Here goes, dear reader...
This is the view of my "office". This room was a weird space, and still is. We weren't quite sure what to do with it. Right now it houses a coffee table we didn't have room for in the living room, my desk, the kitchen table, and two mismatched bookshelves covered in stuff (more on that later). The fiance says I have too many shoes. There are more shoved under the coffee table/cat perch, in the closet, and in a shoe organizer that in my brilliance I put on the bathroom door (which is the only interior door). So far so good.
This is a closer-up view of my desk. It looks okay, but I wish I didn't have so much stuff. Unfortunately I use all of it except for the few knick-knacks that have been following me around since college. What? I love my ceramic unicorn! He had a family but it was fatally injured in a tragic moving accident. I'm not really certain what's going on with the art/decorating theme there. I have a weird embroidery thing of Eyore that I've had since childhood. The painting with the deer on it was a gift from a lovely and awesome friend who modified it from a boring paint-by-number deer scene to an awesome deer/alien abduction scene. I think it's definitely an improvement! The panorama at the bottom is another thing following me since childhood. It's German, and features a city scene on one side, and a very politically incorrect jungle scene on the back. Somehow it's still in one piece, albeit held together with packing tape. I don't care how it looks, it still makes me really happy, and I know all my favorite details on it.
A close-up of my hilariously mismatched art collection...
Ahhh.... the kitchen table. We do actually eat on here, but for the sake of honesty, I didn't clear the crap off it before I took this picture. The kitchen table is kindof a catch-all place when we walk in from work or wherever. It's where backpacks, jackets, groceries, other accoutrements go until I clear it off for dinner. Today it features some random CDs and a box of canning jars my mom found in my grandma's garage that she didn't want. Digging the retro, stinky moldy box... For your viewing pleasure!
We only have one AC unit. It's a window unit located in the front room/living room/bedroom of the apartment. It works, but the air rarely makes it to the back parts of the apartment despite the small size. For this, I bought a cheapo box fan from VoldeMart. It's purple. I want a cool, sophisticated metal one, but those are like 50 dollars, and I'm broke, yo!
This is our loft. We bought it at Timber Nest. It's a queen and was surprisingly affordable. We should have sprung for a better mattress because we've already made a smooshed-in dip in the middle of ours due to our sleep styles causing us to end up in a pile in the middle. I installed the shelf which serves as a night stand to hold lotion, books, orthodontic elastics for my braces, a lamp, water glasses, and apparently a bottle of off-brand tums.
These are my fish. They're like "clean the algae off this tank, lady!"
This is the view from the couch. I made the knitted cushions out of t-shirt yarn. This is a favorite pastime of mine. I love knitting, but it's so hot in the summer. T-shirt yarn isn't hot to work with like wool is. Also, floor cushions are apparently a thing, now, so I sell them occasionally. The credenza/tv stand/stuff-hiding-place is something we bought off Craigslist for $150. Apparently it was a prop in a Tarantino movie, according to the guy who sold it to us. The tv is 3d and we LOVE IT SO MUCH IT IS THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO US. It's from LG, if you're interested. We saved for it for a while, and it has saved us so much money on movie tickets. Thanks, Piratebay! I mean, we still go to the movies, but only if the movie is worth the cost of admission, which seems to go up every time we go to the theater. We also love our Netflix account. We don't have cable because it's so expensive and we both hate commercials. SERIOUSLY... F__K COMMERCIALS. THAT IS ALL.
This is the fiance's desk situation. He kindof dumps his stuff right next to his desk... oh well. I also hate the desk. It's dark, and really heavy, and janky-looking.
GASP... the reach-in closet. Nothing could have prepared me for the horror of sharing a reach-in closet with another adult. NOTHING. I won't sugarcoat it. It looks like shit. I honestly have no excuse. The pile of clothes is mostly dirty, but has a layer of clean stuff I dropped on it that I was either too lazy or too busy to be bothered to hang up or fold and put away. It's bad. Mostly I grab whatever I need out of there as quickly as possible and close it before it turns into a monster and swallows me whole. To my credit, there are two people's laundry baskets in there as well as all our tools, gardening stuff, and all his shoes (some of mine). but I know it's a nightmare...
The bathroom. It's passable. The way the tub was installed left this weird shelf thing behind it that reaches across its width all the way back. It's an organizational nightmare because stuff kindof gets lost all the way at the back, and my pudgy little midget arms can't reach that far without climbing onto the sink and doing this creepy contortion thing. Also I'm afraid something is alive back there... I have too many products, and I need to downsize.
These are the nightmare shelves. I know... I know...
All my crap including the Manic Panic hair dye that I've stopped using because I need to look like an adult or something.
The litter box is in the bathroom. It's not ideal, but the fiance will not tolerate it anywhere else, and he thinks it's funny that the cat uses the bathroom in the bathroom, too.
My shoe organizer. Yes, it's in the bathroom. No, there's nowhere else to put it.
The coffee table/bench/cat lookout spot. I do like gardening, but don't have any dirt, so I got some pots and made do on the balcony. More pics of that further down.
The balcony/garden/man-cave. My favorite pot features catnip, lettuces, basil, chive and thyme. The fern was being thrown away, so I rescued it from the curb, poured some seaweed extract fertilizer on it and it has flourished! I am so pleased with it! The tree is a small meyer lemon that I picked up for a song at Lowe's because it was kindof beat up.
A caterpillar has been eating my basil, and I'm really pissed at the little bugger! When I find him, he's toast!
The castoff fern!
Some unhappy-looking sunflowers... something has been eating them, too.
And my basil plant. It was glorious a week ago, but caterpillars... grrrrrrr....
Some more rescued plants. Haven't had these long, so they still need more love. It's amazing people just throw perfectly alive plants away instead of taking care of them!
The beautiful water heaters... blech.
The stairs in our building... if you're falling down, and you need to use the banister, don't bother. It'll just come down with you.
My bachelor's degree... I'm legit.
The mismatched shelves covered in junk... yes. That's a unicorn mask. It's my mardi-gras costume. I made it myself!
Warning: gross kitchen
I love my kitchenaid and use it all the time!
Only 90s kids will get this reference...
Embarrassing fridge...
I can haz foodz?
Well.... that's all folks!
