Beca's Profile

I'm sure your significant other also yearns for that limited edition life-sized bronze statue, but currently settles for the life-sized cardboard cutout. Oh yes, I feel your pain.

So long as he only wants to display one of each item, I think you have a salvagable relationship; if he wants to display the one he bought to check out all those neat features, the one he kept in the box for himself, and the one he kept in the box to possibly sell at a later date, it might be time to seek professional help.

Putting everything in a cabinet (or several cabinets) will minimize the overall visual impact of the collection, like putting a picture in a frame--cabinets create boundaries. In fact, I would recommend several cabinets, so you can spread them around the space and minimize the impact even more. A touch of Yoda here, a touch there, and no one place becomes YODA HERE. Because as nice as it seems to have Yoda confined to one corner, as soon as he's there, you'll find your eye wandering there over and over again because it's just so much green.

As a budgety person, I use several of the IKEA Deltorf (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10011055) for the nicer pieces and cycle items through. Billy works well for displaying items in packaging, but its larger size and heavier lines can start to create that "wall o' crap" look you're trying to avoid. Especially if your loft-ish apt has high cielings, try to find half-height cabinets and pull the eye away from them by putting focus-grabbing art higher up on the walls.

In my experience, the more glass, the classier even Yoda will look. Wood shelves will look juvenile, like a little boy's room. Glass displays will say to visitors "hey, I know it's a little wierd, but some day this will be in a museum and then we'll be rich." It shifts the balance from crazy, towards eccentric. ;)

Spend a chunk of the money you were planning to spend on the cabinet on good tuck-away storage. If a piece not on display has a safe place to rest, where it can be easily found and brought out again to show a visitor, you might find it's easier to convince your SO to put it away. I use file boxes (with cardboard wine glass inserts for small items) and label the outside of the box with the exact contents.

Also consider framing the posters and t-shirts. Thumb-tack holes lower the value of an item--and hey, if you've got to live with it anyway, it might as well be worth something. As long as you don't mat them, poster frames are pretty cheap. For t-shirts, choose the kind of frame where the back of the shirt folds around to form a square, not the kind where the whole shirt is laid out on the glass. The simple shape will reduce the item's weight on the eye.

If you have the IMAX poster ("Size matters not, except on an IMAX screen"), you can pull a lovely red/orange and even a coordinating blue from it. I use the red/orange in my curtains, throw pillows, and rug, and try to bunch houseplants opposite to the display cases, so the focus is distributed between bunches of greenery. I really wish I could send pictures, but I just moved and everything is still in boxes.

Sorry for this monster of a comment, but I remember being very overwhelmed by this same problem when my SO and I first moved in together. The soap (I think I see it in that pic, actually) was the last straw for me. When he hung that on a thumb tack above the bathroom toilet, we sat down and had a talk. Our solution, too, was to purchase quality display surfaces, and it really, really helped. We couldn't afford enough shelf-space to keep everything out, so some of it had to go in boxes, but even though there was less on display, having it neatly arranged and lit made my SO feel like his collection, and himself, was being treasured. Coming to terms with Yoda was a giant step forward in our relationship.

Give it five or six years, and you might even find yourself growing fond of the little bugger.

If this were my space, I'd...

(a) Pat myself on the back. I agree that the flow in this room needs some work, but you have a solid base to work from, and a wonderful backdrop. This isn't a bad layout, all things considered, and your room has a lot going for it.

(b) Move the bookcase to the wall behind the dining table. It does look good where it is, but I think it'll use the space better to put it back there.

(c) Your desk, while nice, is very small. I suspect it would be nice to have a little more room to work on projects, etc. Move the drafting table off the window wall onto the wall by the dining table so you can move easily between surfaces when you need to work. I think this would look really good if you had two bookcases, so you could put one on either side of the drafting table to balance it, but it might look alright with just the one. Doing this will give you a "dark" backdrop on that far wall (without a window, it's going to be dark no matter what you do, so you might as well embrace it); it will also extend the feel of the dark red kitchen wall into the living room and ground that edge of the room. Giving the room some interest along that wall will help stop it from feeling like the furniture is about to fall out the windows.

(d) If you use the TV in this room a lot, don't worry about creating a "theater" effect by having the couch face the TV. Move the TV stand to where the bookcase is now. If form is supposed to follow function, after all, and if your primary function is TV watching... If you don't use the TV often, you might consider getting media stand which will hide it. Considering the way the doors are along the wall which currently has the bookcase, I think you're right to place the couch where it is, even if it does take away from your views somewhat.

(e) I agree with the abundant comments about tucking the couch onto the rug, and I like the idea of perhaps switching the rug's orientation. But whatever you decide to do, try to keep the rug out of the traffic path between the kitchen and the bedroom (?) to avoid any unnecessary wear-and-tear.

I'm not sure what the tool cart is doing in the living room, but I kinda like it. Let us know how this turns out. I'd love to see the finished product. :)

Non-stop texture. That's all I can say. It forcibly reminds us that smooth, too, is a texture, where the brick is half-covered, half-exposed.

The green flooring, however... Is that astro-turf? I would assume it's not, but that's a bad first impression to make...

I've been considering this, in a disparate attempt to manufacture more wall space (both art and books are trying collections for small apartments). I hate feeling like my books are "second class," which is the reason I haven't taken the plunge yet.

Since I access all the books on my shelves on a regular basis, I'm considering some sort of floating install. The leading theory is to hang a tension-wire curtain system at ceiling height across the wall-o-books and suspend artwork on wire, in light-weight frames, from that. That way, the frames could be slid along the bookcase, as I need to access one section or another.

But it's all theory, theory... most likely I will continue staring wistfully at the stack of paintings I'd really like to hang...

I have to agree with the "too pricey for a sheet of vinyl" crowd, but there is something to be said for the advertising as a work of art, not just the painting or whatnot it represents. Colleges are a good clearing house for stuff like this, too. I used to work for the college-system, and we'd get stacks of promotional materials from area museums--a high percentage of which mysteriously disappeared before they could be hung.

Still, I think it's great to have larger works of art in the home. It seems people are really hesitant to use prints of well-known art. They feel it's valueless because it's mass-produced. I think having posters like this is a good way to hang recognizable art you enjoy, while still keeping a unique, one-of-a-kind feel.

I had a similar situation with tacky, but still functional, window blinds in my living room. I wanted to be hide them without reducing their functionality, but without using some oh-so-tacky ruffled valance (my apologies to any ruffled valance lovers out there).

I'm not very adept with sewing, although you appear to be, but I found that hanging a loop of fabric adhered to the top inside frame of the window and weighted with a dowel to keep it hanging straight. It hides the top of the blinds when they're pulled up, and also defines the top of the window. The bottom would still look unfinished, but it's a start at least.

If you're not renting, I would really recommend just getting the trip to finish out the window, even if you don't install a sill. It's pretty easy to do, even without power tools.

Love the colors, btw. I'm not entirely sold on the "punch of red," because I feel it might swing the room too far towards warm colors (even used sparingly) and create a competing theme. The yellow is already a lot of contrast. If you wanted more color, I'd consider picking up the green from the rug. It adds depth to the aqua, I think, and helps ground it. A green stripe along the wall and around the window (like robyn suggested) might look pretty cool.