Monday 29 July 2013

My new house, or how I live in other people's old things

I simply cannot talk about my new-ish apartment without thinking about this song, and how sarcastically it is sung. Please do listen to it to lift off the hint of self-absorption I can't help but feel whenever I'm somewhat showing off (although, let this be said, I love seeing photos of other people's outfits/houses/lives). I should probably use 'My New House' by The Fall as my theme song if I ever make other posts like these, ha. Here:
 Now this is done, let me present you my new living room. The reason for which I'm so proud of how it turned out is that I've been more or less living out of boxes since April, and that finally having a room that's both free of boxes and good-looking is a small feat of its own. Until last week or so, I didn't have any frames or posters on my walls, let alone a place, other than my bed, where I could comfortably lean back, grab a book and a cup of tea, and relax. In the past, I've lived in tiny apartments where it was customary for me to use my bedroom as a living room, dining room, office, and storage area, but now that Jaime and I have found a spot that's both cheap and spacious (a 5 1/2, or 3-bedroom, for - I have no shame - 705$/month), it was getting rather ridiculous not to make the best of it. Now, this is my second apartment in the same sixplex, and we've been living without roommates for over a year, but our place downstairs never felt quite like 'home'. I never had the energy to really make it nice, and when we moved in April, we realised we still had unpacked items from the previous July.
Living room at 976 Living room at 976
Living room at 976 
Now, you've probably noticed the naked light bulb, my poor dying azalea, and the leaning bookshelf, but home isn't 'home' without a few imperfections, is it? For the bookshelf, you perhaps remember I talked about my book conundrum a few years ago, and never discussed it again. Last year, Jaime and one of his (ahem, professional carpenter) friends built us a custom hanging bookshelf. However, we had a small accident (i.e., it fell!) when it was temporarily secured to the wall this spring and that, unaware of the temporary quality of this arrangement, I added some heavy art books to it. We're now in the process of designing some legs for it, since no drill owner we know wants to risk fastening it back to the wall. It's still pretty great just like that as it doesn't waste as much space as most commercial shelves.
For the rest, well, I've been an incredibly lucky girl. Almost everything in there was either given to us by generous friends and family members or found in the street, in previous apartments and in thrift shops. The only new thing is the Ikea futon, although we only had to buy the mattress (in the as-is section of the store, no less!) and the cover as the base was already in the apartment when we moved in. The "Killdeer" poster was salvaged by my dad, who worked for the NAC in the late sixties, and I rescued the smoking man poster when I was a teenager. It's in pretty bad shape, but I finally framed it after years of having it hanging off precarious chunks of blue gum; it doesn't look like much, but it's one of my most prized possessions. Welcome to my new house :)

9 comments:

  1. Camille! This looks so great! I really love it. So glad to see you have found a place to call home :)

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  2. Your apartment looks so wonderful and inviting! I love the feeling of coming home to a nice, neat space that feels like you.

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    1. Thank you Quinn! I agree, it's such a great feeling!

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  3. I think it's wonderful to feel so happy in your new place that you want to share and it's not showing off, it's just contentment that you have a place that you can enjoy and call "home". I can sense your delight from here.

    I love the airiness of the room and the collection of books - I used to have quite a collection but as I moved from home to home, the books eventually "disappeared" despite the houses getting bigger. How that happened, I cannot quite work out.

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    1. Thank you Sue! That's rather odd, those disappearing books! For me, it's the other way round: every time I move, I feel like I have more and more books... Perhaps you'd find some of yours in my apparent black hole collection?

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  4. Oh I just love your apartment, it looks great and I especially love the old posters.

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  5. Gorgeous stuff! You have such good taste, Camille.

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