I'm sorry I have not been updating lately. I recently started a new job and I'm a full time student so I have been up to my brain in work. Also I have recently become rather annoyed with the narrow view of the Apartment Therapy Spring Cure format. I just feel like it is not directed at people my age or economic class. It is aimed purely at successful, Manhattan dwelling, moneyed, yuppies who already have nice apartments and nice things and just want to make them nicer. I am 21, I live in a tiny apartment in Boston with no sunlight, my budget is roughly 200 dollars tops and that is after my tax return gets here. According to the apartment therapy book, that will get me no where. SO I guess I am going to keep chugging on but probably using their site more for vague inspiration than a strict guideline. I want to do this in an affordable way and make my house a nice place to be even if I don't have a view of the Hudson (or Charles) river.

Cleaning the bedroom

So I gutted the bedroom. I took everything else and scrubbed the walls and vacuumed and dusted and had a few asthma attacks and kept going. I finally feel like I can breath when I walk into it though. It is easily the nicest room in the apartment, due to the giant windows. I really want some plants to put on the windowsill because if I put them anywhere else in the house they die.


Holden is confused about what is happening to the neighborhood.

Those curtains are unfortunately totally necessary for my survival, before we got them I barely slept due to light and noise outside.

There is still a lot of work to do but just not having the milk crate or the dust bunnies lurking in there makes me feel a lot better. And I cleaned the mirror!




My tools.

I am going to try and do the same thing in the living room tomorrow!

Wishlist

Wishlist











I really want something similar to this. I could stick clothes I'm not wearing in it and the cat could sleep on it (because he doesn't already have enough places to sleep)

Things to fix

1. The make up corner

Believe it or not, this is a big improvement. See all those boxes and bags? That is new.
I need to get a little table or something to put them all on. Maybe one of those plastic bins so they wouldn't have to be out all the time. I need to clean my mirror too.

2. Both the bookshelves look crowded and ugly



I am going to have to get Kevin to help me since most of this stuff is his. I hate hate hate all that stuff on top of the big shelf. Like not the books but the hat and vases and stuff arg.

3. The night stand

It is a milk crate. Nuff said. The visible condoms add to the classiness.

4.
Laundry area. I am getting rid of the sewing machine and hopefully some of the clothes. I am also going to get a dresser to keep the clothes in and hopefully find a better way to have the cats boxes and my art supplies. We are going to clean the bedroom closet our so dirty laundry can go in there.

5. Top of the dresser

I need to throw out the plants and find a better place to keep all the office supplies and get rid of the other miscellaneous junk.

6. Record player area

There is so much junk in all those bins, they are ruining my life. I might put the bins on the top shelf on the closet instead and go through them to get rid of unnecessary stuff.

7. TV stand

Kevin's dreamcast is all up in my bidness. Also I want to get a better tv stand with lots of storage space (or any storage space lol)

I HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO OK

Inspiration

I already have a giant folder on my computer filled with rooms I love. True fact: most of the people who live in these houses are neater, richer and probably more creative than me. These pictures I chose are the most realistic inspiration. I tried to look mostly at white walls because I can't paint anything in my apartment. In fact, I can't change anything about how the building looks nor do I want to since we will be moving in six months.

I tried to choose pictures of rooms that were nice because they were well organized and well thought out, not because the people living in them necessarily had a lot of lovely stuff, antiques and wallpaper and all that. Our apartment has great old arcticture and I want to decorate it simply to draw peoples eyes to the big front windows, the claw foot tub, the hard wood floors, the old radiators etc.

Kitchens



Love the plants! I kill everything though!








This one is not realilistic but I am drooling over it.

Bedrooms:





Kevin would really like this I think

Living rooms:

PROBLEMS

Things I dislike about my apartment:

-It is dusty, there is cat hair everywhere
-The curtains on the front windows are necessary because I can't sleep at night without them but they really keep out all the natural sunlight during the day, I need a way to pull them back
-CLUTTER
-The "TV stand" is not a tv stand at all, but a rickety table and bellow it there are stacks of Kevin's games, wires, magazines etc. On top there are DVDs, and the novelty bow I put on the TV when I gave it to him three months ago. It is kind of cute how much he loves it but really, it needs to go.
-The laundry system in our room is a disaster, all that corner is a disaster really, we need to reorganize the laundry and get rid of the sewing machine and maybe Holden's second box too.
-I need my own dresser
I need more strorage where you can't see everything at all times

Late start

So as with so many things in my life, graduating high school, starting college, stopping picking my nose, I am late starting the apartment therapy challenge. Somehow I only missed it by a week though. Just a week! If it were a college class, I might till get a C! So I am off to JP or Allston or somewhere to get the book from the library, then I'm off to get batteries to take some pictures of my slum/apartment. I keep thinking "I HAVE TO CLEAN BEFORE I TAKE PICTURES" but I guess that goes against the point. I will leave the cat's half drank saucer of milk and the roll of toilet paper on top of the holder and the piles of clothes. It is all important. V. v. important.


book


batteries

Also I chose the annoying polka dot template for my blog, because I am clueless and a mess. Everyone else has a lovely white template with like a square header and classy font and it just drips with class and I do not drip with class so I should probably not lie on my blog.

Also I couldn't figure out how to set that template. So I will just act like I wanted this one. I feel like a naked baby in the world of blogging. I am old school, I still have a livejournal where I post pictures of my cat and talk about my life being terrible.