Welcome to the boudoir

Finally, a sunny day! I've been trying to photograph our bedroom as it deblandifies, but it's been too grey outside for decent pictures.

We live in a dull, anonymous apartment complex (because we live in a dull, anonymous town—well, I suppose being a crime capital isn't dull exactly...), so we have to inject personality into the apartment ourselves if we want any at all. There are so many bloggers out there with beautiful houses to go with their beautiful photos of their beautiful stuff; our stuff, on the other hand, has to outshine our lame digs.

Curtains are hard to photograph, but you can see the ones I made at the edge of the photos. I got a great end-of-bolt deal on the barkcloth and used every inch of it. For anyone who hasn't sewn curtains, beware! Sewing what seems like a simple rectangle can be a major pain in the rump. It's not so much the sewing as the measuring, though working out how to sew a blind hem for the first time made me a little cranky too. Gertrude's manual was virtually useless, as usual; this was much easier to follow.

The smaller set of pillows on the bed were a much simpler job (though not as simple as the big ones farther back, stitched by the elves at Ikea). We found the barkcloth at an antique shop here in town, and it came in two strangely shaped pieces. I'm still trying to come up with a use for the remaining long strips, since I love the print so much. The colour works splendidly with the flamingo quilt.

The Other and I had been grumping since we moved in that we had nothing suitable for over the bed, so we were thrilled to find this painting at Deco the Halls in San Francisco last month.

It comes from 1973 Manila, according to the back of the canvas, and makes the room feel much livelier. It was affordable too—not always the case at those Modernism shows—though the thrift stores in town have spoiled us with really good deals on things we completely don't need for just a couple bucks....

The dresser in the first couple photos was also a local thrift find (I made the other bedside table with plans from Todd Oldham's Handmade Modern), so perhaps I shouldn't talk so much trash about this town. If it'd just give me a decent bakery, I'd be satisfied.

Tchotchke Tuesday: Moon globe

Origin: eBay

I had hoped to show you some tchotchke from my vacation this week, but it turns out I didn't buy any, much to my surprise. This moon globe came from a moment of less restraint. In the last installment, I mentioned the space-age bedroom plan, and this leans in that direction too. The globe's marked with the sites of orbiter landings, but since it was made in 1963, it doesn't show any manned missions. These things come up on eBay fairly frequently, and after hemming and hawing for a while, I decided I well and truly wanted one. That's the trouble with tchotchke: you want it, you buy it, and then it just sits there. Doing nothing. Though I will be able to locate craters the next time somebody asks. Which they're sure to do frequently.

Tchotchke Tuesday: Space capsule vases

Origin: Antique shop
Cost: $8 for two? $10? I can't keep track of these things.

OK, I know this has nothing to do with space capsules. But doesn't it look a bit like a Mercury command module? It came as part of a pair, which I had to be talked into buying (by the Mother, back when I was living at home, looking for a job, and furnishing the then-imaginary apartment). I'm really rather glad that I did, as the mottled, part-metallic texture is a nice contrast with the mostly smooth finishes on a lot of my stuff. The slight space-age look is cool too, as I'm trying to encourage more of that in the bedroom. Though they feel like they're made for a mantel I don't have, for now the vases are on crappy Ikea bookshelves in the bedroom. (Sorting out the shelves is one of my lingering big projects, but I just have too many bleeding books.) Somehow I haven't managed to find a place for the vases where they don't seem to recede into the background, so they're slowly migrating around the apartment. Orbiting, if you will.