sfgirl's Profile

Those prices are unbelievable - a $900 umbrella ? a $1,500 "rain drum" ?

I still have my Marantz receiver (exactly like the one in the photo) that I bought in 1977 using my money earned babysitting !!
I need to get it "tuned up" because the blue lights aren't completely working, and I've found some places that do repairs on ancient stereos - they might be a good source of equipment.

I do the opposite of what everyone else does, I go through the magazines and rip out the pages that I don't want to see again (ads, masthead, classifieds, uninteresting stories, etc.) which makes each copy much skinnier and easier to store. It still has a cover and can be seasonally sorted and I don't have lots of loose papers necessitating another project just to reorganize them.

When I was forced to move last year, I ended up freecycling my entire Domino collection and a year's worth of Martha Stewart Living after reviewing them one last time. I thought Domino got more pretentious and sillier the longer they published. I've kept others that I liked and I can't bear to get rid of the Gourmet magazines my dear old Dad used to give me every year so I have about 5-6 years worth of them still.

Wow, I envy people who pay such low rents! San Francisco's rent control makes vacant apartments absurdly expensive and lots of smaller landlords don't bother re-renting once they've had to deal with evicting a nightmare tenant. My landlord legally kicked 3 of us out last summer, but he had to pay each tenant $5,000 just to move out.
The rent controlled place was $2,000 for a 1,800 sq ft 4 bedroom top floor flat overlooking Duboce Park and my portion was $800. My new 2 bedroom is ~1,000 sq ft and costs $2,600 and that's supposedly a deal give the size and neighborhood. Half the size and three times as much money. At least I can afford it - even if it is a huge waste of money.

I love old maps ad old globes, but like Holler it's more for the country changes - probably because I lived in Estonia right after it got its freedom from the USSR. I'd kill for one written in Cyrillic ! I found a great old geopolitical globe with black seas for $19 in an antique shop in Arizona so the trend of overpriced globes as decor hasn't hit everywhere. I agree that a couple are enough unless there's some backstory or you have kids who seem to love gobes.

I usually buy what's on sale especially cleaning & paper products, but Method Mandarin dish soap smells so good, I spent extra for it last time I needed some.
I'm a sucker for Daisy Sour Cream and never buy anythign else if I can help it.
I would definitely buy Reynolds Cling Wrap over crappy Saran Wrap if any stores stocked it.
I prefer to spend my extra money on good wine, beer, and spirits !

I'm very interested in everyone's advice because my living room looks almost exactly like this with very dark wood trim & mantle against lovely light oak floors and a bay window (and couch) in the same location. I'm not able to paint so my walls are creamy white as are the floor length curtains.

I gave up on my old black rug with grey swirls, because it darkens the room so much. If you've never had a dark rug, beware because they need a heck of a lot more vacuuming than lighter rugs - every speck of lint, thread and dust shows up immediately. A dark rug in combo with the dark coffee table would anchor that room too much.

I would go with a lighter rug, some of the morrocan patterns from Mamachilanga look like they'd fit in nicely (or the second grey one). I was considering a small scale leopard print for my own strikingly similar room since the tone matches the oak floors.

This is one of my favorites - great blend of antiques, artwork, and modern elements with fun color choices. Really impressed with the smart layout (especially of the desk area) and restrained styling - would love for my apartment to look so coherent.

Any one that doesn't have legs in the way of your knees when you pull your chair under the table - it's my presonal pet peeve !
Therefore, I'd skip all the round tables except the Minna. I like the New Traditionalist and the Kalon Studios tables (and the Blu Dot one is functional if ugly).

I just ordered a bunch of incandescent bulbs from bulbs.com - mostly 3 way bulbs for reading lamps and 100 watt bulbs for ceiling fixtures on dimmers. I don't really have room for storing lots and lots of bulbs, but I get frustrated not being able to find cheap incandescent bulbs in SF.