Making it happen
I'm a little nutty about interior design. I love design magazines, I like designing things in my head and assembling color schemes and artfully quirky collections of furniture and decor. But I have never much bothered to really finalize any place of my own. I'm lazy about putting up pictures. I have good furniture, I know how to arrange it to make use of "traffic patterns" and "focal points" and "natural light" and all those things you read about in design books, but it's bare and basic. It's serviceable, but not very personal. And I'm kind of a pack-rat, which makes organization difficult and tiresome.
WELL. A couple weeks ago, I went to a housewarming party for two friends of mine who just moved in together. They moved into the house around the same time I moved into my apartment, and Ben (one of the two; the other is Tarin) and I had several giddy conversations about painting and decorating and the fun part of moving. But at their housewarming party, I realized Ben actually meant what he said. Their house is gorgeously decorated (and I know it was on the cheap, because Ben and Tarin both worked at IRT), every room has shelves and pictures on the walls, everything is painted, it all looks like it could be right out of a magazine.
I look around my place right now, and I see a box of shit waiting to go to Goodwill. A pile of magazines waiting to be taken to the recycling bin. Mostly bare walls, with the exception of the few things that my dad and I hung up in a burst of "decorating" energy the day I moved in. And beige. Lots and lots of boring builders' beige.
I am not a beige person.
Now, I realize I need a little perspective here. Ben will admit that he fits the gay-man stereotype of always having a perfectly decorated domicile. He certainly has style. And his ex worked at Pier One, so Ben got all sorts of lamps and rugs and tchotchkes for next to nothing.
But dammit, I've got style too, and there's no reason I can't apply that towards thrift stores and closeouts and the like. I know what I like, I know what goes together, I have a good eye for color and design, blah blah blah.
So I'm starting today, painting my kitchen (and bathroom, if I get to it), and my dining/craft room will be next. I've got my colors picked out... I just have to get off my ass and do it.
Aaaaand go!
WELL. A couple weeks ago, I went to a housewarming party for two friends of mine who just moved in together. They moved into the house around the same time I moved into my apartment, and Ben (one of the two; the other is Tarin) and I had several giddy conversations about painting and decorating and the fun part of moving. But at their housewarming party, I realized Ben actually meant what he said. Their house is gorgeously decorated (and I know it was on the cheap, because Ben and Tarin both worked at IRT), every room has shelves and pictures on the walls, everything is painted, it all looks like it could be right out of a magazine.
I look around my place right now, and I see a box of shit waiting to go to Goodwill. A pile of magazines waiting to be taken to the recycling bin. Mostly bare walls, with the exception of the few things that my dad and I hung up in a burst of "decorating" energy the day I moved in. And beige. Lots and lots of boring builders' beige.
I am not a beige person.
Now, I realize I need a little perspective here. Ben will admit that he fits the gay-man stereotype of always having a perfectly decorated domicile. He certainly has style. And his ex worked at Pier One, so Ben got all sorts of lamps and rugs and tchotchkes for next to nothing.
But dammit, I've got style too, and there's no reason I can't apply that towards thrift stores and closeouts and the like. I know what I like, I know what goes together, I have a good eye for color and design, blah blah blah.
So I'm starting today, painting my kitchen (and bathroom, if I get to it), and my dining/craft room will be next. I've got my colors picked out... I just have to get off my ass and do it.
Aaaaand go!