The bedroom living room dilemma

I've never thought about the importance of the size and dimensions of a common or living room, but I realize (very much) now that having enough space is crucial.

My apartment is a fraction of the size it was meant to be. It sits above a main street business and the apartment was originally designed to occupy the entire second floor, which included a gigantic kitchen, front living area that looked out onto the street, two bedrooms, bathroom, and a screen porch in the back.

Since then, the living room and a chunk of the kitchen were separated by a wall and allocated to the business as a gallery/studio/meeting area. One of the bedrooms became the current living room, out of which the "front door" leads downstairs to the business. For me, it has proven extremely challenging to make a bedroom-sized living room feel comfortable, especially when it is used as a thoroughfare from the door to the kitchen.

The other problem is that I hardly ever use the room. It's called a living room, but it's mostly dead space. It serves as storage for my vast quantities of books, magazines and record albums, and a depository for random furniture that doesn't quite fit anywhere else. I have mad love for a pair of lucite chairs that I found at an antique mall in Waterloo, Wisconsin a couple of years ago, and though they are an odd addition to a living room, they are pretty much an odd addition wherever they go.

I have a TV, but it isn't hooked up to an antenna or a box, so it is used specifically to watch movies, and even that happens maybe once a week at most. Essentially, the room is a glorified hallway/storage space. The main problem is that I throw junk in there because I never go in it, but there is a giant open doorway leading from the kitchen (where I spend almost all my time) into the room, so no matter how untidy and ugly it looks, I have to look at it all the time.

Before:


Note the exploded, "unpacked" suitcase from a vacation to Europe two months ago. Stacks of books. Shoes. Bags of yarn and unfinished knitting projects. Random painting I did in college... And Porter, feeling the pain.


This is how we feel about dirty rooms and having to clean them. My cat, Porter says, "Whyyy do you put me through it. Why."


All those books were giving me a headache. And Porter is still exasperated.

I decided that I had to do something. For one, the rug was disgusting. It hadn't been properly brushed/cleaned in over a year, and you don't want to know the amount of accumulated cat/chinchilla fur that managed to get in it. I'm just going to say that I now have a designated rug brush and will be brushing regularly from here on out. Lesson learned.

Also, it's worth noting that I hadn't a penny to spare to buy new shelving or wall art or anything like that. So I essentially rearranged and borrowed items from other rooms to revamp. There is one wall by the record player that could really use a floating shelf, but other than that, a couple hours of cleaning, organizing, and rearranging really made a difference.

The results:

Nice clean rug! Polaroid cameras and picture frames on the table instead of stacks and stacks of miscellaneous books. The rug is turned at an angle to complement, as you will see, the angle of the bookcase. The little black chair that held the exploded suitcase is gone (reclaimed by its rightful owner, my sister) and replaced by one of my lucite lovelies. Porter still seems exasperated, though this time with me moving things around, I'm sure. And it was hot.


The Hokusai wave is a little high, but my "Nothing is Black and White" painting sits by the front door now, and the stereo has been moved into the corner rather than sitting along the wall. Check out my sweet homemade Slinky lamp also. ;)


The bookcase (I color-coordinated the books! See what I did there!?) and my album covers in something of a media corner, although forget I used the phrase "media corner."


This is taken standing right inside the front door. I think the suitcases add a little something extra, if purely decorative, so that when entering through the door, one doesn't just see an ugly chair back.

I'm really happy with the feel of the room now. I've got a paint swatch stuck in the window frame in a yellow hue -- I'm trying to decide if I'd like a light yellow wall in here. Until then, at least it's inhabitable, and I enjoy looking at it so much that I might even choose to live in my living room from time to time now...

Epic take.

Wow, you know? Today was a day for the books. One of those, gee, I didn't think it could be so good, but LIFE IS SO GOOD.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's my day. And more will inevitably spring from what I found during my short escapade:

I had grand intentions of thrifting all morning, which is hands down one of my favorite ways to spend a day off of work. But while at stop numero uno, my mom called and said that she and dad were headed to an architectural salvage place, and would I like to come along? I'm fairly sure I gasped in response -- of course!


I guess I thought they meant an architectural salvage place here in town, and I was a little confused when we got on the highway and started very clearly heading out of town. To Berlin, Wisconsin, it so happened, and in Berlin, Wisconsin did we find the. coolest. ever. salvage store. It's called Saving Grace Salvage Company, which sits in an old foundry building just off downtown. Floor to ceiling on three levels are windows, drawers, chairs, hardware, paintings, antiques -- an entire bookcase of typewriters!! --and just about anything one can imagine. Farm implements and jewelry, benches and planter boxes, you name it. Heaven, is what it's called. I left with some items that are bound to, in some incarnation, make it onto this blog, such as a small, weathered, wooden crate, various mason jars, the cutest-ever tin recipe box from the '50s, and a teapot..



From Saving Grace, we found a drive-in burger stand called Shepard's Drive-In, where we enjoyed delicious burgers, onion rings and mushrooms (fried mushrooms are an obsession with me lately). Oh, and chocolate malts, can't forget those! Delish to the max.


From Berlin we drove eight miles down the road to the vacation town of Green Lake, although the downtown was smaller than we anticipated. We did stop into a couple of small shops and took a look at the lake around which is green. It was quiet for a vacation weekend Saturday, I thought, but that was okay. Quaint and very Wisconsin, and we meandered through some residential lakeside streets to check out what the architecture was like. As might be expected, my envy meter was high, but my adoration for cute houses was higher.

Late afternoon called us back home where family waited at my nana's house for brats and steak on the grill, homemade bean-and-bacon salad, fruit salad, and just-out-of-the-oven rhubarb cake. Ugh.



We enjoyed dinner outside on this clear, mosquito-less, cool evening. Does that sky not just totally sum up how a summer evening should look?

I have two young cousins, brothers, who are nearly-four and five. The youngest performed a constant, repetitive rendition of the Ludacris bit in Justin Bieber's song "Baby." The eldest was inexhaustible at playing catch. My sister's new puppy, Charlee, joined us and amazed everyone at her astoundingly calm behavior. Having my whole family there was beautiful.


Forget-me-nots in full bloom.

I brought home a handful of amazing rhubarb, so expect a tart/pie/cake soon!


After dinner, my sister built a lovely fire in my parents' backyard (woods) when darkness curled in, and it turned into a lovely way to wrap up the evening. I'm exhausted, but the picture of content. Goodnight!