create a beautiful living space

On saturday, we got a table! We’d seen a few in thrift stores that we were considering, $65-$100 for a table, $15-$25 for a chair. That’s the going rate around here. I wasn’t planning on getting anything new, but I saw a table on sale at Target for $50. With the chairs, it was about $114, instead of the $450 it would have been at full price. I’m very happy! However, it was funny because the only one they had left was the one on display, and so it was bolted to the floor. Our table has little holes in it where it was screwed down, but it’s ok. I’m very happy with it. :)

I’m basically outfitting an apartment from scratch, and it’s important to me to have a bright and happy living space. Since I’m getting a lot of stuff at the same time, I want to make sure it goes together in some sort of coherant mannar.

I went to a few thrift stores today (two of which were pretending to be antique stores) and looked at furniture. One of them had an awesome red loveseat for only $100. I wish I hadn’t bought that couch at ikea six months ago, because some of the slats are already starting to break, and when I had to take it apart, I discovered that the metal is really soft and weak. Lesson learned about ikea. I can salvage it, but I’m disappointed.

One of the “antique” stores is going out of business and everything is half price. There’s a drop leaf table that is bigger than I want, but not bigger than I’m willing to accept. The apartment is small, so I’d like a table that doesn’t take up much space. Another store had a pretty neat fake marble table that looks like something from a diner, or perhaps a greek monument. I would agree if somebody called it tacky, but it makes me smile, and it’s a good size.

We didn’t get any furniture, but we got a bath mat, two trashcans, and a hanging shower caddy. I also put up the shelving I bought at the art store when it went out of business, and that looks really nice. I’m extremely pleased about those shelves.

Before we buy anything expensive, we need to have a lengthy talk about budget.

even I`m convincing myself that this goal will complete itself, I`m slowly realising that I need to do something on this field. my 1. idea for my living space is to collect lampions and hang them low over my bed (which is at the moment the only piece of furniture I love in my room)

I was in Ikea and found a new lamp. it was cheap and the light it makes is beautiful and decent. even I haven´t planned to buy it, it fits in the concept of my room

i have a new bed. it´s much bigger then my old one, from dark wood and looks really good.and I can finally turn over twice without bumping on the floor :)

Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are And How You want to Live, Morrow, 1999.
Tags: Conduct of Life, Identify (Psychology), Home-Psychological Aspects

Something has happened to the magazine racks at US drug stores and grocery stores, and even bookstores, such as Walden and Barnes and Nobel. Public affairs magazines are missing. Life Magazine is gone, even Playboy is relegated to the highest shelf in a plastic wrapper. I have been remodeling my home and discovered that I could find several dozen magazines devoted to decorating and remodeling. There were specialized issues that focused only on baths, kitchens, “country” homes, apartments and even magazines that offered a focused on “outdoor” living.

However, with all of these selections when I examined the floor plans closely there were few choices. Bathrooms may now include bidets, unusual for an American home, if not urinals, but in the end there is a simple choice: toilet, tub and shower, sink and medicine cabinet. Kitchens only offer stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, possibly a disposal and microwave. When I think of my grandmother’s Thor, purchased early in the century, appliances that enabled the user to swap out parts and use as either a dishwasher or clothes washer, I wonder to what extent we have changed.

Amid all of these choices I have recently found one book that speaks to my own needs
Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are and How You Want to Live by Alexandra Stoddard, published by William Morrow, 1999. Chapter 2 is a delightful dialogue called “Shaping Your Home” in which a husband and wife are interviewed by a decorator the questions deal with how the couple actually lives. The decorator commands the couple
“Site on your side of the bed. Now sit on John’s side. How does it feel?” The discussion is almost like couples therapy.

The author emphasizes the role of light on the house. She explains that reflection, that can mean more light, can come from many places, including mirrors and shiny surfaces. She also frees the reader to embrace color, the colors that the person occupying the house really likes. If you like purple, red, and bright yellow use them. She includes items not usually thought have as part of the decorating task as essential: telephones, the multiple roles of the kitchen table, windows in relationship to the views they display.

The ultimate goal of the book is to make the individual or the family looks at their own needs, which may be unconventional and design living spaces according to these needs, not some preconceived plan.

So, back to the home I am renovating. It is a house I have owned for 47 years sand lived in with a husband and two children, with a teenager and adult daughter with ideas of her own, a strange period when I shared it with a brother, ex-husband, daughter and a daughter who returned home after a divorce. I have rented the house to strangers while helping a daughter with grandchildren, while I was in the Peace Corps, while living in a downtown condo. I will be returning home now, planning yet another use of space, sharing with short-term renters.

I plan to reread the Stoddard book with a notebook, examining as she suggests what “feeling at home” means to me, using the house as a focus for “designing my life”. I look forward to purchasing my notebook, to including a history of my earlier lives at the home, including information about the street, the neighborhood, and hope that when I return to this subject in a year I will be living in my home happily, more happily than every before.

No. 5

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No. 2