telophase: (Default)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2008-10-05 10:01 pm

Design solutions...

...Yeah, lotsa posts right now, but I just dumped 275 photos from my camera onto my hard drive and have a Thing against mixing subjects in one post.



I finally got a loveseat to replace the old vinyl one I had. That one I'm keeping down in the garage, as it folds out to make a foam mattress, and is light enough I can literally pick it up in one arm, so I can haul it up the stairs when I have anyone over who wants to spend the night.

It took LOTS and LOTS of poking about the web to find one that had all the criteria I wanted: black or close to it, legs, rather than sitting directly on the floor, a modern style rather than a traditional, and chrome accents since I seem to have chrome and brushed metal all over the place. And it had to be affordable, and I mean "less than $600" affordable.

Which left me with about three options total. I went with the IKEA one. :)



In the low light conditions that normally prevail in my living room, the loveseat looks so dark it's almost black, so it goes a lot better than it seems to in the picture illuminated by flash. That's also my NEEEEEEW coffee table there. I wanted one made of dark wood, with a big top on it so I could spread out whatever project I was working on. Yaay!

I think my next living-room purchase is going to be an area rug, to Define the Space, as the design pundits put it.

Remember how I said I had this wacky-ass tiny window in my bedroom? (The apartment above me has a niche there, which makes sense in *that* apartment, but not in mine.) I had a serious Design Dilemma [TM], especially since there's this HONKIN' BIG SECURITY LIGHT right outside that window, so I needed to block off the light there.

To remind you what it looked like, here it is before I moved in:



The problem with using blackout curtains is that I couldn't find any that were *short*, and I thought a thin curtain hanging low would just look stupid there. But during the same fateful Ikea trip that netted [livejournal.com profile] myrialux and I both seating, we found a solution!

Blackout blinds! On rollers! So you can roll it down just a short distance, instead of the whole length! [livejournal.com profile] myrialux came over and installed my new blinds, with quite a lot of cursing, as is the nature of home improvement, and here's the result!



Yes, I normally have blankets on the bed but the cat decided to help me make the bed after I washed the sheets, and ... well, you see the result.

Next steps: at some point, stain the bed dark because I hate the blond wood. Figure out what colors I want my room, get a curtain or something for the big window. Leave small window alone, because the blind eliminates it visually, so no need to decorate it. :D

[identity profile] tokyoghoststory.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 03:08 am (UTC)(link)
your living room is sweet! i can't wait to see what it'll look like with a rug!

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 03:10 am (UTC)(link)
It looks much nicer in normal lighting, rather than harsh flash. XD And I'm all "...dude! It looks like I have a color scheme!"

[identity profile] tokyoghoststory.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
harsh lighting makes everything craZY!

[identity profile] lady-ganesh.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 11:20 am (UTC)(link)
Even with the harsh flash it's pretty good. Just more dramatic.

[identity profile] seawolf10.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 11:26 am (UTC)(link)
I may borrow that blackout curtain idea. Thanks!

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2008-10-06 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
These block a little less light than my previous curtains (in my former apartment, which also had a HUGE HONKING SECURITY LIGHT right outside my bedroom window), but I'd also used picture-hanging hooks to hold the edges of the curtain to the wall in that apartment. :) I chose not to in this one, because I kind of like the light coming in during the morning and waking me up, although now that the security light is mostly blocked I've learned that my new clock radio is TOO DAMN BRIGHT. I can turn the light off on it, but I like being able to see what time it is during the night, and the action of turning the clock's light on to read the time wakes me up too much. Aargh!