geoduckling's Profile

Can you explain what would be involved in hanging #2 against the wall?

My efforts to come up with tidy shoe storage have run up against how hard it is to find any hanging storage that is a) big enough to fit my boyfriend's shoes efficiently, b) doesn't present a serious tripping hazard in our ridiculous not-quite 40" wide entry hall and c) doesn't create a cascade of other storage problems in our coat closet, which also has to fit a vacuum cleaner, some folding chairs, and a bike-repair tripod thing (and is about 2"x3"). I spent a long time searching for a hanging shoe thing that could be hung up in a closet, with a hanger instead of overdoor hooks. Attaching to a wall wasn't something I'd thought of. How do you keep the fabric from ripping?

Worlds best clumps pee waaaay better then any other litter I've used. Plus it formulated to be flushable, if the plumbing in the building can handle it (my pipes are old and rickety, but we do flush occasionally, a friend who lives in a newer building uses worlds best and flushes all the time without issues). The only major downside is that it is easily kicked out of the box.

Before switching to worlds best about a year ago, I was a fierce partisan of Feline Pine clumping. They've changed their formula, so the pieces of litter are now bigger. The little sawdust pieces were kind of a pain, but the new litter can fly so much farther if you have a cat who is really devoted to burying their business, as mine are. I ultimately made the switch after finding cat litter that had been flug into the bathtub from across the room. It is equivalent to worlds best on odor control, IMO. I'm glad to be done with the packaging on it too, the big cardboard box the larger quantity came in was hard to pour from, especially if stored in a humid place (like under a bathroom sink, or anywhere in my apartment), and also shed a little.

I don't have anywhere to hide the catbox, and one of my two cats is too big for a covered box (his height sized him out of regular cat carriers too, I lug him to the vet in one designed for a "medium sized" dog), so the box just kind of sits in my bathroom. I scoop 1-3 times a day, and usually also have to fish the pan liner out of the box 2-4 times.

The biggest litter-hassle for me is dealing with pan liners. My building doesn't have a hose, and no convenient place to deal with whole litterbox changes without a pan liner. The cats scratch them up and ultimately I find that the dang litter liner is more of a hassle then the litter itself.

My guess is that the ones you saw at Barnes and Noble were probably created specifically by the company to use as advertising/in-store decor.

Penguin has made a lot of cute decorative items out of book covers (I saw Moby Dick and White Noise when quickly poking through their website). http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/shop/

I didn't check all of them, but for the tours I clicked on that were actual apartments (vs houses/condos), the square footage was between 600-900. The largest of the apartments looks like its in Providence RI. Is 600-900 sf really enormous for the general Boston area?

FYI, many (though not all) Salvation Army locations work with textile recylers, and can take the clothes that are currently going into the trash pile and turn them into mattress fluff. Other thrift stores/donation accepting groups do similar stuff, and it might be worth it to check out who in your area has that kind fo program.

I love the rainbow bedding! It is so happy and bright. To me it doesn't read as juvenile at all, but as a great contrast the wall color, and a way to prevent the room from seeming dark. I also like this room as an example of a straightforward sleeping space that hasn't been set up for other activities (no desk, no tech, etc).

My cats sometimes get really into what we are watching on TV. Mostly things that are in the realm of sci-fi. My girl kitty will get up on the desk and look like she's hunting the screen during the credits sequence for "Doctor Who". Mine also both react to the sounds of other cats when I'm watching funny cat videos on youtube. Neither of my cats takes an interest in PBS nature specials. I should mention that, like mdorothy mentioned, so cats seem to be able to see the tv/mirrors well, and mine aren't that type (specifically they are totally uninterested in mirrors).

If you're worried about entertaining the cat while you're gone during the day, a bird feeder or a suet cake for squirrils would probably be a safer choice for entertaining indoor kitties. Set the feeder up so that it can be easily seen from a window where there is room for cats to sit or perch.

The thing that has most improved my morning-wake-up routine is switching to night showers. I have thick, curly hair, and showering at night shaves about an hour off of my morning routine, allowing me to sleep in (to clarify, showering doesn't take a whole hour, but getting my hair from wet to just damp-ish takes a good 20 minutes, and I needed the extra time to let it finish drying). I was staying in bed longer then intended to avoid feeling cold after getting out of the shower, then having less time to dry my hair (with a diffuser) so was having to get dressed and eat with wetter-then-ideal hair, which gets even colder then just-damp hair, and having to leave for the bus stop with still wet/damp hair, and feeling unprofessional at work because my hair was still damp.

Unexpected plus sides of showering at night: my boyfriend and I aren't nagging eachother about the shower ("hey, I need to get in there!"); I have been getting sick less often.

I also use the auto-timer on my coffee maker, set out my clothes the night before (so that I can minimize the time spent half dressed figuring out what to wear), and have a cat that really really likes to be fed at exactly 7:30.

Getting the boyfriend added onto the lease is also a great way to protect both of you should your neighbors mistreat either of you re: your relationship status situation. It is also a good thing to do in case your landlord tries to use it against you if you want to move when the lease ends.

The link to the 3rd clock pictured (three-step modern clock at design sponge) isn't opening, and instead I get an error message that says "Problem Loading Page, Content Encoding Error" and that the page can't be loaded because it is using an "unsupported or invalid form of compression". Design sponge seems to be loading fine on its own.

Craftzine's link's to the same design sponge post about that clock are also giving me the same error message, however they also linked to the authors blog (in Spanish). Here is his posting (in Spanish) about the clock: http://www.specadoc.com/2012/07/mi-nuevo-reloj.html