jennatar's Profile

The toy collection is great! I spy a Peleda wind-up, a Petit Astrolapin, and plenty Wish Come True toys! It's sometimes hard to display those sorts of things so that they are incorporated into a space. Yay!

Wonderful! I love the Andersonville neighborhood -- it's stacked with beautiful apartment homes, and with so many little mom-and-pop shops and salvage boutiques lining Clark St., you hardly need to venture to find something splendid and unique.

I only recently made peace with my great-aunt's and great-grandmother's furniture and knick-knacks, and as such, I am working to wholly embrace my apartment's brass-doorknob weird-granny vibe. "Turn your weaksauce into a style," or so they effectively say in compassionate art classes, and that is what I intend to do in my wee apartment, crowded with stodgy hand-me-downs.

Incidentally! I am also the happy new owner of an old mounted deer head: I figure the deer head, which is mostly fiberglass, is about as infuriating as a leather jacket, anyway, so that is my pro-vintage-taxidermy argument. So if taxidermy is the hippest new thing, high five! I'm cool, too! A painter I like, who composes quirky pastoral scenes, offered me the deer head, and since I'll likely never afford one of the artist's pieces, I was pleased to receive an heirloom item that may well have posed for (or inspired!) a painting.

What I'm saying is, there are so many ideas in Ryan and Libby's home that I can't wait to reappropriate and pass off as my own! I feel totally inspired. So thanks, you guys -- homes are such an intimate and personal thing, and it's so gracious and emotionally generous to let us steal a peek at your home's inner cogs and workings.

I am just popping in to say how much I like Rain Design. I've been using their iLap stand with my little MacBook. It's great on the sofa (no more beet-red thighs!), and it elevates the laptop to a nice height if you remove the wrist/knee pad and set the stand on a table. Sort of pricy, maybe, but it works SO so well.

I live in a converted warehouse/lofted space, and my BFFs live in a similar space closer to Wicker Park -- so, different buildings, different neighborhoods, different landlords, natch.

And... we all have leaks.

Incredible, amazing, spectacular leaks, mostly in the ceilings, but some in the walls and in skylights. And, surprise, no one is too willing to repair them.

So, as another commenter urged, put aside your romantic notions of lofted, artsy spaces. They will have leaks. And, very possibly, a rodent infestation (or birds in the walls, I'm not positive yet).

And, as Katy the feng shui fan points out, watch out for ghosts and hauntings and bad chi. (I'm half-kidding, but to put it more plainly, some lofts can be kind of creepy, probably because of the open layouts.)

We beat our stuff to the new apartment by several days -- we flew from San Francisco to Chicago -- and an old Chicago friend took pity on us and drove us to a Target on our first night. We bought scissors, sheets, towels, cleaners, bath soap, TP, and an air mattress. It was fine.

But mollymcg is right: in your "open first" box, include your checks. Last month, the boy and I were both up shit creek without our checkbooks, and I still have no idea which box has my prescriptions in it.

Decoupage! Decoupage it!

What a wonderful home tour! I initially skipped this post, actually, because it looked too expensive for my casual taste (and budget). I was shocked when I realized how much was salvaged.

Covering the french doors to make a usable wall is absolutely inspired. I was really impressed by all the design tricks the tenant uses to conceal his apartment's "design flaws," as well as his space-saving storage ideas. Wow! (Also, I find myself doing similar things with covering windowsills with fabrics and plastics.)

When I was in college, my great-aunt gifted me with several beautiful mid-century furniture pieces. A matter of months later, my college roommate had spattered candle wax all over one piece, doing irreparable damage. Other pieces were dinged or broken by her friends, college-aged partygoers. My boyfriend sat down in one of my Amish chairs and, when he shifted his weight, one of the chair legs seemingly shattered beneath him (those chairs, as you probably know, are not nailed together).

The Ikea stuff has been dinged up, too, in the course of multiple cross-country moves, but it's never felt like so great a loss as the really beautiful old stuff. In San Francisco, just before I moved, I craigslisted a TV stand -- "free to whoever can carry it away" -- and I was stunned when a kid in a VW Beetle quickly dismantled it using tools from his cargo pants pocket.

What I'm saying is, older furniture is lovely, but when something happens to it, it's like a knife through the heart.

P.S. I meant to say what blandwagon said, basically, if you replace "cream" with "yellow-green... and cream."

Once, a friend from college stayed at my apartment for a few days. He ate all my food. He drank all my alcohol. He invited our college buddies over. He pulled books off my shelves to look at them, then leave them strewn all over my apartment. When he left, I was relieved.

A week or two later, aNOTHer friend from college stayed at my apartment for a few days. He was the most wonderful houseguest ever. When he left, I cried.

It was easier to take on houseguests as a Chicago resident, btw. When I moved to San Francisco, having two houseguests for any length of time was like trying to breathe in a broom closet. (See also: Cashew's major complaint, right above my post)