department of the interior: home decor

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

but the entryway still looks shitty

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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

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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"

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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

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kitchen is ... pretty bad

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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

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which i haven't take down because when i shower

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i trip on the patterns

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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!:

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I could see a couple low, wide cupboard or bench under this window

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I would put both black chairs side by side and move the little side table, possibly beside the bucket chair

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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.

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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....

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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.

I hear your pain - when we moved into this apartment we had to ditch our couch because it wouldn't fit up the stairs either. Glad IKEA has collapsible stuff (which is sturdy as long as you don't collapse it too often). $900? Holy shit. Our L shaped replacement couch was $1400 but at least that has the decency to give us 12 feet of couch!

i have a feeling that IRL that tubular couch is gonna feel really creaky and flimsy and rock back and forth when you sit in it.

I'm sure you're right, but probably not moreso than that bamboo porch furniture that everyone had for a while? Which would have been worth it if it were a few hundred bucks. But not for a grand.

And by "a while" I mean like 1964, at least in the case of my grandparents.

the quality of the IKEA stuff is generally as good as what you pay for, so I'd imagine the $900 sofa would hold up MUCH better than their $200 one.

Yeah, the other stuff in the new PS collection is priced extremely reasonably so I figure the $900 sofa must actually have cost that much more to make than the cool bamboo-frame cube tables that are only $35. I just don't have a thousand bucks.

craigslist a nice used one

that's my solution to everything, i just buy shit that was expensive when it was new 30 years ago and is now beat to fuck (aka PATINA)

which of these task lamps do i need

robin's egg blue?

a cute white tensor?

schoolbus yellow luxo?

canary yellow luxo?

fake jielde signal from pottery barn teen? but yellow or blue? also it kinda looks like a cheap POS and takes chandelier bulbs.

for reference, my desk

the first one

i am leaning toward the canary yellow luxo right now

here are two others that i'm on the verge of ruling out

this beast here weighs 20 lbs, shipping from montreal is $100 on top of $150 price tag, takes some weird type of bulb that i'm not sure they make anymore?

this thing is rather awesome but looks too small to really be practical. but really awesome.

yeah i guess my fear is that the canary yellow will overwhelm the room, i think the robin's egg blue will look nice w/ the wood desk and wood floor and the map and orange table accents etc etc

there is also this lapis luxo but it's a "real collector's item" and so a little more expensive than the appearance justifies

how do i know you know anything about lamps, lamp?

i think there some pix of my apt itt, other than that, idk

i like the lapis a lot but i dont think its quite the right color, there robins egg feels more period appropriate for the vibe yr place has

i'm just making a bad dn joke

i think you're right about the lamp, lamp

robin's egg or school bus

canary yellow so cheerful though

this thing is rather awesome but looks too small to really be practical. but really awesome

probably would make a good bedside table lamp

the canary yellow photo seems to have a bit of a greenish cast to the yellow I'm not into, but who knows whether that's just the photo/monitor/whatever else.

yeah the photos look a little off

Schoolbus is my favourite but I don't think it works so well with the room. Egg-blue would fit better - more contrast.

im down with either the blue or green PB