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.

Failing.

I received two responses to my chair dilemma. My lovely mother suggested that I simply paint them, to which my immediate thought was, "NEVER." A mysterious second commentator recommended that I bribe my friends with beer and have them help with the sanding. While this was a wise suggestion, I unfortunately have no friends here in Boston that have even the slightest interest in refinishing chairs, and no amount of beer in the world would change that.

So I went with plan C: chemical stripping. It all sounded so simple — paint on the stripping agent (in this case, Citristrip), wait, and then scrape off the finish. It'd be the chemical equivalent of magic, and this dilemma would be solved once and for all!

Based on the tense I'm using to describe this situation and the dead giveaway of the title of this blog post, you can probably guess that it didn't shake down like that. 

Using the tips I made from bartending all day yesterday*, I gathered the necessary supplies and got to work. All of the labels on the bottles I was using were quite ominous, so I opened a bunch of windows, tied on a bandana, donned protective glasses, and grabbed some rubber gloves. Safety first.

Then, I realized that I couldn't breathe or see, so off came the bandana and glasses. Sorry, safety. If I grow a second head or all of a sudden develop respiratory problems, we know what to blame.

The process of applying the Citristrip to the chairs took approximately one hour, or two episodes of Parks & Recreation (highly recommend: The Fight and The Bubble). First, I wiped the chairs down with a TSP solution to remove any gross stuff that would hinder the stripping process; then, I applied thick, even strokes of the Citristrip (note: the online tutorials I read suggested using cheap foam brushes to do this, but both of the ones I bought started to dissolve and fall apart within about twenty minutes of use, so I bought a cheap one with synthetic bristles that held up better). I waited about 45 minutes before trying to scrape a small section: success! The stain was definitely coming off, but the result was nowhere near as light as what I got when sanding. After scraping down as much of the chair as possible, I hit a second snag. Due to the bizarre (but very cool!) design of these chairs, there are small corners and edges that I can't really fit the scraper tool into — which was one of the big problems with the sanding, too. 

Welllllllllll, crap.

After two applications of Citristrip and vigorous scraping, the chairs are noticeably lighter, but also noticeably a mess. Even after wiping down with some mineral spirits, they're sticky and gloppy and will still require sanding.

Do I want to scream in frustration right now? Yes. I am quite downtrodden. However! I know the sanding process will go a lot faster now that several layers of stain have already been removed, and I know that the Citristrip will be handy in those smaller areas that I can't easily reach with the sander. As long as it's only small detail areas, I think I can handle breaking out smaller tools and putting in the time to get it done. 

Now I just need these two failure chairs to completely dry so I can attack with the sander. I've made a self-imposed deadline to have all the heavy-duty, messy work on these chairs done by this time next week. That means by next Sunday, I need to have the power sanders packed up and put away, the dirty drop cloth gone, and the dining room clean of sawdust and bottles of mysterious chemicals.

Challenge accepted. Now, please excuse me while I finally shower and wallow in beer and more old episodes of Parks & Recreation.

*I bartend part-time, picking up shifts at catered events whenever I need some extra funds. My personal rule is that any money I make in tips is mine to spend, guilt-free, on anything I want. Going to the movies, eating out, or — as is most likely — blowing it all at the hardware store? Totally fine. Remember that the next time you don't tip your bartender: you might be preventing her from spending her Sunday breathing in chemical fumes and getting brown goop all over her clothes. What a jerk.

Project: Dining Chairs

Remember that chair I mentioned last time? The one I got for the back balcony that ended up destroying hours and hours of my life because I foolishly refused to give up on it?

It looks like chairs are my kryptonite.

Back when I had an alert set up for "dining chairs" on Craigslist, I got an email with an ad for four of these, for FREE. Right price? Check. And there's something about the style that I think is just so cool. I have no idea what that style is, but I like it. (As far as I can tell, "that" style does not exist.)

The seats are going to get recovered so I can finally try my hand at upholstering, and at first, the plan was to leave it at that. I was going to just clean up the wood a bit and focus my efforts on the seats. But then they sat around in my dining room for a week, and the darker wood didn't look right with any of the patterns and colors I was leaning toward. And even after I wiped them down with some Murphy's, there was still this gross waxy film that I didn't want to think too hard about. And I wasn't loving how the finish of the chairs went with the wood floor and the wood paneling on the walls.

And then I wondered: what if I sanded down the current finish and redid it? They're always doing it on HGTV shows and Apartment Therapy and all over the interwebs, so why couldn't I? So I sanded a small part on the underside of one of the chairs, just to see what it would look like.

I loved it. I loved it just as it was, lighter and more casual and soft to the touch. It reminded me of driftwood, and would look amazing with a colorful tribal pattern or something a little more boho.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had started sanding the top side of the chair, merrily going along my way. Sanding. And sanding. And sanding. Twenty minutes passed, and I remembered something: I HATE sanding. The sound is grating and gives me goosebumps and it's slow and it makes a big mess and it's SLOW.

I broke out the power sander, sure that it would be my savior. But after only another twenty minutes or so, I had to stop because I couldn't feel my hands anymore.

These four chairs have been sitting in the dining room for MONTHS now. Every time I try to get a little more work done, I don't last more than an hour before I have to give up again, and I'm left covered in sawdust, ears ringing, hands still vibrating.

I don't know what to do. I still really like the chairs. And a recent compliment from Andy's aunt confirmed that they are, actually, really nice. But I can't keep letting this project drag. The dining room — which, in my defense, barely got used to begin with — is now a wreck of sandpaper, rags, power tools, and unusable space. It's the only common room in the apartment left that I haven't fixed up yet, and I was really hoping to get the ball rolling with these chairs.

But, guys. The SANDING. It's killing me.

What do I do? Give in and junk them? Stick with it? Anyone know some tricks to make sanding less painful? I'm thinking of trying a chemical stripper, but they sound kind of scary. Help!

Back Balcony: Today

I've tried to ignore it as long as possible, pretend it wasn't true, but the time has come to accept the facts: summer is over. With the dropping temps and falling leaves, it's become necessary to begin disassembling the porch paradise I worked so hard to create these past few months. 

Let's take a moment to reminisce, shall we?

I didn't spend much time out here last summer — we moved in the first week of September, and I was a little distracted by getting my room set up and dealing with the pit of despair that was the kitchen. But this year, I was ready.

Our apartment is blessed with not one, but two balconies. Growing up, I thought balconies were pretty much the coolest thing ever, and guess what? They are! The front one is small, just large enough for a bistro table and two chairs, but this puppy is roughly six feet by twenty feet. Plenty of room for the very sophisticated wine and cheese parties I will hypothetically throw when I decide that I'd rather make friends and be sociable than sit around in my sweatpants and re-watch all seasons of Friday Night Lights.

No matter how far-fetched my motivations were, it was enough to get me moving. At first, I foolishly thought that a good sweep and scrub was all the floorboards needed to be barefoot-friendly. It certainly went a long way, but in the process, I ended up loosening a lot more of the flaking paint and saw up-close how nasty the potential splinters could be. 

Right. Put a rug on it! Or two, to be more precise. I ordered these from Costco, and felt very strange doing so, as my only previous experience with Costco typically involves following my mom around their warehouses and eating as many free samples as I can find. I'm pleasantly surprised with these because they were (A) relatively inexpensive, (B) large enough to cover some decent real estate (I chose the 5'3" x 7'4" because of the dimensions I was working with, but there's a larger option, too), and (C) neutral but not boring.

I'll be the first to admit that the final look is a little...not great. It's a big improvement (there are actually places to sit now!), but I expect it to look a little different next summer. A little better.

This bench was actually the first piece I bought, and at the time I was just thinking "It's low enough to slide under the window if I need it to, and it's big enough to squeeze two, and it's fairly nondescript and neutral." This all remains true, but compared to the rest of the stuff I ended up adding, it's kind of...boring. I've tossed around the idea of weaving some kind of rope or twine through the top slats, but there's a really good chance that will look terrible, so it's on the backburner for now. Maybe I should paint it? Ideas?

The pillows, I stole from the living room, because the funky pattern felt like the look I was going for, but something else — more of a large-scale, blocky pattern in a contrasting color — might be more suitable.

I bought all the large plants from Home Depot while on a post-paycheck high, and they fulfilled their duties of being hard to kill and brought in some color. I added the gold triangles to the pots because, while at Michael's one day, I impulse-bought some Rub n' Buff and, aside from having the most ridiculous, vaguely sexual name ever, it's AWESOME. Guys, I can make anything gold! (And for a while, I did.)

Please avert your eyes from the rocking chair. That's Andy's. He owns more rocking chairs than anyone under the age of 75 ever should, but I just don't have it in me to banish it. If he wants to sit in his rocking chair, thoughtfully stroking his beard and reading weirdo poetry books, who am I to say no? I will need to recover or replace those cushions, though, if the chair is here to stay. I draw the line at Old Lady floral patterns.

This chair. I've had such a love-hate-like-hate-mildly enjoy relationship with this thing. I bought it on Craigslist and the person lived smack in the middle of downtown, so it took me forever to find a place to park long enough to pick it up and the whole process sucked. It was one of those situations where you know the end result really isn't worth it, but you've already wasted so much of your time/energy/money/life force that you lie to yourself that it is.

And it only got worse from there.

I was initially attracted to this chair because I was smitten with these Acapulco chairs and wanted something similar for myself. This one has cute metal legs that are also easily removable for storage (See? I can care about practical things, too), and the shape was nice and curvy and actually comfortable. But when I put it outside, it kind of blended in with everything else: brown railing, brown/tan rug, brown bench. See, that chair used to be BROWN. And I went ahead and decided to paint it turquoise! Why not, right?

Hahahahaah oh, Lisa. You blonde idiot.

It was a hellish, time-consuming process that I'd prefer never to repeat, one that involved a lot of careful taping, multiple coats of primer, many, many, many coats of color, and a coat of clear protectant. There may have been several trips to Dick Blick and not one, but two different hardware stores, too. Sigh.

Pillow cover was a West Elm clearance purchase that I stuffed with batting from Michael's because I was feeling too stubborn to shell out for a pillow insert, too. The perforated metal tables are originally from Urban Outfitters but were snagged from Craigslist. Duh. The hammock (yeah, I have a hammock on my balcony, no big deal) used to be Adrienne's and is technically for camping. Don't care. It does the job. 

One last piece of advice: When you finally buy those lovely strings of globe lights from Target that you know will add just the right amount of ambiance to your space, and you string them up and find that you didn't space them out evenly enough and there's a good two feet left over at one end, LEAVE THEM BE. Listen to your wise boyfriend, and do not focus and obsess on that extra two feet that's just hanging down. Because when you inevitably try to re-string the whole thing by yourself at 10 o'clock at night, you will break at least five bulbs. Because you're trying to use a staple gun one-handed while balancing on the railing of a three-story structure. 

Just saying.

Inspiration Board: Nathan's Room

True story: It took my roommate, Nathan, three months of living in our apartment before he finally unpacked all of his boxes — and even then, he progressed only from having piles of boxes all over his room to having piles of books all over his room. To this day, the only furniture he has is a futon, two small bookcases, and a lap desk. A small desk lamp (sans desk), two gigantic bikes (dude's over six feet tall), and a disproportionately small rug round out his decor.

Another true story: After five years of working in a thankless retail job here in Boston, Nathan quit and decided to spend his summer of freedom on his family's ranch in Colorado. Two months passed with no word from him until Andy and I received an email saying that he'd been exploring the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains in Alaska and, among other things, we should definitely re-sign the lease for another year.

If you say so. Check!

Weeks went by before we got another update: he'd since gotten a job as a camp cook/horse whisperer/latrine digger in the Brooks Range and as soon as he got his paycheck, he'd start making his way back east.

That particular update was more than two weeks ago. No word since. Anxiety levels: rising.

No offense to Boston, but it just can't compete with the Alaskan wilderness. I know it, you know it, and I'm sure Nathan knows it, too, which is why I'm starting to feel a little like he may have changed his mind and decided to become a permanent fixture of the tundra.

But maybe, just maaaybe, if his room here got a little touch of that Western wilderness feel, he'd be more likely to return and stay put! (Disregard how flimsy this logic is. I miss my roommate.)

I present to you, Nathan's Room: a Kaleidoscope of Awesomeness.

1. 4040 Locust Asher Ikat Duvet Cover, $99   2. Pharmacy Floor Lamp, $126   3. Magical Thinking Vintage Glaze Lamp, $89   4. 4040 Locust Angled Wood Headboard, $349   5. Rainier Creek print, $17

6. Steppe 6-Drawer Dresser, $1,599   7. Admiral Hanging Mirror, $18-$24   8. Light Gray Emilie Flatweave Sweater Wool Area Rug, $375   9. Bear Hug print, $18   10. The (Original) Bike Shelf, $299   11. Moving Mountains Throw, $100

12. Emerson Shelving, $400   13. Retro Art print, $33   14. Locust Bison Wood Storage Bin, $59 15. Woven Wire Trashcan, $29   16. Turkish Kilim pillow, $60   17. Greer Leather Recliner, $2,499

Disclaimer: I'm not insane. I realize that someone who just quit his job is not going to be shelling out this kind of money on anything. (I'm gainfully employed and wouldn't buy most of this stuff at its current cost.) This is just — say it with me, now — innnnnspiration.

That being said, with some patient Craigslisting, DIY elbow grease, and strategic sales-shopping, I'm confident I could pull off something fairly close to this. Fingers crossed I get the chance.