My mind was captured by writer’s block today, so I decided to take a break and a buncha photos of our home. I filled out a little application and sent them to Apartment Therapy’s House Tours. Maybe they’ll pick us and want to showcase our place to their readers. Maybe they won’t.
In any case, I wanted to share them here. I feel like we put a lot of effort into making this place great, and it hasn’t been easy because our tastes are actually dissimilar when it comes to furnishing. I love color, vintage and cozy. Cameron seems to get into things that are more modern, muted and minimal. In fact, a loft probably would not be my first choice for a home. Everyone always groans but I say it’s too much space. Hence: I <3 cozy.
And yet, I think this place has really come to represent the both of us.
The upstairs office space overlooking the living room is mine, so it’s certainly more colorful and whimsical than the rest of the house. I feel, in a way, like it’s set apart. I love it very much. It’s some sort of luxury to finally have a creative work area in my home.
Cameron’s touches are elsewhere, like in our very minimal bedroom and the dark Shepard Fairey prints hanging in the dining room. The living room, meanwhile, is a blend of both our worlds.
We’re constantly thinking of new additions, improvements or, in my case, projects to convince the other to try. For example, I really want to wallpaper a wall in our guest bedroom (not shown) similar to a room at New York’s Ace Hotel.
It’s fun when you can put creative energy into your home, even better to make it reflect who you are. I’m really proud of what we have accomplished, and I love it here.
UPDATE: You can now see our official Apartment Therapy House Tour!
Ninja!
I’d like to introduce you to our new puppy! We rescued her yesterday from Spot! Los Angeles after meeting her on Sunday at a sidewalk adoption event on Larchmont. We didn’t go there to adopt a puppy—or even look at them—but when we saw her we had to hold her, and after that we just couldn’t pass her up. I could not stop thinking about her all Sunday after filling out the application. We’d considered getting a dog for quite awhile, but I honestly never expected we’d have one right now. She’s exactly what we wanted, though, and we just knew we needed to get her and make it work.
Cameron grew up with a great dog and a few of our friends have dogs, but she’s my first dog. She is still getting used to her new home, 14 weeks old and a terrier mix. She weighs just 8.5 pounds right now, but she might get up to about 15 (maybe a little bit more).
She wants you to know that she doesn’t care for her new orange collar, but she loves her krinkle toy, the sun and back rubs.
“Hello, Mister Typewriter. Welcome home.”
Those are the first words typed on my new (old) typewriter, a Royal Quiet Deluxe portable from 1938. I guess I didn’t plan to start collecting typewriters, but I am slightly obsessed. Where do I begin!
Cameron’s Aunt Jann called me over to the back of her van last weekend while we were up in Santa Barbara. She had a surprise for me. And this is what I found inside, protected within a black dust-covered, hardshell case. Incredible.
I brought it home and spent a chunk of time yesterday afternoon cleaning and restoring it to the best of my amateur abilities. Now she shines—free from years of cobwebs, grime and disuse. I imagine it sat in an attic or a garage for many years, but everything is still in perfect working order. The cleaning brushes are also still present, along with documentation that reveals the typewriter originated in Portland, Maine. Except for needing a new ink ribbon—this current one is, understandably, faded—it’ll work like new.
As a writer, the history attached to these things makes me crazy. I love to imagine what letters or documents it’s seen, what mind has put it to use. What happened over the years, nearly a lifetime, before it was brought to me? There’s an infinite amount of romanticism wrapped up in these machines, at least for me. It’s just enough to be near them sometimes, but it’s an honor to now call this one mine.
(Thank you, Aunt Jann. Thank you.)
A friend pointed me to this New York Times article today, and I just had to steal some photos and place them here for posterity and aspiration. This apartment kinda puts the ‘guh’ in ‘gorgeous’ for me.
At a mere 178 square feet, Zach Motl’s Brooklyn apartment is way fantastic. Now, I don’t live in a shack by any means, but I’m envious. And if I was good with maths I could tell you, in shock, just exactly how many times Motl’s space could be replicated and fit into my own loft in Los Angeles. Sweet jiminy… I’d almost trade it for something cozy, antique-strewn and lovely as this. He’s done real good. As much as there is something to be said for staging in photographs, I do believe that Motl lives a neat life very similar to what the pictures portray. He’d have to.
There is nothing wrong with a studio apartment; I’ve had one. It’s certainly about creativity and what you can make of a space that is all your own. And then there’s just general taste, which leads me to want to befriend this dude. I’m so inspired, with books covering almost every surface (in a version of planned chaos) and pockets of color everywhere. Impressed—and jealous, and in love.
Read more…
Another recent find while (body)surfing the ‘net is Seattle visual artist Zack Bent. His work most commonly marries objects with people or dynamic space; he once went so far as to spend a week living with his wife and two children within a frontier installation.
With Answers To The Universe, Bent’s 2007 series, he photographed stacks of vintage library books and left one tome with a given message. The inscriptions are unexpected, or maybe just introspective, but poignant all the same. Talk amongst yourselves, but the selections pictured above are my favorites.
