Brain dump as I think aloud about home improvement
As I mentioned, a couple weeks ago, Mb and I visited the ASPCA thrift store. While we were there, I fell in love with a dresser. The only thing that stopped me was the charge for delivery, which would've doubled the cost of the piece. Now, I'm second-guessing myself, halfway wishing I'd gotten the darned thing, and contemplating revisiting it when I head up there to get my glasses...hopefully, next week sometime. And if it's not there, well, I can think of several other, closer thrift stores that might have something similar. I'm going to keep telling myself that it isn't that specific dresser that matters, it's the concept.
Here's what I'm thinking: It's a long, low dresser, and my plan calls for divesting myself of my waterfall cedar chest, which is currently used to pile things on. There are occasional avalanches as well. I probably haven't had it open in the last five years---probably longer. Some previous owner ironed a hole in the veneer, but it's got great Deco lines, and I'm sure it'll get snapped up wherever it goes.
Okay, so, new dresser replaces cedar chest in the same location, and the TV goes on top of it. TV is currently atop a wrought-iron fishtank stand, which it completely dominates. There are several advantages to this: One, the TV will be right by an outlet, so no more octopi of extension cords. Ditto the cable won't have to stretch in front of the door; duct tape or no, that's not satisfactory, either. Three, here's room on top of the dresser for the cable box and DVD player so they don't have to perch atop the TV.
And fourth, I can repurpose the fishtank stand as a bedside table, since the bed is going to relocate and its headboard is going bye-bye. I'd like to be able to lean back against the wall and watch TV or read in bed---the headboard wobbles and is not condusive to leaning.
In conjunction with the departure of the chest/relocation of the bed, I want to excavate my closet. I know there's stuff in there that I don't wear/will never wear again. If I get rid of it, it'll allow me to bring in clothes from the garage that I *do* wear. There's also one of those plastic drawers-on-wheels things in there---I can empty its contents into the dresser and repurpose it elsewhere.
Another thing on my Bedroom To-Do list is jewelry management. I have a shitload of bling, and it tends to be all over the place, which is oh-so-annoying when I'm looking for a particular necklace to go with an outfit and it's nowhere to be found. What I'm thinking of doing is getting a sheet of pegboard and mounting it on the wall to the right of the closet---it's under $10, and I still have $40 left on my Home Depot GC (she says, rubbing her hands together gleefully).
Hmm...I measured, and found out I could also mount one to the left of the closet---when the tank-stand is gone. Or I could just get two panels of pegboard and hold on to one for the (eventual) kitchen re-do. It remains to be seen, after the first pegboard is mounted, how much bling I have left to organize. I'm thinking necklaces, for starters, maybe some bracelets, but not necessarily.
Or---there's always an "or"---I could move that tall bookcase in from the garage and put *that* to the right of the closet and hang pegboard to the left. The bookcase could serve as an accessories station for smaller jewelery, scarves, hats, purses, etc.
It would also be nice to have an area rug in there. I have several possibilities to choose from. Smallest one is pink floral on a brown background. There's the Deco-ish one (greens/yellows/purplish) that's down in the living room, clasing with the cranberry sofa, or the one I just got from the Cs, which is a geometric design, southwestern or persian, something like that, bolden-beige background, black and light blue pattern. I'm inclined towards the Deco-ish one, if only to get it out of the living room. The C's rug is more neutral and would work better with the welter of patterns, I think....
The living room needs new curtains, as I've mentioned. I've been looking online and twitching. What particularly irks me is eBay: There are a number of fabric purveyors, and when you search for fabric by the yard, you get listings saying "99 cents". Sounds fabu, right? I could fashion some swellegant curtains for less than the price of a tank of gas. Wrong, because they've got it rigged so that 99 cents is actually the price for a swatch. The fabric itself is more like $5.99 a yard, and I'm sorry---for that price, I'd rather go to Hancock Fabrics and actually SEE what I'm getting.
It would also be nice (There's that phrase again!) if the sofa/loveseat was a solid color. I've been investigating slipcovers, and frankly, it would cost me as much to make them as buy them...unless I used csomething I already have. Another reason to excavate my middle room---I already know I have that muslin in there, which would work for new curtains. I think I've also got a chenille bedspread or two or three that I could convert into slipcovers. Finding them---*that's* the fun part.
Do I sound confuzzled? I have SO MANY ideas. There's the pie-in-the-sky of what I'd like to do if I had unlimited money (Move.), what I'd do if I had a reasonable amount of money to do what I'd like to do, and then there's Real Life: What urgently needs to be done verses what I can squeeze out of what's left. Things like, the roof needs work and my house was last painted in 1985 and my fridge is even older than that. Compared to that, curtains and slipcovers are trivia, but they're things *I* can do, I-me-myself without having to hire anyone---IF I can dig up the stuff I know I already have somewhere.
My god, are you still reading this?! What stamina! Go get a refreshing beverage and rest your eyes. It's what I'm going to do....
Tl;dr: Fluffy wants to rearrange things and commit acts of home improvement.
.
Here's what I'm thinking: It's a long, low dresser, and my plan calls for divesting myself of my waterfall cedar chest, which is currently used to pile things on. There are occasional avalanches as well. I probably haven't had it open in the last five years---probably longer. Some previous owner ironed a hole in the veneer, but it's got great Deco lines, and I'm sure it'll get snapped up wherever it goes.
Okay, so, new dresser replaces cedar chest in the same location, and the TV goes on top of it. TV is currently atop a wrought-iron fishtank stand, which it completely dominates. There are several advantages to this: One, the TV will be right by an outlet, so no more octopi of extension cords. Ditto the cable won't have to stretch in front of the door; duct tape or no, that's not satisfactory, either. Three, here's room on top of the dresser for the cable box and DVD player so they don't have to perch atop the TV.
And fourth, I can repurpose the fishtank stand as a bedside table, since the bed is going to relocate and its headboard is going bye-bye. I'd like to be able to lean back against the wall and watch TV or read in bed---the headboard wobbles and is not condusive to leaning.
In conjunction with the departure of the chest/relocation of the bed, I want to excavate my closet. I know there's stuff in there that I don't wear/will never wear again. If I get rid of it, it'll allow me to bring in clothes from the garage that I *do* wear. There's also one of those plastic drawers-on-wheels things in there---I can empty its contents into the dresser and repurpose it elsewhere.
Another thing on my Bedroom To-Do list is jewelry management. I have a shitload of bling, and it tends to be all over the place, which is oh-so-annoying when I'm looking for a particular necklace to go with an outfit and it's nowhere to be found. What I'm thinking of doing is getting a sheet of pegboard and mounting it on the wall to the right of the closet---it's under $10, and I still have $40 left on my Home Depot GC (she says, rubbing her hands together gleefully).
Hmm...I measured, and found out I could also mount one to the left of the closet---when the tank-stand is gone. Or I could just get two panels of pegboard and hold on to one for the (eventual) kitchen re-do. It remains to be seen, after the first pegboard is mounted, how much bling I have left to organize. I'm thinking necklaces, for starters, maybe some bracelets, but not necessarily.
Or---there's always an "or"---I could move that tall bookcase in from the garage and put *that* to the right of the closet and hang pegboard to the left. The bookcase could serve as an accessories station for smaller jewelery, scarves, hats, purses, etc.
It would also be nice to have an area rug in there. I have several possibilities to choose from. Smallest one is pink floral on a brown background. There's the Deco-ish one (greens/yellows/purplish) that's down in the living room, clasing with the cranberry sofa, or the one I just got from the Cs, which is a geometric design, southwestern or persian, something like that, bolden-beige background, black and light blue pattern. I'm inclined towards the Deco-ish one, if only to get it out of the living room. The C's rug is more neutral and would work better with the welter of patterns, I think....
The living room needs new curtains, as I've mentioned. I've been looking online and twitching. What particularly irks me is eBay: There are a number of fabric purveyors, and when you search for fabric by the yard, you get listings saying "99 cents". Sounds fabu, right? I could fashion some swellegant curtains for less than the price of a tank of gas. Wrong, because they've got it rigged so that 99 cents is actually the price for a swatch. The fabric itself is more like $5.99 a yard, and I'm sorry---for that price, I'd rather go to Hancock Fabrics and actually SEE what I'm getting.
It would also be nice (There's that phrase again!) if the sofa/loveseat was a solid color. I've been investigating slipcovers, and frankly, it would cost me as much to make them as buy them...unless I used csomething I already have. Another reason to excavate my middle room---I already know I have that muslin in there, which would work for new curtains. I think I've also got a chenille bedspread or two or three that I could convert into slipcovers. Finding them---*that's* the fun part.
Do I sound confuzzled? I have SO MANY ideas. There's the pie-in-the-sky of what I'd like to do if I had unlimited money (Move.), what I'd do if I had a reasonable amount of money to do what I'd like to do, and then there's Real Life: What urgently needs to be done verses what I can squeeze out of what's left. Things like, the roof needs work and my house was last painted in 1985 and my fridge is even older than that. Compared to that, curtains and slipcovers are trivia, but they're things *I* can do, I-me-myself without having to hire anyone---IF I can dig up the stuff I know I already have somewhere.
My god, are you still reading this?! What stamina! Go get a refreshing beverage and rest your eyes. It's what I'm going to do....
Tl;dr: Fluffy wants to rearrange things and commit acts of home improvement.
.