Visiting DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival

Mid-April, we went on a little trip to visit my family in North Carolina. On the way there, we stayed a night with our friend who lives outside of DC, because I really wanted to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival for the first time. And DC for the first time. 

Now, I should establish something for people who don't already know. I am a crabby, irritable person, with a very limited amount of tolerance for crap. I don't like being touched and jostled, I don't like the heat, I don't like being in a crowd of slow-moving people, and I get hangry. That being said, none of that stuff bothered me because it was so cool!! 

I don't pretend to know what this is, I just like cool architecture.

This building is like a block or two long, and our friend worked in it.

The south face (original front) of the White House. It was too crowded on the walk back to see the other side.

Yay art.

WWII nurse memorial?

It started snowing petals and I delightedly thought I'm a geishaaaa

Lincoln's got that reserved anger look of a grandpa trying to watch TV but keeping an eye on the misbehaving kids

The pagoda statue, that basically states "sorry Japan. We cool?"

Tim desperately wanted to go on paddle boats, but we only had the afternoon to spend in DC and there was a 45 minute wait. Next year!

This is where Project Purity is housed, in the Jefferson memorial.

Housing: The Desk Rejuvenation Project

When you have a laptop and Cintiq, it's a constant struggle to find the best ergonomic solution for desk arrangements. I still don't think I've figured it out, but apparently when you try and Google ideas, you still just get pet pictures and "find Cintiq desk arrangements at Lowes!" as results.

Because my brain can't focus on important things and instead is obsessed with list-making and plans, I started to make a little list of Ikea desk parts that I could buy, on a budget. Something that would be easy to dismantle, move around, and move out with. This is where Ikea excels: cheap, interchangeable, and easy to take apart and put back together.

Because we'd need to rent a car to get to the Ikea, this list had to be really efficient. This was my one chance to get everything I'd need for my new optimized office space. I wrote a list of my supplies, the stuff I'd need to store, my crafts, and measured out the wall space. I carefully wrote down bin numbers and item codes for all the components, then threw that list away after downloading the Ikea shopping app that just tells you all that. This undertaking made the Ocean's 11 heist look like a stroll in the grocery store to buy milk.

We rented a car for the day, and were outfitted with this little number:

Out-of-state plates, bright red, statistically the most pulled-over type of car. And if you look closely in the picture, you can see my 6-foot desk top wedged sideways through the interior of the car. I squashed in the back passenger seat while Tim drove straight and prayed we wouldn't have to merge too many times.

I didn't take any official "before" photos of my office space, in my eagerness to dismantle my crappy old desk, but here are the "afters":

It looks a lot cleaner, and is working out well so far. In fact, in between now and the time I took these pictures, I've emptied out one of the 3 drawers under the main desk, and taken the little stuff off the walls, just leaving just the diploma and Morrowind map. Way less cluttered.

For anyone interested in the individual components:

The table tops are the Linnmon design, and come in a variety of sizes. You can sometimes find tabletops in the "as is" section too, for cheaper (Tim's dark brown Linnmon corner desk was $5 instead of $45 because of a scratch). I got a 6' long one that was $25 because I picked the cheapest color, white. The craft/sewing machine table's top was only $6, and is 4' long I think.

I splurged and bought 4 Lalle table legs for the craft table, at $12.50 each. Ironically, they were harder to install than the $3.50 black metal Adils table legs for the computer desk. They only had gray for colors at my store, but they come in others.

On my craft table, I indulged and got this fish tray to hold my pencil holder and xacto blades.

I think it looks cool on its own - all together gives it a tacky beach house feel. Plus, being from Maine, I'm over the lobster association thing, even though it does look good on the tray.

I saw the lampshade on a blog and immediately needed it, because blue. It wasn't in stock at the local Target so I ordered it online and it thankfully looked good in person and wasn't broken. It's not available online anymore, even though it's still listed at the time of this writing, but the model is called "Room Essentials Hardback Faceted lamp shade", in "Avalon Sea." Very eloquent. For the base, I bought an $8 Januari base from Ikea and the 2 pieces miraculously were compatible. I looked at thrift stores for bases too, but you never know if the wiring is still okay in those. This combination worked out well and looks really simple and clean.

I have my small cutting mat on the table, and a cool chevron-y placemat that was on clearance at Target for 49 cents. In the red Helmer drawers set, I house all my craft tools and supplies, each drawer labeled and surprisingly deep. 

Fred helping me empty out the old craft drawers

So, in summary, I spent less than $200 on my new office set-up, everything is more hidden and streamlined, and there are some really nice colors going on. I'm happy to work at it now!

And Fred can really enjoy it too.

Catch Up Post

December 1st! It's been a while since my last post, so here's what's going on in sunny Montclair:

We are both working at Titmouse, hence the slack in posts and free time in general. I am managing to play a fair amount of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, per week, so rest assured. Now that it's almost winter, I'm starting my annual playthrough of Twilight Princess, where I am mostly running off cliffs as I re-teach my brain to play on inverted controls.

Yesterday we went to a post-Thanksgiving potluck at a new friend's house. We met them the day before on the way home from Long Island, and they started talking to us by showing us the new Faulex one of them had bought behind a minivan near Canal Street earlier that day.

Our apartment is still quite messy, but all of the rooms have finally been repainted, and most of the wall decor has been put up. Therefore, I present to you a Before and After gallery:

Bathroom before

Bathroom after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Living room before

Living room after

Dining room/office before

Dining room/office before

Dining room/office after

Foyer before

Foyer after

~Extra pictures~

There is this useless little wall near the window in the kitchen, so I put up a couple small shelves for extra storage.

I love me some hanging baskets, and I painted/installed this pegboard to store my pots and pans.

I put our supply drawers here in front of the window thinking that Fred would enjoy the perch.

Food pictures by dining table

Used my new circle punch to make a paper decor for the wall near my desk

Put this mirror with a shelf in the living room

Bought this nightstand/end table at the Goodwill near BU right before moving. Had to clean the spilled oil/lube out of the drawer and replace the knob, but now it's perfect as a remote holder.

This fairly-new lampshade was damaged in the move, and despite my best efforts (duct tape) would not stay up on the shade frame. Finally, I sewed it to the hoop.

Altair, Ezio, and Ezio in position to strike.

Never thought I'd own coasters, but bought a couple of these on a whim from Anthropologie before moving. Thought they would look nice on the new coffee table I'd just acquired.

Bought this for I think $15 from a girl in Brighton.

Made this succulent pillowcase.

And this dual-sided pillowcase (which Fred loves to lay on because it's long and just his size).

The real challenge with selecting paint color was working with our open floor plan - all the colors had to go together. I saw these two colors together in a picture online and loved them right away. They look better in person, but of course the camera can't capture the true color. The reddish-orange is called "Clay" and the green is called "Leaf". The gray in the kitchen is called "Stone." Very crazy here.

This rolly cart is awesome and we're going to store more stuff on it.

Sometimes Fred needs a breather from his fast-paced lifestyle

While painting, this is how Fred helped out

~Halloween Pictures~

I bought a bag of bones from Target and made this Diablo-item wreath for the front door.

When it comes to candy selection, I don't fuck around. No filler, throwaway candy like Dum-Dums and Tootsie Rolls.

Because I like to be crafty whenever I can, I made little treat baggies for the kids to take instead of loose candy. Because they'll really care. So I stamped the images on the white paper, punched that lacy design on the top, and stuffed each baggie full of 3 fun sizers.

This bowl of baggies was a few layers deep, and by the end of the night was completely empty!

Since I wasn't working at Titmouse yet on Halloween, I handled all the trick-or-treaters, which was fun because I got to praise all their cool costumes. Fred watched them through the front window or sat nicely in my arms as the kids pet him. I played spooky old music, and when Tim got home from work we watched Beetlejuice together. Halloween is my favorite.

~Obligatory Fred Being Cute Pictures~

Fred fell asleep in my lap so we played with his lips.