocks that are attached by 40mm bolts the go through the blocks and screw into plastic-lined holes.

The problem was that when inserted through the blocks, it was nearly impossibly to get purchase against the plastic. The bolts had about a quarter-inch of clearance past the feet, and sure enough, worked when free of the blocks. However, when run through the feet, no purchase. I got one bolt out of eight to go in using the allen wench supplied. None of the others went in. The heels of both my hands are bruised and sore from repeated attempts to get any of the other bolts in. Even replacing that tool with a ratcheting driver I had with a bit that matches the tool did not work. In the end, I only got the feet on by substituting some longer wood screws. It works, but it's not perfect, and that's an hour of my life - not to mention frustration pushing me to source like a sailor with Tourette's - I will never recover.

So, that said, now that it's assembled, I love it. I don't know what I'll store in it. Right now, I just need the lamp, clock, and book.

So, with that don, I hung up a map of North America pre-US, along with a Navajo Dei sand painting. I'm not superstitious, but I like to place Dei's in the major rooms of the apartment - you can pick them out in the living room, Kitchen, and the nook leading to the bathroom and bedroom. Like I say, I'm not suspicious, but after seeing both Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2, I'll take all the protection I can get.

Anyway, I got quite a bit done, but experienced a fair amount of frustration, loss of time, setting me back on dinner, and then I broke a glass in the sink, and now I am just planning to be outside like a sane person for the rest of the weekend.

Updates & Delays

This week I had a guest, so little got done. That said, I do have some new photos to share.

Here is the new "baker's counter" I put together from Container Store. Unfortunately the wood shelf does not sit quite level. Further investigation revealed that it's either a warper metal shelf underneath, or gremlins. I reseated it and it's better, but still a little wobbly when I apply weight. That's OK since it's mostly for storage.

Here is the kitchen in full glory - as it were. You can see the pot rack and all the appliances. As previously described, the fridge and stove are new. The fridge is an LG with bottom-freezer (awe-SOME) and the Stove is an Avanti 20" with a 10K BTU burner. The other burners vary. It's interesting to have a stove with different energy burners.

Anyway, we are still soliciting opinions on the orange.

The lonely corner. I have a few ideas. I still have a fantasy of putting an actual dining table - small, but still a table - here for guests, but my actual guest this week points out that eats up a lot of space. I do want a hutch, as I have since I was little - to me a hutch is the true heart of a home, in a spiritual since, as opposed to the practical heart that is the kitchen. Anyway, for now the $99 breakfast nook from BB&B will do. It acts as storage, and has a drop leaf that makes it a decent table for a company of two.

So here are the walls - again - as posted last week. I'm still thinking about where my wall art and photos will go. In the meantime, I do like stacking my nieces and nephews under the watchful eye of a small Navajo sand painting.

So, the desk. There's no good place in the apartment for the desk, and so it may move. The empty space, if the desk stays, will likely be filled with a framed something - photo, art, whatever.

Also, I'm thinking about the speakers. I may get ambitious and actually punch two holes in the wall to snake some speaker cable through. If I can run cables through the wall, rather than on the outside, I'd rather do that. Honestly, even though it's near fifteen years own, I have a ridiculously sophisticated speaker system for an apartment of this size.

Well, that's all that's fit to print this week. I do have some more shelves that that were on back order from West Elm - those may go over the desk, or in the bedroom.

Also, I got my Metropolis poster - the German Expressionist science fiction film, not Superman's birthplace. Still pricing out framing. It may ultimately be cheaper to send back and buy a framed copy.

Stay tuned.

The Bounty

Here are pictures of the latest improvements. Shelves are up and decorated, clutter is (mostly) stowed, and the baker's rack is in place.

One of the new shelves:

Photos of my niece and nephews:

Shelves on the other wall. The black boxes are speakers. I'll hook them up eventually.

The "Baker's Rack". You can but it as a kit at The Container Store. I already had the main poles and a couple of shelves - I only bought the wine shelf, wooden butcher, and ledge shelf.

The living room wall. Notice the lack of junk on the console.

Continual Improvements

More pictures soon, promise.

I made a lot of little progress this week. The main thing was getting the storage locker in the basement. This allowed me to clear out an entire closet (two, if you count portions of the other two closets) and then to put other stuff away. The only moving boxes left are books - and those will have to wait for bookshelves, which may be a ways off.

The storage locker is 4x5x8. It's a metal bin, floor to ceiling, with a door that opens out. I assembled about half of my metal shelves; the other half are down there in a disassembled state. I've got it mostly organized - CDs here, hats there, sweaters and coats hanging from a pole. I left room for my bike. Since it's a folding bike, I just had to leave a little nook to collapse it into.

The result is that I have a much better sense of the spaces upstairs (in the apartment). The bedroom closet is large, but mostly on depth, making it kind of long-term storage since many things would get double-parked. The front closet is tall, and I'm not sure what I want in there. I have enough space for a dining table, but not a large on, and maybe no with a hutch. There are three candidates for "bookshelf" wall, but I'm not sure which will be best.

Finally, I'm just about at the end of my budget, so some furniture ideas I've had - a nightstand, side tables, bookshelf - may have to wait.

Storage

No real news, but kinda good news: I got my storage locker. Turns out there is an additional fee but I don't care. Sometime this weekend - this week if I get ambitious - I'll be setting up my old Metro shelves down there, and then moving stuff down there.

This should free up the front closet, which is where all the shelves are now, and that in turn gives me a place to hang my coats and dresses (and if I am luck, my skirts, which are currently hanging off a towel rack which is hanging off the bathroom door).

So - all that stuff you see cluttering up the living room? Buh-bye. Then, I can get a better sense of the space, finish off the main areas, and start to think about what I want to do in the rest of the apartment.

The Transformation

I'm not finished, but I've made enough progress now that I want to show off the living room.

Here is what it looked like before I bought it: a renter's bachelor pad, spartan and bare:

The first order of business was getting the floors done. Once that was complete, I cam in with a bunch of supplies from Home Depot and set up shop.

Once I got the paint up, I moved in, and after some effort, got a flight path. I used masking tape to play around with ideas of where to place the shelve:

And now, shelves. I picked these up at West Elm, all in, about $300 - with some more to come. I moved the desk out from around the corner - I want to leave that area to the right open as a dining area eventually.

Hanging Judge

I've started hanging things. Pictures soon. Yesterday, it was a pot rack hanging from my ceiling; today, I hung some shelves from the wall. I seem to have a knack for finding joists; that, or fooling myself.

It is a bitc# though. Getting things lined up, especially the four hooks for the pot rack. On the shelves, I had to completely re-do one set because I was off by about 1/8 of an inch. The idea was to mount brackets and then slide the shelf on. I couldn't slide the shelf on.