taking advantage of boredom and a wireless network

I’ve been trying to organize our living room this weekend. It’s full of book stacks because of the great office overhaul. We moved the bookshelves to the foyer because we didn’t have anywhere else to put them really and they actually look kind of cool there. So I decided to just shelve the books so at least it would look neat until I decided what to do next.

There is a gigantic box of unsorted office crap in the middle of the already cluttered room. It’s filled with stuff from the rats nest that was next to Cody’s desk including the usual fifty notebooks and pads with notes on only the first ten pages and stacks of printouts on arbitrary subjects such as preservation of genes in space that seem to trail behind my cute husband with the short attention span. There are also our old two desks in addition to the usual ugly sleeper sofa, matching chair and ottoman, dining table, sideboard, and china cabinet. Yeah. It’s a bit crowded.

We’ve been ignoring it for months but yesterday I was up early and just didn’t want to play games or watch tv. So I unpacked his laptop in the living room, logged it in to the wireless network, downloaded a few books on tape from itunes, and went through the box from hell. It was dusty with nicotene dust, pet hair, and the usual New Mexico extreme dust that permeates the pores. Bleh.

eventually

When I’m done with the living room I’m going to tackle the scary room!

We’ve also started talking in a serious tone about flooring. I think we’ve decided on a recycled PET carpet of some kind in most of the house with bamboo flooring in the foyer (and maybe the living room), and possibly linoleum tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms but maybe saltillo tile.

I also want to finish putting up new switchplates.

And put track lighting in the office.

And organize all my power tools and junk in the garage.

I’m thinking about putting my easel to the back porch and making it my studio for the summer.

No idea what to do with that back room. It’s always been vaguely ‘future baby room’ in my mind. It has the most pleasant view in the whole house of the back corner of the garden and is shaded by a big (still healthy) tree. But I’m getting very tired of not actually using it for anything other than storage of crap.

And hopefully someday I can decide on paint colors for the walls.

cluttery to philanthropy

I’m thinking about taking advantage of this freecycle thing to get rid of the desks and ugly sofa and chair. Or more likely I’ll give it to a domestic violence charity there are an unbelievable number of abused women in this state.

I also plan to go through all the health and beauty drawers and donate them to a women’s shelter and maybe go through my clothes and donate to that ACLU clothes drive for women to wear in court again if they’re still doing that Jocelyn?

I can’t decide if we should sell the boxes of books we don’t want anymore to a used bookstore or donate them. There’s also the decision if I should sell some things on ebay - like the Monty Python and the Holy Grail knights action figures set (still in their boxes!).

dream on

I have a vague vision of a “Woody Allen’s New York” style living room with a dining room, dark wooden shelves of books everywhere, and a little reading area with two comfortable chairs.

Otherwise all I usually want is something sturdy and comfortable that’s easy to clean, doesn’t show pet fur too much, and looks good.

Trying to incorporate all the cool mid-century stuff we have isn’t easy to do in a 70s suburban house but I’m trying.

cocksure

For the most part I don’t want to worry about a specific style and just include things that I like - someone demonstrated to me once that if you choose several things you like and put them together they evoke a certain kind of asthetic style that is personal and far more creative than the cut and dried style rules. And this may sound egotistocal but I *do* have a degree in visual arts so I usually know what looks good. Or at least I’m confident enough about decorating (when I actually do it) to ignore most criticisms about it. Heh.

Ok back to the living room for me now.