decorate my apartment

The range hood light in my kitchen burned out several years ago. Today, I finally wrote down the type of bulb I needed and bought it. The label mentioned two, so I bought two. When I opened the cover, I saw only one bulb. So I have a spare.

Then I noticed a similar cover on the other side. I have two lights! I’ve lived here nearly 8 years, and I never noticed that. Put the second one in and turned it on…what a difference it makes in my kitchen. I keep glancing in there, thinking how cozy it looks in there. Like a real, grown-up kitchen.

Light is apparently one of my things.

but not printed yet. I need to get a new ink cartridge, for one. Also, I think I’ll wait until after the holidays to print them – the house always feels so empty when I take down the Christmas decorations, and I think having new pictures to hang will make it a little easier to handle.

In fact, I may have to hit the after-Christmas sales and pick up some frame sets. I found tons of pics I like – all free! (stock.xchng is a very cool site.) I’ve found pics I want for every room in my house.

I have three nails in the wall above my kitchen sink. One holds a clock that has never worked properly in this apartment. (No idea why.) The other two held potholders that went with my old kitchen towels/rug; however, I’ve since switched color schemes. (Twice.)

Today, I had an idea. I have three unused silver frames – one 5×7 and two 3×5. I could print out pretty black-and-white photos (I’ve finally given in and gone with a BW kitchen…was mostly there anyway), frame them, and hang them from those nails.

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

but it fits better here than any other goal.

My office closet is a mess. It’s my “I’ll just stick it here” place. Every other storage area in my apartment has a distinct purpose; the office closet is where everything else goes. Clothes that are rarely worn, are out of season, or are in the “maybe keep” pile. Christmas decorations. Craft supplies. My old synthesizer. A picnic basket. Archived files. Random electronic components, which may or may not go with anything I currently own. You get the idea.

It’s a mess. I’ve got stacks of plastic tubs, plastic drawers, baskets, lids, and everything in between stacked on top of each other. To access items in the lower bins, I have to pull everything out of the closet. I dread going in there.

So I’m questing for a better system. I’ve had my eye on these organizer cubes, but never knew the measurements of the floor space. Now I do.

I’m not sure they’d provide enough storage space, though. I have a two-door cabinet and 4 drawers from the same company in my closet; they provide a fair amount of space, but they’re hardly roomy. But I’m not sure what else would work.

My quest begins.

A friend of mine (R’s friend initially…I glommed on to him) came over this weekend, and was just blown away by my apartment. He told me I have taste. I’ve never been told that before. Very nice feeling. :)

Can’t quite decide on this little grouping. I’m thinking the frames are off; they look better on a dark background. Maybe different frames here, and put these somewhere else. I’ll give it a few days and see what I think.

No sooner do I get rid of the old couch that I start feeling my living room is too empty. R’s reaction: “I knew you’d miss it.”

I’m hoping that getting (ok, making) a real coffee table and a couple of floor pillows will help fill the space. Because I sure can’t afford a chair.

Especially not the chair that goes with my couch, though I do love it so.

My old blanket is getting kind of ratty, and I’ve not been able to find one that I really like…so I splurged and got some yarn to make one. Haven’t quite made up my mind as to how I like the color with the couch…I’ll have to crochet a few more rows first, I guess. And if I don’t like it, I’ll take the other skeins back and do something else with this one.

I stopped by Hancock Fabric and nearly fainted at the price of materials needed to make my pillows. The pillow forms alone cost more than I usually spend on ready-made pillows, and the fabric was $12 and $15 a yard, respectively. So I decided to look at ready-made pillows to see if I could do better.

I did. Found the blue ones at Kohl’s for $8 apiece. Later, R and I went to JCPenney’s to look at bed pillows (he loves my pillows, and wanted to buy me new ones so he could have mine). While we were there, we found cream vinyl ones that match my couch – $11 apiece. The sweetheart bought me those, too.

Those four pillows cost less than it would have had I made two pillows.

Now I just need floor pillows.

Well, they were to go with the coat rack, which will have mosaic on the doors.

I haven’t done the mosaic yet, but I will most assuredly have tiles left over.

And am now planning to cover a jar (for flowers? Odds n ends? Who knows?) and two candleholders with the leftover tiles. They’ll sit atop the coat rack.

I’m just having to restrain myself from actually gluing the tiles on the jar and candleholders until I finish the doors…I don’t want to use up all the tiles and then not have enough for the initial project!

I think I need help…some mosaic 12-step program. Or maybe I should just do a table. A big project like that might curb my fascination with gluing little glass tiles to things and surrounding them with grout.

_{Pictures of the finished project(s) to come, of course.}