Well that Went Quickly

Welcome back Everyone!  I consider my first blog calendar week a success as I posted 3 whole days in a row!  You gotta start somewhere!  Let's see if I can keep up with this momentum.

So this weekend I went back to my childhood home to prepare it to be put on the market.  All of the feelings ensued....and I was really not prepared for it/them.  I kept thinking, it's no big deal and though I had known this was happening for literally years, I truly never had a second though about it.  But my open weeping on the train home assured me that, in fact, I was really quite unprepared for this emotionally.  And now I'm feeling all sorts of ways about passing time and moving on and general things that make me curl up in my bed and sob.  I will take that over public sobbing, but I would also be pleased with less crying altogether.

I am the first to admit that purging feels good.  Hunkering down this weekend to look at what I have accumulated and what I no longer need to hold onto was freeing and has reinforced my desire to simplify my life in my own teeny-tiny apartment here in New York.  But the end result, why I was doing the actual purging, is what hurts.  And it hurts all the way down to my core.  The house will sell and eventually (I think sooner rather than later) I will be heading back home one last time to fully clean my life out of there, but I am really just not sure if I am ready for that.  

My parents moved us into my home when I was only 3 weeks old so I have never known anything else.  And while there new home in Florida is wonderful, it is obviously just not the same.  As someone who has never experienced this type of loss, I feel incapable of handling all of the emotions that go along with it.  Any tips or advice from more experienced movers?  

From living in New York, I am well aware that moving sucks.  But this is a whole new realm beyond carrying far too many boxes up far too many stairs.  

How do you deal when the heaviest boxes are those filled with over two decades of memories?

Wednesday's Work in Progress: Honey Oak Hell

For my first Wednesday work in progress, I tackled a room that's been leaving me listless since I moved into my apartment 4 months ago.  The bathroom.  There really is not much to it.  This is NYC and I am not wealthy so my bathroom is pretty utilitarian.  See below:

It might look like I only showed my project instead of the whole bathroom, but there's really not much else there.  To the left of where I'm standing taking the photo is the toilet.  You see the shower curtain.  That's about it.  But this thing has got to be my least favorite aspect of the bathroom.  Top 2 of the apartment only falling second to my closet "situation." But that's for another Wednesday.

Let's just start this by saying that I truly, sincerely, from the deepest part of my being hate Honey Oak.  I do not understand it, I do not like it and if I could I would sledgehammer it wherever I saw it.  But alas, I am a renter and not a psychopath, so I have no sledgehammer.  So instead, I will paint it.  

See those paint drops, aren't they aesthetically pleasing?

You see, I have been on a painting kick lately.  Painting my bedroom, painting the kitchen, blah blah blah.  I'm all about paint.  But I'm also all about being lazy and also doing what I can to not piss off my landlady.  She's not very nice from my experience, but I'm young and naive and scared of the "permanence" that is paint.  I think by May I'll get over that.  But for now, I started slow with just this awful Honey Oak catastrophe.  These same cabinets are in my kitchen too...who knows what I'll do next week.

Well, other than the fact that Honey Oak makes me vomit in my mouth, it also does nothing for this little bland space.  Everything is some version of white or cream or light yellow and everything is the cheapest you could find from Home Depot (that mirror is mine, it was cheap (Mexico) but you aren't going to find anything that good in Home Depot).  The only drop of darkness in the whole place is the light gray floors so I decided to go in that direction and just try to moody the place up a bit.

So this project was super easy and quick (less than 12 hours!).  

I had some of my favorite gray paint lying around 

(I believe Deep Indigo from Benjamin Moore) and with maybe two feet of painter's tape and a screwdriver I was ready to go.

I removed the doors and my knobs (old old old faux bois knobs from Anthropologie) and painted them on the floor in my kitchen.  Just two quick coats on everything, let it all dry over night and I was done.  Easy peasy.  My favorite kind of project!  

  

And look at the difference; I love it!  I wish I could get rid of the yellow tiles, but my nerve for changing a rental doesn't extend that far.  For now, I'll settle for this little but profound change.  No more Honey Oak, no more (obvious) cheap Home Depot.

Craigslist Bible: 1st Edition

So it's no secret looking through my apartment or this very blog that I have a penchant, dare I even say a knack, for Craigslist (CL as I affectionately call it).  I love trolling CL, it's a like a blog that updates by the minute.  There is no better way to spend a rainy Saturday or a boring Monday-Friday than scrolling through the plethora of treasures that is your local Craigslist.

I read on FastCo. the other day about Curated Craigslist, an NYC-specific blog of just what it sounds like, a curated selection of thew immense NYC chapter of the site.  This is a cop out.  Plain and simple.  The best part of CL is taking your time to unearth the priceless gem you need to fit in your teeny-tiny apartment!  This shit isn't handed to you...and it shouldn't be.  More than half of my joy in refinishing pieces is telling my friends that I found it on CL and for how much (tacky, yes...but it's usually supa cheap so that makes it OK).  See below for what I mean:

Craigslist: $100 (plus a whole heap more for reupholstery)

Table: Craigslist $30, originally Crate&Barrel

Craigslist $40

Chair: Craigslist $125
Gray Nightstand that you can't see how cute it is: Craigslist $30
Indonesian Teak Carved Side Table to the right: Craigslist $10!

Sorry for the god-awful photos but my camera broke and I thought I'd save you all some Instagram-filtered iPhone shots today.  But as you can see, I love the CL!

Craigslist for me is the best way to make your design woes turn into design dreams.

Not enough space? Craigslist

Not enough money? Craigslist

Not enough time? Well if you do it right, Craigslist takes time but it's worth it!

In my next addition of Craigslist Bible, I will give you my own tried and true sleuthing techniques but until then, keep scrolling my friends (and searching, don't forget to use the search option)!

Think on It

Rough weekend on my end y'all, but it's all about your attitude.

Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought--and can be acquired.

A person creates their environment, mental, emotional and physical, by the attitudes they develop.

A self-confident attitude is the most important asset a person can possess.

A person's attitude, not aptitude is the chief determinant of their success.

A positive attitude is rooted in clear, calm and constructive self-confidence.

Not my words and unfortunately I don't know whose they are, but they sure do make me feel better.  I think that last line is going to be my mantra for the next few weeks.  

See you tomorrow with some Craigslist tips and tricks, get excited! 

Friday Feels

So I am making a blog calendar (that's a thing) so that I can start being better at this. "This" being posting content more regularly. On Friday in my blog calendar, I was throwing around a few ideas, but I love alliteration so here we have, Friday Feels.

Any of you who know me personally know that I am a feeling person. I have a lot of them and they rock me to my core. For a long time, I hated them; crying publicly, low moods in one aspect of my life bleeding into the rest, it's truly the best...not, or so I thought. But once you figure out good coping mechanisms, things that bring out the joy in your life immediately, it's easier to corral those feelings, feel them (all of them) and move on to what's coming next. For me, my coping mechanisms are sunshine (when I can get it), fresh flowers and a good run.

And now that I've found those ways to cope, I actually really like my feelings, even the shitty ones. Sometimes I still wish I could stifle my tears in important moments, but it's all part of who I am so I'll take it. I think my feelings make me a better person; more compassionate, a better listener and a fiercer friend. So with that, I introduce Fridays Feels. A place where I'll talk about what's been weighing on my mind and how I'm feeling about it. 

Today I'm thinking about street harassment. Ever since moving to Crown Heights, I've been feeling it more and more. Not to say I didn't experience it in Bed-Stuy, but for some reason in my new apartment, things just feel a bit more aggressive. Men following me on my (daytime) walk home. Men calling out my street number as I leave my building. The unending stream of comments about my body or my butt or my boobs or how much they want to sleep with me. I definitely don't understand it and I never have, but I used to laugh it off.  Now it's really starting to weigh on me and I find myself emotionally pissed with a man I have never met, whose name I do not know, long after our moment of brief interaction has passed.

My story is not unique. Since this has been weighing on me, I have been talking to my friends about it. My girlfriends have equally frustrating stories, with some talking about much more physical confrontations. The men in my life are surprised and confused. This is why they are in my life; I wish more men were surprised and confused about the thought and reasoning behind street harassment, rather than participating in it.

My feelings about it are unclear, but the words frustrated, angry, helpless and depressed come to mind. But there are some people out there who are expressing their feeling much more eloquently than I can at the moment.

"If you fail to respect what women say, you label yourself a problem. 

So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, 

you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact 

trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when 

she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak

 trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates

 that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.

For women, who are watching you very closely to determine how much

 of a threat you are, this is an important piece of data."

The above quote was taken from this blog post and brought to my attention by my good friend Mika. I honestly don't feel like I have ever read anything that so accurately describes my frustration with street harassment as this simple, but effective, breakdown.

via

When it comes to art though, my feelings are most accurately depicted by the work of Tatyan Falalizadeh, an illustrator in Brooklyn who has been exploding with her Stop Telling Women to Smile campaign. Every time I see new work of hers, either online or posted up in my neighborhood, I can almost immediately connect the tagline with a situation in my own life or the story of a friend. It truly is incredible the subconscious understanding some men seem to have regarding women, that their idiotic and crude comments are somehow flattering and we are the bitches for not responding to them as such. But I guess I'm learning it's not a subconscious understanding about women, but more a subconscious understanding about their place and privilege as men.

Sorry to bring it down right in time for the weekend, but I think it's important to think about and talk about because being silent isn't helping anyone.

Enjoy the warm(ish) weather and no work for two.whole.days.
See everybody Monday!

Trip to Trinidad

Sorry again for the radio silence, and unfortunately this will turn into a quick update.  Got back from my first trip to Trinidad with the boy last week (Carnival(!) and family bonding(?)).  And while all that was fun, I found myself especially inspired by some of the architecture I saw around me as I pounded through the sweaty streets for 2 days, wining with strangers and having far too much fun!  

But back to the houses...I just candle handle them! Between the rusted variegated tin roofs, the insane amount of fretwork, the gables and colors (oh the colors!), well I'm just in love.  Half a day of our vacation was spent walking around Woodbrook (a neighborhood in Port-of-Spain and where this style of house is named for) looking for new places to photograph and cooing about, "no, this one, I want this one!"  Maybe one day..

Keep on scrollin' to see what I mean and let me know your fave in the comments!

My favorite!

Another fave, and this one's literally 8 feet wide!

Design Files

I feel like this may be the ultimate guest bedroom.  I distinguish it as "guest" because there is no way this is lived in enough for full-time use, but that doesn't make it any less incredible design-wise! 

I make that distinction because it was pointed out to me recently that I grew up in the online era of design, where we are bombarded with images of impossibly perfect interiors that truly don't represent a consistently lived-in space.  Dishes don't always get done, flowers eventually will die, and sometimes you just don't want to fold up that blanket on the couch.  Now we don't really won't photos of our homes taken in that moment, but that is often what our lives look like; and that's OK, awesome even!  But more of that for another post.

Back to this room.  I really enjoy the pink, as I have in the past, but I feel like this room achieves something that my past pink obsessions have not.  Between the pink walls, pink rug and pink floor length curtains, the color disappears into the room, making this normally strong hue, the backdrop and a near neutral from which the upholstered bed and wingback truly pop.  It's really pretty incredible if you think about it!  This light baby shade of pink can be both a strong statement-making element on it's own, but against all rational thinking, when layered together settles a room into a calming oasis.  Now I really want to paint my walls.

Also, I'm really into those wall-mounted lamps.  My bedroom currently is too small for side tables so I've been on the hunt for good wall-mounted options.  I think I've decided on these brass beauties from IKEA and only in writing this post did I realize how close their lamps are to my favorite choice.  Great minds think alike!

PS: I'm by no means a fan of the plain lightbulb overhead, but yet another feat of nature in this room that it does not look like a derelict crack den in there because of it.  Just sayin'.