Limes with Orange

...I wonder where the checkout is.

Okay, so in Calgary spring hasn't really sprung, just a chinook. But it felt like spring yesterday... until it snowed. *sigh*

But it does start one thinking about springtime things. Like the other night, I started thinking about sitting out on my fire escape to read (and how to enclose it so that I can keep the door open and not have the cats escape). And that started me thinking about the wind chimes that I want to hang in front of the door to my fire escape (when I first moved into this apartment and did the Feng Shui thing, that was one of the recommendations to improve the flow of chi, etc).

I was initially thinking of a tuned wind chime, but then I noticed some other metal chimes on the same site that looked pretty cool. I'll have to mull that over. A little more browsing on that site led me to their sun catchers. Some of them are quite beautiful. I'm particularly drawn to the peacock one. And I think the dragonfly one would be perfect for my sister. Why does spring make me want to shop?

Labels: cool stuff, decorating

My recent decorating dilemma prompted me to check out some online furniture sites. So much of what I saw is just what you see everywhere. And I do not want furniture that looks like everyone else's. Which would be fine if money was no object and I could just have everything custom designed, but alas, that is not the world I inhabit.

I looked at a lot of furniture and didn't find any other couches that I liked but I did find some cool beds. (Of course, I never find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it; and then I find the perfect thing when I'm not looking for it at all… much like men. But I digress…) Unfortunately, I think you need a much larger, much grander room to put this bed into than my cramped and cosy apartment bedroom.


Maybe someday I'll be able to afford to buy a house that would suit a bed such as this, after I've miraculously made my fortune from low budget filmmaking... ajp4i &urq3 md/gz ... sorry... laughing... too hard... to type. Ahem, okay, better now.

So, why this bed and not some grand and gothic four-poster? Damned if I know. I just think it's cool.

Labels: cool stuff, decorating

I decided that I should finally act on my plan to reupholster my couch. I initially bought it for a mere $75 with that intention in mind… 10 years ago! So I went and looked at fabrics and found one that I liked in a reasonable price range. Next, I need to arrange an appointment to have one of the reupholsterers come and measure my couch and estimate labour. Knowing that labour will vary greatly from one couch to another, I still asked if the designer could give me a ballpark figure. She said that she doubted that it would be less than $1000 and probably somewhere in between $1200-1500. And that's just labour! Yikes!

So I thought I should take a look at couches that I could get for less than that and see if there were any I might fall in love with. Because I do love my old couch and think it would be such a waste if it never saw its full potential again and I can't imagine just throwing it out.

But then I went to this very cool furniture store in town and found this couch.



Regularly $3500, on clearance for $1200. Holy crap!
So now I have to decide if I should spend close to $2000 to recover my old couch so that I can keep the more classical piece. Or whether I should dump the old couch and get this new funky couch, that is definitely whimsical and contemporary and would go with my other furniture even though I would lose a little bit of the eclectic/gothic feel that I think my old couch brings. Decisions, decisions.

Labels: cool stuff, decorating

The home decorating shows on the Home & Garden Television Network are great but I've realized that it is possible to reach viewer saturation. How do I know that I've watched too much HGTV?

~ It's not because I've seen every single episode of Designer Guys (although I have).

~ And it's not because I know all the Changing Rooms decorators by name (although I do).

~ And it's not because I'll start decluttering my bathroom at midnight just because Neat is on (though it's been known to happen).

~ And it's not even because, after five years of decorating my 450 square foot apartment, I still manage to come up with new decorating projects (sad but true).

Nope, the big clue that I've been watching too much HGTV...

~ I've started having sexy dreams about Mike Holmes from Holmes on Homes. Yep, move over Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy... Mike Holmes is the romantic hero for the modern age.
...

Should I be looking for a support group?

Labels: decorating, pop culture, tv

I think my blog is destined to be pretty boring until the end of November. I'm pretty much focusing on writing my NaNo novel to the exclusion of everything else. So unless something interesting comes up to me and hits me over the head, saying "write about me, dammit!" then I'm pretty much just going to be updating folks on the progress of the novel. Speaking of which, I've decided that I wouldn't mind having the apartment I described for one of my characters (minus the coffin, of course):

The first time she'd seen Skye's apartment had been a bit of a shock. The layout was identical to her own studio apartment, so she hadn't been prepared for how different it would look. In contrast to her own cheery apricot walls, Skye had painted hers a deep purple. Over the boring vertical blinds that covered the wall of windows facing the street, Skye had mounted drapes of black velvet. Wrought iron candle sconces, an ornate gilt framed oval mirror and a movie poster from the original Nosferatu adorned the walls. A fake fireplace (which actually had a TV in the opening that was hidden by an opaque fireplace screen when not in use) was the main focal point, with gargoyle statues on the mantle. Across from the fireplace was a moth eaten Art Deco sofa upholstered in an unexpected pink velvet. It stood in front of a medieval tapestry hung from the ceiling which acted as a divider to the bedroom area. When Meg had snuck a look behind the divider, she'd seen panels of black mosquito netting cascading down from a ceiling ring over the bed, draping the bed in a romantic canopy. Perhaps the most shocking piece of furniture was Skye's "bookcase" that was actually a coffin (Meg hoped it was a prop from a school play) leaning upright in the corner of the living room. A faux fur rug and several floor pillows in luxurious fabrics completed the look. When Meg compared it to her own conventional shabby chic apartment, she felt quite drab.

I can sympathize with Meg on that count. Aside from my orange entranceway, my apartment's feeling pretty drab by comparison. But interior decorating, like everything else in my life, will have to wait until after NaNo... *sigh*

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 8,744 down ~ 41,256 to go

Labels: blogging, decorating, writing