Apartment Tour: The Whole Place

After keeping my readers in suspense for many, many months, I am finally posting the rest of the apartment tour! Let's start from the beginning. Once you open the front door, the first thing you see is a whole bunch of books. Most of the shelves contain two rows of books, most of which I couldn't pay my friends to read or look at. But that's OK, no one will want to steal them either.

The bookshelves are Ikea specials. When Pat the Mayflower moving guy loaded the one on the right into the truck, he warned me it would not survive the trip. It did! I really hated the bookshelf when it had it in my old apartment and did not know what to do with it when I got here. When we went to Ikea looking for a super cheap desk, we found this one that just happened to "match" and decided to go with it. We bought another matching bookshelf for the living room and a smaller one with matching desk for the bedroom. This here is Chad's desk.

If you stand still for two or three minutes in front of the sliding glass door, you have a pretty good shot of seeing a hummingbird at the feeder. See this guy? The hummingbirds around here no longer hover. They get all comfy and cozy on the feeder and hang out. The other day, we saw 2 sitting on the feeder at the same time!

The other half of the living room is a bit more austere. The room's focal point, my State Fair project, is currently sitting on the back of the couch. The plan is to hang it above the TV, but I am struggling to find the materials I need to hang it. Someday I hope to make enough money to upgrade from the 19" TV.

By now we have pretty much turned around in a circle. Here by the front door is where I keep additional reading material. These books were waiting to be hauled back to the library.

Just beyond the books is the dining room. So, where to begin... I kind of just shoved everything in here that didn't fit anywhere else. On the far left is Chad's wall of pictures, which he curated, in the middle is my minimalist grid of black and white photographs, and on the right is my hodge podge collection of plates and platters. And on the very far right is my Felix the Cat clock.

The dining room table and chairs is from a dead people's sale and is yellow formica with chrome details. On the table are some of my favorite objects: a carrot-patterned napkin holder from my friend Becky and a thrift store cookie jar in the shape of a chicken.

This yellow shelf used to be orange and has traveled with me to 4 dorm rooms and 3 apartments. Chad and I spraypainted it a few months ago thinking that would be easier than rolling it. It wasn't! My graffitti career will never take off; my spraypainting finger was numb for 2 days after this effort. Anyway, this is where I stashed my collectables in an attempt to show restraint instead of my usual over-the-top-ness. Here we have cameras on the top, followed by teapots, then a mixture of Mexican sculptures, taxidermy, and vases from my sister's wedding for a pop of color.

This is the kitchen. It is so much bigger than my last one which had only enough counter space to accomodate one plate. We got an apartment makeover with new countertops and flooring and it looks pretty damn fancy in here.

There is a cut-out in the wall above the sink. I put my most prized Mexican chicken sculpture up here and a bunch of oranges. You can see the hallway through the cut-out, to the left.

If you go through the door at the end of the kitchen, there is a laundry room and pantry. Here's the laundry room half.

Here's the pantry half. We actually have some food because we've tried to take advantage of the Von's sales when they happen. I think we got these Rice-A-Ronis for something like 50 cents a box and most of the spaghetti sauces were free.

At the end of the hallway is the bathroom, which I discussed extensively awhile back. There's also a bedroom down here.

This is the bedroom and what it looks like when you walk in the door. If you look through the 2 "bars" on the window, you can see my Mini! The iMac is Chad's gigantic iPod... it doesn't do much else other than play music and tell time.

The other side of the bedroom is not so nice. It's my little workspace. I tried to arrange it all nice and neat, and was really proud of it. But in the photo, it looks like a disaster.

Here's the last stop: a close up view with my computer, my books, and my postcards from my nieces. This is where I spend almost all of my time, toiling away like a hermit. Well this hermit has to say goodbye for now... I will post again soon!