We Are No Longer Living Like Invalids!
Friday, March 28, 2008 Remember this?
Mid-Spring-Clean Mess from schmutzie on Vimeo.
That is pretty much what a living room looks like when you sleep, eat, change clothes, watch television, and do all your computer work in one room since June 2007. People would come over and say Cool! Your bed's in the living room! It looks so cozy. Yeah, no.
Living out of one room like a couple of invalids meant piles of musty clothing growing on chairs and under the bed. It meant that the two cats tended to stay in there with us most of the time, too, and we ended up eating more cat hair than we would care to contemplate. When I washed the sheets, it was no longer strange to find old gobs of salsa, coffee stains, and shredded cheese stuck to pillow cases. Lest you think us revolting house-hobos, I will have you know that I did my best to keep things under control, but as someone whose domestic activities more closely resemble a coma than washing the floor, you have to give me points for doing regular loads of laundry.
I took time off work to get my head together, because late Spring is the crazymaker and I am the object of its affections, and so I had this whole week at home to spend either contemplating the collection of scars that now fill my bellybutton (ex-piercings and a hysterectomy gave it so much character, don't you know) or fixing up this fugtastic mess of bad design that our apartment had become over nine months of our being in varying stages of convalescence. Since I can already map my belly button to within the nearest nanometer, I chose to clean and rearrange the apartment.
Here's what I did, because this is endlessly fascinating, I know: by myself, because the Palinode's back is still on the mend, I moved two dressers across the bedroom, carried a sofa from the bedroom to the living room, moved a queen size mattress/frame/headboard and two night tables from the living room to the bedroom, washed and hung curtains, swept and vacuumed, carried a large armchair from the office to the living room, and lastly, my crowning achievement, I converted a tall, awkward kitchen dining table into a low coffee table without the aid of a drill. Behold:
I screwed in sixteen screws without power tools. I am beastly mammoth.
Wait, I have to go masturbate now. My muskuls are very hottening.
There. All better. And now for the second behold:
Compared to the earlier video, the living room has undergone an amazing transformation replete with orange chenille and fuchsia furniture coverings. I have shown the above picture of our living room to several people, and while they all remark on my coffee table, no one says anything about our electric furniture. Do I blame them? No. They are just trying to be polite in the face of my orange/fuchsia/beige colour scheme, and I am just repurposing old bedspreads.
Oh, and the beige part of that colour scheme? That happened because I found the curtains for $6.66 on a sale table at Sears. They are the Devil's curtains. How could I not own the Devil's curtains?
So, while Spring-the-Crazymaker still holds some sway over the workings of my brain, I at least have a nice place in which to grind my teeth, and that makes all the difference.
Reader Comments (15)
Well, the coffee table IS impressive.
Lovely!
$6.66? I need six of them
It looks gorgeous!
I don't see anything wrong with orange and fuschia together. I would decorate with both those colours, if I didn't have to take my husband's tastes into account.
I love eeet! The purple and orange are warm and dark like the floor, and the white accents that.
Love it - looks great. I actually like the colors together and am *still* shocked that the Devil's Curtains are beige... How very prosaic of Him.
I like it. It's cheery.
Thank you! The Palinode said that once he got over the headaches and blurred vision, he'd grow to like it, but I think the colours are great.
I think the colours are awesome, and I love the irony that the devil curtains are beige and not some "evil" colour like blood red ;)
It's like a Satanic version of "While You Were Out."
I'm glad you took time off work, and that you were able to make your space more comfortable for both of you. Hooray!
You deserve a break from all that work. I was tired just reading it.
Are those dolls legs hanging out from under the coffee table? Or have you finally had it with the irish and taken one of their leprechauns? Disembodied legs!
I once had a phone number that began with 666. Sigh. The good old days.
I love the picture of the cat reaching for the hammer.
You're making me jealous. I would like to walk into some room in my apartment and have something be where it is supposed to be as opposed to on the floor or under the bed.
It looks great and I think I might start on my bedroom hell right about now.
Looks great. And don't you feel awesome about yourself, so "self-actualized"? Hee. I mean, besides your arousing "muskuls."
Only boring people insist on matching colors. BRIGHT! should be enough for most.