lizhammel's Profile

I'm in a somewhat different situation than most who post here, being a good deal older and not having had the joy of inheriting family furniture. We have always been grateful that Ikea let us furnish whatever grad student, and then starving itinerant art history professor digs we happened to land in. It's surprising how well some of the older (10 years) bits and pieces have worn. I have a quantity of galvanized storage boxes that still look great some 15 years later.

Right now,I look around our tiny but beloved apartment and see a Billy bookcase painted at least 3 times holding up our tv. It still looks fine, even with the swanky Paulistano armchairs we saved for what seemed like forever for. We recently got some red-stained pine Linnarp glass-fronted bookcases to store our ginormous collection of books, and we love them, and get admiring comments on them frequently.

Our kitchen is full of Ikea. Cooking utensils, cutting boards, shelving, hooks, etc., etc.

As so many others have noted, it's the quality of a piece that's important, not the name.

We use my grandmother's sterling flatware every day. It's a very simple pattern and it looks great with everything else we have. We have few dinner parties, and I just hate the idea of using it only during the holidays. Instead, we get to enjoy it at every meal. What a pleasure!

We used a FLOR Hopskotch area rug to liven up our long hallway. Everyone loves it, and even though our kid is long gone to his own space, it's good for rainy day entertainment as well.

Dang. I just checked the FLOR website and it looks like Hopskotch has been discontinued. We just got ours about a month ago. Guess we were lucky....

Sometime during the past year (sorry for the vagueness), there were posts on a lot of the design blogs about a 'toilet paper table' -- it was very simple -- just a small wooden 'table' with a dowel extending from the middle of the top to hold about 3 toilet paper rolls. I have been trying to find it again, but have been having zero luck. Does anyone else remember this item, or have I finally lost it and imagined the whole thing?

Thanks for any clues!

We will be moving within the next month; our mantra is:

If you don't think you'll enjoy unpacking it, don't pack it.

Amazing how much stuff is going away!

It reminds me of those truly awful jackets and bags and anything else that could be imagined made out of patchwork leather in the late 70s.

Please make it go away?

Like so many others, I was brought up to get those sheets as taut as they could be -- hospital corners were the ONLY way.

And, like so many others, I now have a lovely duvet and my SO has his -- no wrenching covers from each other, no tedious bed-making. He wraps like King Tut, I stick my toes out when it's getting too warm. Happiness.

Ever since I was a kid, clocks have fascinated me. I have at least one clock in every room of the house -- bathroom included. It's not that I need them, I just love them. My SO is just about ready to put his foot down, as he is of the opposite ilk, and is not fond of clocks.

--M. Graves birdie clock in kitchen (as well as stove, coffeemaker and microwave timekeepers)
--Living room -- Small bird-chirper-chiming mantel clock, fine-art sculpture/clock -- silver construction figures on top -- 'Working Over Time"
--Bathroom clock with a fly for a second hand -- Time Files, of course.
--P. Starck atomic clock w/weather and barometric pressure, cool little Alice-in-Wonderland-y clock, SO's alarm clock.

Not counting the cuckoo clock I can't figure out where to put. And the fly-swatter clock that's put away until summer...

Love clocks.