27.7.08

Pollyanna Sunday

Well I admit my mood has taken a wee dive as I look ahead to a mostly yucky week of more and more schoolwork. Why did I want to keep doing this again? Hmmmmmm. Someone remind me. Eyes on the prize, Susan: you're co-directing the Paris program next summer.

Yes, 'tis true - I don't think I told you. Anyway of course you know me so it won't surprise you to know that mostly I feel stressed about it altho I would far rather be stressed about something like that than most other things and it's tacit proof I've made a good decision coming here. Yeah, when would I ever have been asked to help out with the overseas program or pretty much anything else fun (if challenging, too) at Aub*rn? Ummmm, yeah, that would be, oh yeah NEVER EVER IN A MILLION FRIGGING YEARS (even if my contract renewals hadn't been going to end in another two semesters there of course). And no, I don't count a certain conference as fun altho in retrospect now I know that training will help hugely in getting things ready for Paris and at least I know some people back there do indeed esteem me, and they are way more worthy people by which to be esteemed anyway, I must say.

But I digress.

Paris aside I'm kind of freaking out now even tho school is still a little ways away. So tonight instead of dwelling on school I am trying to concentrate on today's Major Good Thing and I decided I should share it with you, too. So here is my fantabulous accomplishment today in the house:


You have not been privy to the humongous decorating problem posed by the big long wall in our house, so you will need the more extended view to see how much difference this INCREDIBLY FUN INSTALLED-BY-YOURS-TRULY SHELVING makes:


Well and of course the perspective is weird so I'll have to explain. To the left of the piano it's still a little ugly which is why I didn't photograph it at first but here's another view where you get the idea, even tho really I took this for you to better appreciate the Success portion of the wall:


If you can't tell in the photo or imagine it, take it from me: it is very hard to decorate big long schizophrenic/multipurpose walls. This one wall goes from front entryway area, to living room, to dining room, to back porch entryway area. I got the pix above the piano put up several weeks ago in my first big stint of wall decorating but then I was stopped cold. There seemed no way to decorate the kitchen/dining area part. (Go back up to the photo and put your finger across the shelves and the big fabric noren wall hanging to envision the problem.) OK, yeah, I admit it was partly the fault of the furniture, but still... I was even playing with the idea of putting a bookcase perpendicular to the wall between the piano and the dining area to try to physically make two spaces and erase the wall issue by simply making the transition from one area to the next as abrupt as possible. This worked well in my first Aub*rn apt. but I decided it would cut the light weirdly here.

LUCKILY I had another problem, too. (How often do you hear me or anyone say that?!) Some of you will remember my incredibly fun built-in shelves in the old apt. where virtually all my pottery lived. Here's what they looked like if you never saw it:


The pix from the bottom shelf are all on a new bookcase like this (for the record there is fun wall decor above this unit now, too and the cat toy does not live there anymore):


and I purged a bunch of icky pottery pieces before moving but still I was left with a dozen or so items that were begging to be displayed but also needed to be out of feline reach if possible.

So I was starting to wonder about floating shelves (which I deemed too unsure for one's prize pottery pieces) and then thought I'd have to wait til fall and order some really nice shelving from somewhere... Til I happened to be in Lowe's looking at plastic storage organizer thingies and realized I was walking past the nicest quite affordable ready-to-mount shelves and the most incredibly fun shelf brackets I ever saw. Eureka! (More than slightly dorky that I completely spaced the existence of this stuff - I mean I'm no Lowe's neophyte for crying out loud.) I decided to do kind of a faux hutch effect above the sideboard in the kitchen/DR for pot display. It wasn't until I got home and started looking at the wall that I realized I had all but fixed my wall issue, plus I had been trying to figure out where to hang my noren from Japan and I thought putting it by the dining table would be an excellent way to highlight the dining portion of the wall and enhance the illusion of the three separate spaces (the LR space, btw, is the easiest to envision since there's carpeting there). I still have to cut the dowel so that it doesn't stick out on the ends but otherwise the wall is a huge success... er, as long as you don't look at the part to the left of the piano (which, happily, you cannot fully do).

Another view so you can see the segmenty-ness, excuse the wall color - the flash makes the walls look yellow - they are off-white, conversely it makes the pottery look pretty true-to-color, so there:


I'm forced to add here that the problem was exacerbated by a very strangely-positioned chandelier. Some of you will try to tell me that if I used the dining area like normal people, i.e. with a full-sized table and if I dispensed (but really, how could I? Could YOU? I know you couldn't: it's TOO precious) with the wee sideboard everything would be as it was meant to be with nary a decorating problem. To you I say, come visit* and you will see that this light is in no way placed for the use of almost ANY table, period. It is in the weirdest spot in the universe, I tell you. If one had a full-sized table (to address your specifics) and placed the table under this light, no one would ever be able to be seated on the wall side of the table, at least not comfortably, it is so close. And yet the light is not centered the other direction, either, so if you had an oblong table, all the light would be over the turkey and guests at the non-turkey end of the table would be eating in shadows.

Wackiness abounds, as usual.

Last night I solved a couple of other more minor wall issues, too, and now the only wall stuff still awaiting attention (oh well except for the aforementioned parttotheleftofthepiano) is my bedroom whatnot that Dean made and all my little dorkies that usually live on it. Every other bit of wall decor is up. The BR has tentative decorating only since I have no furniture really either. The old apt. (again old news to many of you) had a built-in dresser in the BR and a fairly good size walk-in closet which housed numerous plastic Target storage drawer units stacked on each other for my clothes, so I haven't had bonafide dressers in years, and those were hand-me-down and/or thrift store ones. So here's my fresh college grad 45-yr-old professional bedroom arrangement for now:


Oh, except the stuff in the corner is unpacked and put away and I have some tentative wall decor above (mirrors and cheesy lantern lights - to further the college-BR mood) just to fill space and make it slightly more interesting than bare wall. Anyway since installing the whatnot requires anchored screws, etc., rather than just little pin holes, I may hold off until I know what's going on with the furniture situation. The purchase of any furniture keeps getting postponed later into the fall every time I look at my bank account, but oh well. It'll happen eventually... this is probably good incentive not to just go buy a bunch of stuff at IKEA (which the part of me that JUST WANTS THE HOUSE ALL ARRANGED AND COMPLETELY LIVABLE ALREADY LIKE A REAL GROWNUP'S wants to do) but to hold out for a few fun antique pieces over the next few years. We'll see... Who do I have to impress in the bedroom anyway? Sam and Lucy are pretty happy with things as they are :)

*disclaimer: visitors, while quite welcome, will of course need to bring aspirin or their favorite air mattress if they come before we can afford a comfy pullout couch.

3 commentaires:

Applecart T. a dit…

I appreciate that you can un-internalize this sort of thing. I think if I had to make a narrative about my moving in and out of places, it would be a dreadful tale spread over many months of slow thinking and small steps. I mean, we've had paintings leaning all over the place for a long time — I can't bear to bang holes in these walls. Like the floors, which preclude any go-get-a-dog rescue urges, the walls are the "only" thing this place seems to have pristinely going for it. They are all differently colored, too, so it's not like it's terrible (for me) to look at.

So many decorative items are never going to be unpacked, I think. I am torn between the Buddhist "this causes pain and slows you down, being from the past, a place you have to think of when you look at this rock, this bit of whatever" and between the fact that after me, it's not like this stuff will mean squat to anyone on the planet, so what's the use of spreading it to other humans or to the burial dump?

However, looking at your potteries you have sent do not cause pain. They are useful items and with aesthetic glow, and nothing about my relationship with you is painful, so there. It's the rocks, letters, photos, books, toys, old computer, bits and pieces — really the sum of it all is the issue.

I think the shelves and such in the DR look perfectly natural. Not at all like there was ever any dilemma. re: chandelier placement: one can only imagine the internal dialogue of the installer … something to do with "this wire is short" being the determining factor, since symmetry or logic were not at stake.

Anonyme a dit…

Yay, Susan! Wow! I love the shelves. You know you need to get some track lighting and have the whole museum-effect for your pottery. It looks great.

Jessica a dit…

I like the shelves. I understand about the furniture. Someday I'd really like to have a couch. And some matching, well, matching anything.

I have a wee package I'm sending your way tomorrow.