department of the interior: home decor

what i really want is a level/pulley system that i hook my bike into and then it is taken up to the ceiling and out of sight

now THAT's a good idea

those are really p easy to install

i've been meaning to do it for 6 years

just like i've been meaning to paint my apartment

maybe 2012 is MY YEAR

If you just got home from a bike ride on a wet day, dirty water would work its way down and drip from the bottom of the tire. I wouldn't want one except in a shed, garage, or unfinished basement.

hey everyone!

i moved the tree out of the living room and spaced things out in the living room the way people suggested and it looks 1000x better!

i was wondering if there was any interest in doing ILS house tours or if that's kind of corny.

yeah, but I wouldn't want it on public ILX tbh. maybe a super secret facebook group!
My mum just announced she's thinking of redecorating their living room although it will be some kind of compromise between her and my dad as to what they get. My dad has zero taste/style bless him, just wants some snazzy wallpaper or something, and my mum doesn't know what she wants apart from 'something plain' so this could be interesting.

I've got a for real TASK CHAIR getting delivered this week after months of my spine indicating that it's very unhappy spending 60 hours a week in a knockoff swivel tulip chair.

http://freedomchair.org/wp-content/uploads/freedom-chair.jpg

I hate the way task chairs look but my apartment is pretty much turning into an office anyway.

got my kevi

http://bloggiwog.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/kevi.jpg

it's a second-generation rabami-built one though so the rolling-part with the casters etc isn't quite as good.

how comfortable is that chair?? i need a new desk chair too

Congrats on refreshed living room, dude.

Do any of you guys have the Houzz app for iphone/ipad. its like 300K+ interior dec pics that you can browse and save to an ideabook. so great.

ok going to risk being corny because everyone's advice in the past was so good

so if my place looks kind of spare keep in mind that my two roommates both moved their stuff out recently and so i've only had it to myself for about six weeks during which i've been trying to dig out from the detritus of living w/ recent college graduates.

so i took the "general advice" to clear out my living room and move the tree. i figured that aside from a little dog, i'm really the only one who needs to go in and out of my bedroom, so i got over my fear of blocking the bedroom door and spaced everything way out.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6039/6879328320_915c117c59_z.jpg

so now there's this empty space between the fake shell rocker and the turtle tank. i was thinking of putting in maybe three tall cactuses (ex gf took all the little cactus buddies away away), like one cereus peruvianus, one euphorbia tetragona and of course who could resist a fabulous old man of mexico, a cephalocereus senilis?

My one advice with cacti is if you are a drunken stumbler, or even a sober klutz, don't put cacti in your main footpath.

I know nothing about interior design but I know plenty about the perils of alcohol/lack of coordination + C4 plants.

I mean...cacutussis.

there is a lot of space up there on the wall unit for little plants, also gotta get to the ceramics guild sometime when they have a sale. i was also thinking of replacing the "boob light" on the ceiling with a hanging fixture but i can't make up my mind what the space needs

it's ridiculous that i haven't restocked my succulents though, especially since there's this cactus shop literally a block from my house where they sell little ones for $0.75 apiece

http://s3-media1.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/QAtPOotgt7fQzq_veeuU6A/l.jpg

i've lived with cactus before and i don't drink so i think it'll work out but i was also considering some sort of ladder-type shelf with little potted succulents on it, don't think there's room for a bench

anyway cactus dream house

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpvfyazHYb1qbh6tno1_500.jpg

i mean look at that tetragona

http://the189.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Maurizio-Zucchi-Life-Among-Cacti-3.jpg

haha vah1d are those the life nature library books from the 60s? i have been slowly completing my dads childhood collection of those

i dont really have any other advice i think the room is plenty full enough? theres space on the shelving unit for some nice potted plants and i guess id paint if thats an option for you but i mean, i think its a p nice layout in that photo

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/7025429131_c3439a4c8a_z.jpg

it's not too congested, i don't think

but the entryway still looks shitty

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6211/6879331604_8065573750_z.jpg

was thinking i could brighten it up by installing a simple hydroponic planter in the window, like this one i saw at a local elementary school

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6056/7025557833_c997b21e19_z.jpg

j/k but maybe i should move the tree to that window next to the bike

right now the tree is serving a screening function between the "dining room" and the "office"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44557375@N00/6879331792/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44557375@N00/6879333888/sizes/z/in/photostream/

i got that ficus a pot that's about 2x the size of the one in the pic, gotta get some fresh soil from the nursery since we've had lots of rain and it got into my stash in the yard and now the bag is sprouting weeds all over, then i am gonna replant it in the bigger pot and sink it in at angle to straighten it out, probably going to trim the top 1/3rd as well

whoops

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7085/6879331792_2517c4f134_z.jpg

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6222/6879333888_7e46850d84_z.jpg

kitchen is ... pretty bad

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6224/7025434429_a380b21caf_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/6879323082_a58936d897_z.jpg

chicken soup about to happen tonight

next to which is the entrance to the "hallway bathroom"

poke your head through the door and you see this vent that pokes through right to the living room heater

and some garish posters i put up right when i moved in

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6117/7025414065_2c42d27cc4_z.jpg

which i haven't take down because when i shower

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7135/6879316560_a70742e6f5_z.jpg

i trip on the patterns

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7193/7025552637_683d1258a1_z.jpg

shower is dark and nasty and i installed this horrible wire rack from target that's now covered with rust stains. all that product on the bottom is my dog's.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6055/7025420703_07d7133501_z.jpg

was thinking someone should knock out the shower wall on two other sides with a sledgehammer and install glass blocks there too

then people on the deck could watch me flex as i shower

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6058/7025420379_c93abe02e1.jpg

you can see the deck from the ugly side of the kitchen so i guess you could check out the shower from there

deck is actually foul enough as it is

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6103/7025423173_a38fb799ec_z.jpg

there was a torrential downpour on sunday and i had to let the dog out to poop, and he chose to do it on the deck, and as he was coming in i watched the wind pick up the painting off the fence, flip it over and smash that poop flat. need to get to that instead of taking cellphone pics of my house.

and then on the other side of the bathroom hallway is the bedroom, which looks out onto the driveway and street and has no privacy at all, so i was thinking if i ever bought this house or one like it i'd smash up the driveway and park on the street and put it in a big garden because i'd rather have a private garden than a driveway

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/7025426717_9eed4fbe0e.jpg

at least it does get a lot of light since it faces west and has so much street exposure, it really does look like this in the early afternoon, it practically glows

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6232/6879518826_ea8d90ba73.jpg

i have a jolly wooden companion on my bookshelf who came home from the pasadena rose bowl (please ignore my books)

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6060/6879326206_aa3ab6666e.jpg

anyway pardon my blogging, i've been cooped up home sick for four days over the past two weeks and i've been de-cluttering like a madman.

now i just need a shit ton of plants, a kitchen island, some bathroom storage, and some rugs and mats for the floors and i can be done

new living room arrangement is looking so much friendlier, late great!

Agreed! And what an awesome, gorgeous deck.

the other side of the deck is bare and empty so i was hoping to put in a barbecue, a picnic table and a big sunshade but summer is still a couple months away

yr interior style is pretty great by the way, love the tables and chairs in particular.

late great you have a v nice apt but i still want to know if you have those life nature library books

it's actually a house w/ a backyard!

yes they are nature library on the left (almost complete) and the science library on the right (far from complete)

i am actually on the verge of tossing them, from a science point of view they are very very badly dated, and they really only come alive in the special sections

i think the nature ones are actually p good all things considered and they have some rad photos

ill buy some off you if you want

they're not mine, they're my parents ;-)

i was thinking of replacing them w my complete tintin or asterix sets, not sure which would be more racist though

what I would actually consider trading them for would be a nicely curated collection of early 70s natl geographics w bright yellow spines

'curated' is a stretch but thats actually doable

i have a set of stroboscopic image viewing books too, shit like crystal structures of gemstones and photos of minerals and fossils, i should break that shit out too

tell me which ones you're looking for and i'll try to hook you up

late great, do you own or rent? If the former, I can think of alot of ideas for the kitchen. I can tell you're American because of the oversize-but-space-inefficient appliances that are ubiquitous here, like those over-the-stove microwave ovens that combine a feeble exhaust ventilation fan with a microwave that's wide and yet too shallow to fit a pizza box into.

Glass blocks around the shower quite nice imo.

microwaves gonna go, gonna put in better hood

I love your house, dude! I also now want that cactus dream house.. I have no plants. These were my 'if I lived here I'd do it like this' thoughts as I scrolled through, no criticism really because I think you have great taste!:

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6058/7025420379_c93abe02e1.jpg
I could see a couple low, wide cupboard or bench under this window

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6039/6879328320_915c117c59_z.jpg
I would put both black chairs side by side and move the little side table, possibly beside the bucket chair

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6232/6879518826_ea8d90ba73.jpg
cool vase would upgrade that tree - or paint/collage over top of the terra cotta one.

Scrubbing Bubbles is pretty decent at getting shower junk out! Might work on the rusty bits, too. Or steel wool!

Trippy bathroom pictures ARE trippy - that's so beautiful! But outside the shower they are not quite as stunning. Maybe framed, hung horizontally? If it were me and I were not super attached to the images (I can't really tell what they are, you might be of course!) I would cut each picture in half, top and bottom, then hang three wide, two tall. Or split in half vertically if you can find 6 frames to match! You could then even scatter them a little, i.e., not necessarily hang the pairs together.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/7025429131_c3439a4c8a_z.jpg

I feel like the framed picture is maybe a little too high, but I know it's a PITA to change that (always easier to add another hole that will hide the previous! Heh. I am a lazy tenant) and of course you know I'm frame crazy so I would frame that cute little blue picture.

Still jealous and love the home tours! Please to show how other ILXors live!

I think I really want the new tubular-frame couch IKEA is putting out in August. Not that I have anywhere to put it in my little rooms, but maybe I can work out a deal w roommate where I put it on his side just so I can have it for the future....

http://media.dwell.com/images/480*331/IKEA-PS-collection-rectangle.jpg

That's so Jetsons! I wonder how comfortable it would be though - if you were to lean on the arms, would they crush down since the support only goes halfway?

I'm not that hard on furniture...I dunno? But it has the summer house/porch-furniture quality of lightness and a lifted-up structure that makes it not monolithic...I like to be able to see under things. Sure, there are couches that you can actually sit on the arms of that I would love, but they won't fit up my stairs and cost more than $250.

Oh wait I lied, it's going to be $900. Rule that out, then.