Remember when I showed you my nice, newly built desk that’s all pristine and clean and fantastic?
Well. That’s all fine and dandy, but the other side of the room — the side I was too embarrassed to show you — has been looking like this:
Oh, the shame. If the desk side of the room were the pretty face with fresh makeup and whitened teeth, this side would be the armpit.
It’s the unshaven armpit of my office.
It didn’t look like this due to laziness.
Okay, part of it was due to laziness.
But mostly, it’s my indecision that’s the cause of the hold-up once again.
I’ve definitely decided to paint the bookshelves white. I’ve definitely (kind-of-sort-of-I-think) decided to stain the long wall shelves that will go above the long part of the desk a dark-ish color. Although, I’ve since read that pine doesn’t like to stain dark very well, so now I’m considering painting them once again.
I also love this rug and want to have its babies:
“Tapestry” by Company C. See it on my Pinterest page.
I could use something like this to cover up the horribly old and stained carpet in the office, but the more I look at it, I actually kind of want this for my kitchen.
And that doesn’t really matter because it is so far out of any rug budget we’d have if we actually had a rug budget, that I probably can’t afford to even look at it, let alone visualize it in any of my rooms. So if you’re aware of a good knockoff or know how to knockoff any of the multiple online stores that carry it and get away with it, please let me know.
Anyway. The good news is that I’ve at least managed to tackle some of that organizational nightmare that’s going on in that corner. The bad news is that I don’t have time to show you right now because they don’t seem to like it when I show up to work looking like someone who woke up terrified in the middle of the night because her husband’s work pager was going off and now has to deal with the fact that he’s leaving town when there’s a hurricane coming our way.
But that’s another story.
Obviously I’ll need something to keep me busy this weekend, so let me know if you have any more office ideas!
First, I want to thank those of you who shared the things you keep around for when you’re feeling blue in the comments of yesterday’s post. They were touching, heartfelt, and most important, they made me feel like much less of a freak.
Now.
The unfortunate thing about being me sometimes, is that there are so many things I want to be, that there’s never enough time to learn it all, and I pretty much end up half-assing everything as a result.
Except writing.
I’m so terrified of writing anything “real,” like a book, or a polished magazine article, that I don’t even half-ass it. I no-ass it. I don’t ass it even a little bit.
But for everything else, I always just go part-way. I learn a little bit of a language. I learn a little bit about photography. I learn a little about cooking. About cleaning. About DIY projects and crafts. I can work on websites a little. Edit a little in Photoshop. Train my dogs to drag me only a little way down the street when they take off after a squirrel.
In my very first blog post, I talked about a career counselor I had in college who got angry at me when I refused to write a paper for him that detailed my future career goals. The problem is that I didn’t know what I wanted to be, so how could I possibly write a paper about it? Add to that my abhorrence of making plans, my compulsive need to take advantage of opportunities as they arise, and my debilitating fear of commitment, and we have the ingredients for mixing together the indecisive, flighty, and noncommittal soup that is my soul.
I swatted away that counselor’s insistence like he was some pesky, know-it-all, gnat. I somehow knew that if I just followed the direction life seemed to be taking me, everything would work out as it should, and some dream career would eventually fall on my doorstep.
Well, crap.
That didn’t happen.
Nor did I turn into a “master of all trades,” like I somehow thought I’d become. The thing is, becoming a master of anything takes time, determination, and commitment. (The exception, of course, being some sickening child protégé who only has to look at a piano before he composes his first symphony, but I’m not talking about that because frankly, it’s depressing and unfair.)
This is all probably pretty obvious to most people, but it’s taken me a bit longer to figure that out.
Mrs. Maetzold never gave me a “Speedy Learner” certificate, after all.
And now we know why.
And, as much as I’d like to think that I can just start making myself a schedule or a list of goals and everything will start falling into place, I’m pretty certain that once it’s thoroughly mixed, the ingredients of my soul soup can’t really be separated again. So I guess that would make it a compound — not a mixture — for you chemistry buffs.
So I’m going to continue to carry on, learning things bit-by-bit as I tend to do.
What’s the latest little project to catch my attention?
It’s making these:
You’re probably wondering what that is.
That is a map of the city of Malaga, Spain, that I printed on card stock and then cut out the streets to give as a gift to our hosts when we visited them there a couple of months ago.
Huh?
See, since I’m out of work right now, we wanted to give them something nice-yet-inexpensive to commemorate the time they’ve lived in that beautiful city. Since I love maps, but nice ones are expensive to buy, I thought I’d make them one.
First, I used Mapquest.com to zoom into an area of the city I wanted to print. The closer you zoom, the more complicated the streets tend to get. Then I saved the image and used a photo processing tool (like Photoshop) to crop it to slightly smaller than the size of my frame (or the inside of the frame mat). Then I opened the image in MS Word or Publisher, reversed it, and printed it out.
NOTE: It’s important to reverse the image so it prints backwards. That way, then you cut it out, you can flip it over and none of the print lines or colors show.
The next step was tedious. I used a craft knife and a mat I bought at Target to cut around every road.
Sorry for the blurry photo — I took this with my camera phone. I went through a lot of wine and episodes of Sex and the City to get this done. And I might have thrown a mild fit when I set a new blade for my craft knife on the paper and some kind of oil that was on it seeped through and ruined my 75% completed piece and I had to start over.
But we don’t like to talk about that.
Finally, I put a piece of scrapbook paper behind it as a backdrop and stuck it in a frame.
Cut-out map laying on scrapbook paper.
Framed map closeup.
I’ve done some earlier versions, but the above map of Malaga is by far the most intricate.
Map of Austin, TX was made for Aaron and Bec, our hosts in Costa Rica who are finally realizing their dream of starting a life in Austin. (Sorry, photo taken with my camera phone.)
Map of Durham, NC where my friend Alaina and her husband are starting their family. This is in a see-through glass frame. (Sorry, blurry photo taken with my camera phone.)
And finally, Malaga, Spain.
I’d like to make some of these for our own home and the places we’ve traveled, and I’m sure I will be making more as gifts. The great thing is that it’s sentimental for the recipient, and they can easily change out the frame, mat, or scrapbook paper to reflect their own personal style.
Is this a project you think you’d tackle yourself? What kind of gifts do you like to give people? Also, if you’re interested in having me make one of these for you because you simply don’t have this kind of time, let me know because I do have the time and I do need to generate some income.
Well it turns out that quiz might have been on to something, because while I’m not an alcoholic per se, I would prefer to sit down and kick back a glass of vino while discussing the latest book I read over perusing the interwebs for office inspiration photos and staring at paint swatches. Which is why it’s been… erm… 4 months since I declared I’d be decorating the office and have done exactly 1 thing: bought a desk.
It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s just that I’m so indecisive, I could probably spend so much time looking at a dinner menu that the table next to me would have sat down, ordered, eaten, enjoyed some after-dinner drinks, smoked a couple of cigars, went home, had sex, and gone to sleep.
I never know what I want! As the style quiz correctly determined, I’m into “Cozy… not oversized… a handcrafted gem.”
Yep. That’s me.
I’ll admit it — I’m not hugely into the all-white/beige/cream trend that seems to have taken over the design blogosphere. I mean, sure it looks gorgeous, but is it really all that practical?
For my lifestyle, NO.
I like warm colors. I like comfortable. I like reading a book in an over-stuffed arm chair with a crocheted blanket thrown over my legs. I don’t love cleaning, I don’t own stacks of design magazines, and I definitely don’t collect little white ceramic animals and vases.
So why the heck did I buy this ultra modern, clean-lined, super white desk?
And more important, why am I painting another one to match it?
I guess it comes down to functionality. I have a very cluttered mind, which, it stands to reason, would result in a very cluttered home office. Therefore I think, when I ordered this desk, that I had a vision of a clean, minimal design, highlighting function, organization, and productivity above all else.
The problem? These all require dark, bold wall colors, and I am not repainting this sucka.
I realize I didn’t clean up any of my junk, including the fugly dog kennel, but here’s how the office looks now:
View right when you walk through the door. See that pull-up bar in the lower right corner? Yeah… I can almost do half a pull-up now. Probably because the pull-up bar lives on the floor. Should I keep this painting? I’m thinking I could pull some colors from it to use in the rest of the room.
Turning left… Yep, that’s my new desk, buried under junk from my trip to IKEA and an old office chair I wasn’t able to sell. See that closet on the right? There’s another one directly across from it. I guess the architects designed it like that so there could be a window between to let more light in the room. Those old computer towers in the lower left corner will be going away. Eventually.
Turning left some more… Wow, that’s embarrassing. Here you will see no less than 3 camera bags sitting on the floor, my blue college trash bin, and a $10 bookshelf filled with… can you tell?… Justin’s Star Wars book collection. I plan for the long desk he built to go on this wall in order to form an “L” shape with the existing desk.
Then, I think I’ll put some open shelving above the long desk with my IKEA file storage boxes, and maybe a bulletin board and/or some other organizational items on the wall in front of the short desk.
And one more turn… For some reason I neglected to take a photo of the wall to the left (or immediately to the right when you walk into the room. It currently contains 2 more cheap-o bookshelves with my books.
So there you have it. Here are the issues I’m willing to address:
Wall Shelves. I’ve already bought the wood for 2 long shelves to go on the wall with the entrance to the room (above photo) above the long desk. Should I stain them or paint them? What color? Remember, below them will be a white desk, and on them will likely be white boxes and magazine folders from IKEA. So white shelves are not an option. I’m all whited out.
Book shelves. It would be a huge pain, but I’m willing to paint these. Should we keep all 3? I like the idea of setting up a “library” corner in the corner of the room you view right when you walk in (right side, first picture). Should I paint them? Should I keep them together? Should they all go on one wall? In the corner? What?!
Lighting/Accessories. I might be able to swing something by way of inexpensive desk lamp or ceiling light, but the budget is pretty tight on this project. Like… nonexistent. Like… I’m kind of at the end of my jobless grace period. So I pretty much have to work with some paint and what we have.
Painting. Should I keep that painting? If so, where should it hang? Should I use it for other colors in the room by way of accessories? Looking through my Pinterest inspiration photos, I’m noticing a trend with a burnt orange color and/or a bold green. Orange is in that painting; green is not. (*I take it back — green IS in the picture! It’s in the leaves of the tree right in the middle.) Here are some of my Pinterest photos:
I love this kitchen from the movie, It’s Complicated. Maybe I could paint the book shelves a rusty green and have the burnt orange as an accent color somewhere??
Another photo with natural, rustic-looking wood has me thinking I should paint the book shelves a crisp white and distress and stain the wall shelves above the desk to look like the desk in the photo above.
This one’s slightly different, but I love that muted blue color, which also happens to be in the painting.
Let me ask you. Did I already screw this up by painting the walls gray? By buying/making white desks? By being an idiot when it comes to design??
Tranquilla.
In retrospect, I probably should have tried to find a great piece from a thrift store and refinished it to get the used-but-loved look I’m pretty sure I like but have never been able to achieve (aside from the puppy teeth marks on my ottoman legs). And I definitely should’ve come up with a design plan before getting started. You think I would’ve learned with the kitchen!
Bottom line?
I need help. And I’m counting on readers like TileTramp and YOU to help me.
So? What should I do? Besides say “screw it” and pour myself a glass of wine at 10 a.m. because it’s just an office? (And that quiz thought I was an alcoholic. Puh-leeze.)
Have you ever felt like you have a million things to write about but no way to write them?
I have all of these things to tell you, but I feel like I lost my voice. The words aren’t there.
Well, I have some words, but they aren’t witty or thoughtful or seductive in any way.
What? They aren’t normally?
Well, crap.
Let me just tell you about the lovely little pottery festival I attended this weekend, otherwise known as “pay $10 to get sloshed on wine samples then $5 to walk around trying not to break any handcrafted pottery and then head back to the wine tent when you realize you never really wanted any pottery to begin with – you just wanted to drink the wine and listen to the music, which, you realize, is even more fun when you’re not the one serving the drinks.”
Now that I think about it, that pretty much sums it up. So thanks, Danielle, for the awesome time!
I didn’t buy any pottery, but I did get some fantastic local honey, some seasoning stuff, a bottle of chardonnay, and this:
It combines my desire for a globe and my need for a place to store keepsake wine corks in one, fun-filled piece of kitsch.
Yes, we all know how I feel about buying crap just to have it – I normally stick to art and photographs since not only do they look nice, but they evoke memories and emotions, but c’mon people – it’s a globe and a cork holder.
It’s like it was made for me.
Sorry for the blur. Apparently I can’t take photos and drink orange juice at the same time.
A couple of weeks ago I informed you that my friend Alaina and I were planning a day trip to Charlotte to hit up that wonder of all superstores, IKEA, for the latest in ready-to-assemble Swedish decor for her nursery and my office.
We were going to go later this week, but since her husband was planning to come over to my house to play with my husband last Saturday (wait – that doesn’t sound right, does it?), we decided to go then.
That way I wouldn’t be here to witness them do this to my walls:
Now. If you’ve never been to an IKEA before, there are a few things you should know:
1. Preparation – especially if you don’t live close enough to run back to the store when you realize you forgot something – is key. That means searching online ahead of time for things you might want, writing them down, taking measurements in your home, writing those down, and then checking the availability of those items at the store you plan on visiting. I might have forgotten that last part.
2. IKEA is BIG. They have it set up so that you follow these arrows that direct you through the upper level of the store, meandering through a giant maze of show rooms and displays, oohing and ahhing at the cheap prices and simplistic designs and jotting down crazy names of things like “Ekby” and “Kivik” and “Klubbo” so that, when you get downstairs to where they actually have all the stuff for you to put in your cart, you’ve already seen what it looks like set up in a room. The problem? If you walk past something you wanted without realizing it, you might have to trek about 1.8 miles each way to go get it. Wear sneakers, is all I’m sayin’.
3. They have a kiddie play area where you basically sign your kids off to play while you shop and I’m pretty sure it’s genius and designed more for childless people like me than actual parents, but who cares because the kids are corralled in one place away from the rest of us real people and stop pretending to judge me because you know I have a point.
4. Things aren’t always as cheap as you think. Sure, that pretty print might look chic and affordable hanging in the showroom in its shiny silver frame, but looks can be deceiving. You might not notice that there are two tags hanging from the picture – one for the print itself, and another for the frame. And you like those library bookshelves with the glass doors whose price seems too good to be true? That’s because you’re looking at the tag for just the top part of the shelf. The bottom half and cabinet doors cost extra, just so you know. In all fairness, you can usually find the price of an entire unit listed, but if you’re a newbie shopper there, just be careful to read the tag so you know what you’re pricing and what you’re buying. You’d hate to get something home, put it together, and then realize you didn’t actually buy everything you wanted.
5. With the exception of their kitchens, the majority of IKEA items tend to look a lot better online than they do in person, in my humble little opinion. But hey – it’s ready-to-assemble furniture, people. That means everything you buy – whether it’s a sectional sofa or a wall of bookshelves – comes in flat (albeit heavy) boxes just perfect for a brawny girl like me to drag into the back of the Tracker by herself because her friend is pregnant and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anything happen to the little kumquat.
And you don’t want to mess with these.
Side note: Back in the day, Alaina and her husband (then boyfriend) Dirk bought all of his bedroom furniture from IKEA and enticed their friends over to help put it together under the guise of a party. Approximately 6 hours and countless beers later, I was the last man standing.
And the furniture was assembled.
And it hasn’t fallen apart.
Yet.
In all seriousness though, a truly gifted shopper like Alaina can emerge from IKEA happy, alive, and with the makings of a simply beautiful room. Even the dresser she bought for the nursery had far superior glides to much of IKEA’s other bedroom furniture, and Alaina had the uncanny ability to breeze through the labyrinth, stocking her cart with a piece of fabric here, a lamp there, and knowing her, everything will fit together perfectly in the end.
Just don’t expect it to be as inexpensive as you thought.
Truly ungifted shoppers like me, on the other hand, tend to have problems in a place like this. For one, there’s too much pressure. There were too many choices and I couldn’t make up my mind and half the time I’d end up running back across the entire store just to get a sieve I missed back in housewares and where did you get that plant, Alaina because I want one, and crap I have to run back to home organization again because I forgot the hook thingies for my hanging thingies and WHAT?! They are out of my shelf brackets? You have got to be f*cking kidding me and will someone please just take me out to the parking lot, dose me up with tranquilizers, and shoot me now?
In case you haven’t guessed, I don’t really like shopping.
These are the things I wanted to get at IKEA:
File cabinet
Shelf brackets
Storage boxes
Desk chair
Hanging organizers
These are the things I did get at IKEA:
Storage boxes
Hanging organizers
Fake plant
Kitchen sieve and funnels
Candle
These are the things I wish I’d bought at IKEA but I’d already purchased them somewhere else:
Blinds (IKEA has nice, inexpensive faux wood blinds, but I’d already bought wood-looking aluminum blinds at Target that the dogs have already messed up.)
Wooden hangars (I just bought what I thought were pretty inexpensive wooden hangars at Bed, Bath and Beyond for the closet makeover, but IKEA’s looked better and were even cheaper.)
In person, the file cabinet I thought I wanted just looked flimsy and unsubstantial, and they were out of my shelf brackets. OUT.
I have to say, the best part of the day by far was the plate of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, and lingonberry sauce served cafeteria style for like $4. To a pregnant chick and a girl who still had to drive another 2 1/2 hours on pitch black, tree-lined, winding roads in the rain just to get us home, it was pure heaven.
I would’ve taken a picture, but they were literally gone in about 4.8 seconds. My phone doesn’t work that fast.
At the end of the day, this meager pile is my total haul (before the storage boxes have been assembled):
My indecisiveness, lack of design skills, and just plain ol’ crappy luck were no match for IKEA’s wiley ways.
So. After 2 1/2 hours driving to get there, and approximately 3 hours and 11.72 miles of walking through the store, and a stressful, stormy, 2 1/2 hour drive home, I felt deflated. Alaina, who spent about 10 times more than me because she has a job and a design plan and the ability to make actual decisions, felt elated.
It was totally worth the trip.
But I have to say, before you make the trek to your not-so-local IKEA, you might want to figure out which one of us is you.
So now I can start taking pictures like this again:
And this:
And even this:
It feels a little like my arm fell off five months ago and the doctors were just now able to sew it back on.
Exhilarating.
In other news, I took this little style quiz that I found over on YHL because, as much as I hate spending money on decor, I still like to fish around the web every now and then for ideas of what I’d like if I did enjoy spending money on decor.
I’m doubting there’s any merit to the quiz results, considering they’re based on picking the most appealing images from some random photos. I mean, what’s with the one with the hats? But the whole thing takes about 30 seconds to complete, so if you’re bored, I just found a way for you to kill 30 seconds.
You’re welcome.
I went around picking photos like this one:
And this one:
My result? Swank Aesthete.
My reaction? WTF is that?
At best, it sounds like some debilitating foot fungus. At worst, it makes me sound snooty and shallow.
But then I read the description, and I have to say… I kinda like it.
“Cozy… not oversized – a hand crafted gem.” Yes, please! A craftsman bungalow would be my dream home.
Photo by Nate, at MyTravelMap.wordpress.com depicts a hand-built home in the town of Cuyin Manzano, Patagonia Argentina.*
The quiz results also stated that I’m “Blown away by the handcrafted nature of art,” and that couldn’t be more spot-on. Whether it’s music, photography, painting, or architecture – when someone takes the time to create something beautiful, I take the time to see it.
(Click photo for link to artist's website)
But then the results get a little… confusing.
“…you enjoy your niceties. A cool refreshing drink – and often more than one!”
Now what is that supposed to mean? Okay so it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I want some know-it-all style quiz rubbing it in my face.
I mean, it might as well be saying, Why don’t you go ahead and pour a little more bourbon into your morning coffee, Alchie?
Talk about judgmental.
Moving on.
The quiz redeemed itself at the end. Immensely.
Apparently, because the quiz knows all, I have the same style as Cate Blanchet, Ingrid Bergman, and Johnny Depp!
So basically, this means I could share a home with Johnny Depp and we totally wouldn’t argue about aesthetic or design because we have the same taste. And we could afford a pre-war apartment on the upper-east side (which the quiz thinks I want) because, come on, I’d live with Johnny Depp. Although I’m thinking he might prefer Paris.
Oh, and I made something good last night. Really good. And it was unfortunate because I mis-timed the recipe, which left me approximately 1.4 minutes to inhale a steaming plate of it before running off to work, resulting in burning the top layer of taste buds off of my tongue.
But it was so worth it.
Stay tuned…
*Nate, as per usual, I did not ask permission to steal another blogger’s photo because I didn’t know I’d be posting it until just now. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’d like me to remove it!
