Design: Living Room III

The Situation: Same as always - dark, boring, and not a living room. Now includes one more, currently sad-looking plant.

The Goal: A functional room that's easy to maintain and nice to be in - preferably with sunny space for some herbs.

Thoughts: There was an old dresser or something in the dumpster today. Way too big and heavy for my purposes, but it did get me thinking: Move the small bookshelf into my room (along the wall where the blue box currently is, since I'm not actually planning on keeping the blue box), and in its place, make a sort of miniature china cabinet. Nothing fancy, certainly nothing as nice as an actual china cabinet, but just a place for the extra cups, plates, pans, etc that we don't actually use all that often. Since none of my roommates last year had anything kitchen-wise (one plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife per person, one pot, one pan, and one wooden spoon - that was the sum total when I moved in) I've collected an entire kitchen on my own. And this year it seems like everyone has an entire kitchen on their own - there's just not cupboard space for that. So having a smallish, nice-looking cupboard somewhere else, to keep the stuff that doesn't actually need to live in the kitchen, might be a good idea.

Procedure: Most difficult part would be finding something to start with, I think. Free would obviously be best, but if I can find a beat-up old chest of drawers or something for five or ten bucks at a garage sale or flea market, that would be okay too. Strip out the top drawers; if there's space, I'd like to leave one at the bottom, but if there's not that's okay too. Get some cheap cabinet doors or make some. If I can find enough pre-cut glass (again, free is best, cheap is acceptable), having a glass front would rock; otherwise, a wicker panel or something similar would do. Worst come to worst I think an interesting set of frames and no actual door would be okay. (Hard to describe, but I know what I mean.) Maybe an old fireplace screen or something? Anywho, just something to keep it from being an everyday set of shelves. Paint, obviously - possibly basic white, maybe something more exciting. That would depend mostly on the colors scheme at time of creation - it's easy enough to repaint it later. Then just stuff to fill it and maybe some plants or something on top, and away we go. Only downside would be finding a place to put it - at the moment it could live on top of that stupid TV cabinet, but I don't want to put anything permanent there, in case I ever get a roommate who wants to keep their TV in the living room. The only other spot, then, is in that nook next to my door. Which would be fairly convenient (and is the place described above), but again that stupid built-in cabinet interferes: Anything much taller than the cabinet looks funny, and anything much shorter is just useless (and, honestly, still looks funny). I seriously hate that thing...even more than I hate the upholstery on the couch. Gah. Anyway - not an immediate project, but something to think about.

Recent Changes: As previously mentioned, new plant on the windowsill. Am thinking that instead of a table lamp on that end table I might go for a big bowl of flowers or something...just not sure that I'd trust the cat(s) with it, is all. Maybe a lamp seated in a big bowl, and flowers in small pots surrounding it (inside the larger bowl, so it looks like the lamp is growing out)...? I dunno. A problem for another day. Only other new addition is a semi-decorative bowl of lemons on the table. I actually really like lemons, and they're incredibly useful, and they're a heck of a lot cheaper than I thought. Fifteen lemons (plus a folded section of that drawer-liner stuff on the bottom) fills the bowl nicely, I think. The bowl itself is a plain white round affair - I think it's supposed to be a salad bowl or something - 'bout $2 at Walmart. I went ahead and splurged another $2 for a square black charger (flat plate) to go underneath the bowl. Simple, basic, bold, easy to move when Ashlee does her ironing...I like it, anyway, and that's what's important.

Tomorrow's task: Get up, go check out flea market, and then sew up that couch cover!