ulterior interior motives

we're still stuffed from the porkfest that occurred sunday. no, actually that's a lie, i'm hungry just thinking about it. and happy just thinking about it. it's so nice to have a home again, and have it filled with family, and celebrate with your own stuff and not someone else's junk in a junky sublet in a line of junky sublets. 

the anniversarial kalkatroonaans glasses were kept full as their children and grandchildren screamed around the apartment. the under six set were the loudest, though we gave them a run for their money. they also just so happen to be artistes. ruggy thought we could keep them busy with crayons. i thought i could steal their artwork.

EXCELLENT.

as much as ruggy loves my scrawlings, i'm excited to have something else up on the walls. it's becoming more and more of a home every day...

ps: i'm so glad you liked the convertible top, i'm working on a tutorial for y'all!

homestead hoedown!

emilykate and i are swapping crafty goodness! and lucky me, it's something to brighten the home. i SO need help there. for all my yammering about my mad decorating skillz, i have done next to nothing so far.

it's a little sad that this is one of my favorite places in the house, considering it occupies 12 inches of windowsill. telling, really, that i have yet to get my decorating mojo on. i've been going in very small spurts, so there are small blurbs of pretty, and big old swaths of "you've been back for 10 months now, when are you going to unpack."

anyways... this spot for a sprite has my vogue magazines, a vintage pack of playing cards from a wonderful friend (i coveted them, ruggy threw me under the bus), chalk pencils from etsy, and a little plant stand that used to hold a terrarium. it was a gift from me to ruggy, and when i accidentally broke the terrarium, i shot him a look that said it was completely his fault. he understandably accepted blame.

it's also my grandmothers spot, i guess-- the little egg cup was my nana's, and the little note was from my nan. that's her in the photo. i think the note sums up my nan perfectly. it says: the sun is shinging here at last. i know she meant shining, but i like to think she was thinking "singing" too, and so she put those two words together.

and this here is our stairwell to the bedroom. or should i say our stairway to heaven, baby. aw YEAH.

when first settling back in with just two chairs and a coffee table, i was at a complete loss at where to begin. there was so much to replace that i couldn't start anywhere. i found these huge ass pillows at urban outfitters--they're like 4 feet square--and i cut them up into various shapes. there are so many of them, it's like instant decor for about 60 percent of the living room. plus, they keep the blind cat from choosing the wrong path down the stairs and falling to her death.

the yellow painting is a large copy of a happy doodle i made the day that i met ruggy. i found it in a journal years ago, and timidly made a pale green canvas out of it. when we moved back, i decided it needed to be a lot more joyous, so i sat on our bare floor and had at it.

the amethyst was a christmas gift from ruggy's mom, and the metal cat was a vintage find with my mom. mom!! when are we going vintage shopping again?!

see what i mean about those pillows? there are THOUSANDS of them!

during the day, if i'm sitting, this is my favorite place to be. it is also cody's favorite place, and due to the size of this 23 pound beast, there's no sharing. he knows i'm coming for him here.

this hard won couch faces the windows, and our desks, so i can watch ruggy typing away, and eek some little bit of sunlight out of our street level apartment. we spent seven, yes, SEVEN months deciding on this couch. our cats immediately got sick on it upon arrival, and so now the cushions are completely misshapen from washing. hooRAY! but i still love it. the crocheted blanket is from a swap with a crafty friend (i traded her a painting). 

and i love that one of these areas... or maybe some other sorely lacking space in our home... will soon be host to an emilykate creation!

(speaking of sorely lacking:

i know! we said three pictures! but aside from a bed, our bedroom doesn't look much different than this. i couldn't not show you this. this is pathetic. seriously.)

i just need a little trim.

erm... what did you think i meant?

a kalkatroonaan christmas tree

wanna make your own? click here and i'll show you how.

peanut butter sandwiches

i am about to take this....

and make it into a christmas tree, a la anthropologie. yes, including the cat litter. i'm not even lying. 

tutorial to follow....

hey look we made progress!!!

oh HAI ! remember my big promise to show y'all what we were up to with our mad decorating skillz? well just LOOK!

no, wait, you haven't seen the west wall, really and truly, it's the focal point of the room, oh well see for yourself!!!

yeah baby, it's all comin' together now! just look at that little patch of acid washed clean-as-a-whistle brick. bee-YOO-tiful.

so. a bit of a setback. the water damage has grown from a problem outside-the-building/in-one-of-our-walls to a problem within ALL of our walls. oooh, and floors. get a load of this here pretty li'l thing:

(actual image to left. oona-slightly-fainting-while-taking-account-of-size-of-damage image to right.)

THAT is our bedroom floor, gutted through to a big old pipe attached, as i understand it, to the building's boiler. or possibly sewage waste pipe? YAY!

we have some very handy men working on the situation (they always ask me how i'm feeling, they are seriously so nice), and with each accumulating issue, they still promise they'll be done in two weeks. i love them for it-- and i'm still happy as hell to be home and not in some stranger's house-- but wasn't two weeks the estimate in the money pit?

but slowly

recipe for making your house a home again:

1. start with caffeine

2. focus on the pretty bits

(small though they may be)

3. end with a wee drink

4. repeat, adding more pretty bits as necessary.

we are home

we have two chairs, a coffee table, a tv and a bed, but we are HOME. after living in 5 strangers' spaces filled with what had to amount to 500 strangers' crap. in each apartment. over 12 months.

when we left ny for la, we were ready to get the hell out of our apartment, not to mention ny. we were this close to selling it. we rented it out instead. found a tree house in la, where i learned to sew. plans changed, and brought us back to ny without a home. we'd peek in occasionally to grab something we needed, and leave in horror at the sight of our subletters cluttered life. we boxed and bagged and moved our things so much, things became things and started to get left behind. we took care of other people's spaces better than they took care of them themselves.

the same cannot be said for our tenants. our place was demolished. they are the reason i'm writing this from a chair in the middle of a bare living room.

but no matter! let's make some lemonade! IT'S REDECORATING TIME! here, for your before and after pleasure (well, really for my pleasure, as my blogger slacking has deservedly lost me all of my readers. did i mention i've moved six times in one year? come baaaack!) are the before shots...

the living room. yes, that is ben-moore-watermelon-red and martha-stewart-cornstalk-yellow living together. martha would not be happy with this bastard child. picture it instead with magical white walls that shift color as the light of day changes (seriously, r's sister hepped us to some awesome paint at farrow and ball) the two chairs and the table, and you have our current situation.

the living - dining - loft - kitchen room. it is new york living, after all. table, chairs, clutter, chartruese, orange, yellow and gold gone. i'm adding some color back, that would be one serious cold turkey of a quit. luckily r loves everything i paint and wants my art to be the color on our walls. luckily? i think? isn't it kind of pretentious to have only your art hanging? etsy to the rescue...

the bedroom, currently in a state of shock from severe water damage that happened the day we moved back. yep. it's actually been happening for years, but the old super never really solved the problem. what's left: torn walls, bed on floor (because, natch, the renters broke our bedframe), and that funny little squat thing under the stairs. that, my friends, is a wine refrigerator. full of wine. that ain't goin' NOWHERE.

even in its current spartan state, i could kiss the ground. the months of moving have really made us appreciate our home, and our building filled with people who own and care for their own homes. i think you call those people neighbors. we haven't seen that life form in a loooooong time. our home is going to rock. and i'm going to give you proof. assuming there are any witnesses out there.

(SIX. TIMES.)

WOH, day three: home decorating recipe

take: one box of craft,

two ugly switchplates,

stir until well blended,













and add to wall.

saturday slackin'!

well, actually i haven't slacked today, especially after 3 shots of espresso at the BEST COFFEE SHOP EVER: intelligentsia.

but i have blogilly slacked. i was supposed to do five nifty thrifty posts this week, a very cool idea from casey at elegant musings, but i slacked. so in order to atone for said slacking, here in one fell swoop are my SEVEN thrifty finds! egads!

they are, in order:

1.a little red metal stool from wertz antiques in santa monica

2. my tree frog painting from a yard sale i stopped at after dance class one shiny sunday morning

3. little wooden birdie from the lovely ladies at the council for jewish women thrift shop

4. measuring cups that i NEVER use to measure ANYTHING, found at a surreal garage sale by a pool...

5. fabulous thread holder that used to actually be a printing house type-letter holder, also garage sale

6. chair (green like my CAOK one!) bought at a house sale through craigslist from a danish couple moving to paris

7. iron heavy enough to kill a small bear, but which does not hold water. do i care? no! estate sale.

if you know me you know that i am very fond of announcing the price of anything i am complimented on in lieu of actually saying "thank you". i have even been known to shout out the price, no previous compliments necessary. i thought this time it might be fun for YOU to guess the price (like, all 6 of you, but who's counting?) the person that comes closest to the actual total paid for all 7 items will win a thrifty prize! so guess away... winner announced, oh, i don't know, let's say friday.

i'm off to eat some burmese food :)

my man is man enough for mauve

and apparently lilac pink as well.

i was going for lavender, i swear! the little behr paint chip announced itself as "pearl violet". on 2 out of 3 walls, it lied. the interior decorator i met at the depot whilst waiting anxiously for the paint to mix was trying to be very supportive. but she couldn't hide her grimace of TERROR when i told her it was for the living room.

it kind of matches the blog, doesn't it?

is that a good thing?

hiiiiiiiiiippity hop hop

happy easter! though i can't really remember the last time i celebrated easter for the reason of easter. it's more about the ham and candy.

if the whole catholic thing truly is the way to go, i'm going to hell.

r's mom sent this sweet easter card and i love it! i think i stopped making cards because i can't make vintage images out of what they sell at joann's. and also i cannot wear them. so, there's that.

but i CAN make a room change within the space of three hours! observe!

no no, please don't run screaming, by the end of today the room will no longer look like the inside of an ovary. i'm not sure what i was thinking. oh yes, i was thinking, "wow, $5 for a gallon of paint?! i'm IN!" i found this color in the "oops" section of the home depot, which really is the name of the section. should have been my first clue.

i remember hating, with every inch of my body, going to the home depot as a kid. then there was the weird visit where i saw one of my teachers working there over the summer-- my 12 year old mind could not comprehend him in that location. he belonged to School. now of course i realize the public school salary forced him to take a summer job, which bites... i digress.

on returning to the depot to get a new and more palatable shade, i was like a kid in a candy store. i think it was because r & i went together, and got Things To Improve Our Home, and generally did what adults do there. i get it now. it's fun.

i just need to stay away from the oops section.

jeb & co.

these are some of r's ancestors... hopefully they had a sense of humor.





they live on the veranda, dontcha know. hopefully soon these flowers will have actual living mates.

good morning

breakfast of champions.

so my mom has what you would call a green ARM. every plant she looks at grows. when my mother walks into a greenhouse/nursery, every leaf in the joint straightens up like it's adoption day at the pound. "she's here again! i hope she picks me!"

i did not inherit that gene. i walk into trader joe's incredibly cheap, incredibly beautiful plant section like a kid at christmas, and anything remotely green recoils instinctively. and yet, i am about to force some living thing to brave my care again. green mom is sending me-- what are they called? tubers? of canna. big beautiful 6 foot tall canna with names like cleopatra and king hubert. (thanks, by the way, mom. in my complete terror at the thought of growing something FROM A POT OF DIRT UP i forgot to say that.)

so here, mom, is our back porch. about a 5 foot rectangle of real estate that gets about 5 hours of blinding sun a day.

those poor plants. so excited to be sent to such a glorious address... only to end up with me. what's next, dad, are you going to send me the makings to build my own motherboard?

cats, now... those critters have NO problem growing for me. 

CAOK III (or, these are the people in your neighborhood)

i just spent 2 hours with the wildest lady i've ever met.

75-year-old sheila met me at her door wearing bedazzled eyeglasses (with matching headband, of course), blue eyeliner, a caftan of several hundred colors (which she kept hiking up to show me her "dancing gams"), and black poofy slippers. her house is filled (and i really do mean filled) with every crafty supply, knick knack and collectible vintage item imaginable. there is not one inch of usable surface in the house. and i know because i had to find said surface.

she is me in some alternate universe.

i saw sheila's ad on craigslist. she has arthritis, and needed help cutting sewing patterns. in exchange she would barter "great sewing supplies and fabric!". now, that was easier said than done, as it became clear rather quickly she is not the type of person who lets things go too easily... she ended up giving me a remnant of fabric (pictured above) that was way too 100% cotton for her style. but more than that i enjoyed helping her out. it was like being phoebe in Friends and just having a totally out there couple of hours. we made a dress for her grand daughter, and started a caftan made out of a huge island wrap she got on a cruise. she showed me every, and i mean EVERY, piece of clothing in her closet. she played me her son's cd and showed me her moves. she gave me chocolate covered cream puffs, 2 of which fell on the floor, and although she wouldn't eat them, she also wouldn't throw them out.

i mean, and she lives on the same street as me, 2 blocks away. it was all in all a neat experience. it made me feel like i live in a neighborhood, and it made her happy. afterwards, i surfed my favorite blogs and found african kelli's CAOK. i think i have committed a CAOK! wahoo! and i may even commit one next week when i take sheila over to the valley to the thrift store where she gets all of her booty. she's very excited to show me this secret place, she doesn't share this information with just anyone, you know.

and we had a CAOK happen to us yesterday: our awesome next door neighbors gave us this gorgeous chair because they know we're finally trying to make our apartment something we love to live in, rather than a holding pen while we're here in LA. i didn't think it was possible... but there are actually good people in LA. people who like to laugh and eat and talk and don't give a shit about the business... oh yeah, and they curse too! and they live right next door to us! shhh, don't tell anyone.

birdies!

so howdy and welcome...

what to do with a 54 x 54 inch canvas that refuses to produce acceptable results? cover it with fabric! i swear this canvas is--was--cursed. i mean, it can't possibly have anything to do with the artiste. i got it right about this time last year for 40 bucks at a garage sale, which is insane for a canvas this size. now i know the reason. it is impossible to paint. i've tried twelve times. it was probably used by an art student who was constantly brow beaten by some cranky teacher who told her not to paint the thorns on the roses because they aren't pretty.

okay, that was me in the 5th grade, but i'm SURE she had a similar experience.

R actually really liked version 12 of the painting, so i couldn't destroy it. i also couldn't look at it anymore. so now it's waiting patiently (demonically) underneath what i guess you would call a quilt, until the day when we have a three story lavender house with a wrap around porch and it shall live in The Room I Will Rarely Visit.

and the quilt will live with me.