thenewblack's Profile

HOW IS NO ONE BUYING THESE?!

I love all of it. I also think it's funny that pretty much every chair has a throw.

I love this home so much I want to scream at a perfect stranger until they slap me.

Okay okay, the hunting lodge thing is overdone all across America at this point, but lovingly-collected deer parts aside, this place would be hard to duplicate. I dig places that look like the owners have personality and not a target credit card.

I am also into the clever use of what appears to be wood grain contact paper.

Feliway spray for the cat/sofa thing. You just spritz it on the fabric and they leave it alone. Reapply every few days. It's cheapo on amazon and totally worth it. Saved my sofa and carpeting. It's scentless and doesn't hurt the fabric.

Yeah, not a new trend. At all.

1. Indoor cats are freaked-out by the outdoors at first for a pretty simple reason. They are used to enclosed spaces, walls. They have never seen a space where there isn't an end in sight. It's like walking from a 2-d world into a 3-d one. It takes getting used to. You have to introduce them slowly.

2. Harness leash. Cat collars don't always work well for outdoor time, so they make chest harnesses. You just tie them up. Instead of wrapping your balcony in screen, just tie your furball to a chair inside or something and let him explore. They won't go anywhere, and it'll take a few days to learn how to not tangle their leash in stuff, but they get used to it.

3. Make sure you give your indoor kitty flea meds if they go out! Use one that has a heartworm medicine too, because mosquitoes carry it, and you don't want your buddy getting seriously ill just from balcony exploration.

I don't generally love the idea of stripping the color out of fabric I love with bleach splatters, or pit stains on nice dresses. Wiping down your kitchen counters in a dress is one thing, but when I'm on my knees scrubbing my bathtub or cleaning the oven, whatever I'm wearing needs to be something I'm okay with ruining.

Ahh, Collier West... It's a really beautiful store... buuuuut if you're not a reasonably wealthy person, the prices aren't friendly. For example, you know those jewel beetles in the clear resin/plastic/whatever cubes? Like paper weights? You can get those for about $2-$8 in any Chinatown, but CW sells them for $35. The markup is unbelievable. Literally nothing in that store is a good deal.

On the upside, it's amazing DIY inspiration, and as I understand, a lot of the stuff in there was made by just whoever had a good idea and wanted to sell it; Local artists who wanted to glue something to something else, or knew how to wire a lamp. One of the prettiest things in there is a big chandelier of white branches that someone just painted, tied together, and ran a light through (or xmas lights around, I can't remember). I talked to an employee there and he said he (or some other employee) makes a lot of what they sell, most particularly their thousand-dollar light fixtures.

Find a good antique store, one of those giant dusty places where no one knows what the gems are, stock up, and go nuts with projects.

I would've been really into this room if someone had cleaned it first.

Majority vote = middle of the road, almost as a rule. I'm not surprised the winners ended up as really basic sort of agreeable rooms. They are by no means bad rooms, but nor are they outstanding, which is how they got to the finish line, you know?