GrainSmasher's Profile

@myredshoelace - Of course there are rules. And of course you don't have to follow them! This isn't about escaping the apartment therapy police, it's about making your place a nicer place to live!

I think the first week is largely about vacuuming the whole place, which should already be done for you, so your timing might be pretty good after all.

Good work, Alana!

My place is actually worse than when we started. I've gotten a cold and my boyfriend's gotten busy doing other things, so there are loads of dirty dishes and all kinds of tools and things out right now.

However, there have been some good improvements I wouldn't have made otherwise. My kitchen window sill and window treatments are good now. My spice rack is much better organized and we've gotten rid of old spices we never use. My half of the bookcase headboard is pretty and has all the stuff we need, plus there's nothing lurking under the clothes drying rack.

Best of all, I started conditioning my hair with a mix of vinegar and water instead of a slippery store-bought conditioner. Even after several weeks my hair doesn't seem any harder to handle, or fluffier (in an Einsteinian sort of way) than before. What this has to do with apartment therapy is that I no longer need a mildew-attracting no-slip mat in the bathtub, and so that spot is easier to clean and thus cleaner and no longer at all depressing.

Also, the apartment therapy mindset is more strongly in place and it will help me continue fixing up the place, especially over the coming winter break (I get almost two full weeks off of work!).

Entertaining at home is less important now that I have a boyfriend. Or, shall I say, formal entertaining, by which I mean inviting people over who don't live here, is less important.

Still I like to have parties because, as an old roommate of mine used to say, all parties are either dance parties or trough parties (the latter being the type where everyone stands around the food table for the whole party). I beg to differ. I've had informal music recitals and art shows ("art" being defined as anything you made yourself), clothing swaps, pumpkin carving parties, a tool party (bring your favorite tool), a chocolate/Willy Wonka party, and lectures (about your work or hobby for your layman friends). I want to have a will party soon (not this week, though) where we watch the movie "A Gun, A Car, A Blonde" and talk about wills gone wrong and our own wills (or lack thereof). There will be songs about death playing in the background such as They Might Be Giants' "Dig My Grave" and the Austin Lounge Lizards' "Last Words" (aka "Can I Have Your Stuff When You're Dead?").

PS--Please free free to steal all these party ideas. We need more fun parties in the world.

@livc, your bathroom sounds embarrassing for your landlord, not you. If the sink and toilet work and the toilet paper, soap, and a towel are easily accessible, I'd say you're good to go. And if you can't make it elegant, you could always go with cheesy: I had friends with the ceiling paint peeling away so horribly in one huge spot in their (rented) bathroom, that they finally had to attach a Godzilla foot as if it were coming through the ceiling.

You could have one part of the L facing the window and one part facing the fireplace. Then you could push the desk up against the back of the sofa so that it's facing the window, too. Or you could put it against the wall, by the window without a view (but at least it's a window?) to balance out the bookshelves.

Actually, looking more carefully, this place looks too small for all that. How about a regular couch placed diagonally to face the corner with the bookshelf in it. Then have a beautiful small table with two chairs by the window that you clear off to use as a desk with all your supplies nearby on the built-in bookcase?

Or build a window seat to fit the space under the window with maybe your bed against the opposite wall and your desk in the other room. Actually, I don't even understand this layout--is the other room the bedroom? Where is the bathroom? Is there a kitchen?

Another mini kitchen:

* move the fridge out
* dining room table instead of counters
* coffee maker, hot plate and electric griddle instead of stove
* toaster oven and crock pot instead of oven
* wash dishes in bathroom

You can probably borrow various small appliances from friends to make your life more interesting. Most people have lots of single purpose items they received as gifts and don't use such as hot dog cooker, fondue pot, bread maker, sandwich maker, and waffle iron.

I use regular toothpaste but I actually want fluoride in my toothpaste; I just don't want it in my water.

Mostly I just minimize use of personal products. I don't wear make up or styling gel for example.

I do use shampoo and conditioner but have been experimenting with replacing them with baking soda and vinegar, respectively. I've been shocked that my hair is no worse than before and no harder to brush through, but I'm still working out how to store and use these products in the shower.

I've switched to bar soap for both hand washing and showering (and leg shaving). For the latter two, rubbing it onto a shower puff works as well as liquid soap except I have to do it 2 or three times.

I use fragrance-free sunblock.

JG, thanks for the tip. However, I already have a silocone bath mat, which is about as anti-mildew as you can get. But apparently dead skin cells collect under the mat and the mildew grows on that. I pull up the mat and scrub it regularly, but that's hard on the suction cups and wears them out--also it's no fun at all getting the old toothbrush around all those suction cups.

abbey, I used to be pretty good keeping the mildew off the walls--a mix of bleach and water would get rid of it. But now that doesn't work on the grout anymore and neither does vinegar. I probably ruined the grout seal with all that bleach and should have applied more sealant when I had the chance.

I got nylon shower curtains, but they have to be washed in vinegar regularly, too.

I admit, I don't have an exhaust fan, and my roommate takes an average of two showers a day.

You can put those stickers from the 60's on the bottom, but I've heard it's hard to clean mildew from the edges, let alone pull them up later if you change your mind. You can etch the bottom of the tub to make it no-slip, but I've heard it's really hard to keep it clean afterwards. When desperate in hotels with very slippery tubs, I have just put a towel on the bottom of the tub, but that leads to a lot of laundry!

It's all very nice talking about light and luxury during bathroom week, but frankly I'd rather not see some of the things in my bathroom and it would certainly feel like a luxury being able to get rid of it for good.

Specifically, has anyone figured out a way to keep the bathtub from being slippery without attracting mildew?

Wow! Thanks for all the great pictures!

Mine is books. I've decided to keep three kinds: ones I'll reread a lot, ones I'll lend out a lot (mostly the same books) and ones I use for reference.

My current problem is that I don't know which books I'll need for reference in the future because I'm not thrilled with my current career, but I am learning that science books can go because they don't age well. And my other problem is that I don't remember if some of my books are great--which is a bad sign, but maybe I just haven't read them yet.

So I started reading all these and a bunch of them were pretty bad. So I looked them all up on Amazon. If they got good reviews and the first few pages were interesting, I kept them. So I'm still paring those down.

I also have too many cookbooks. I asked myself if I could only keep one, two, or three cookbooks, which ones would I keep, and that was easy. But I didn't want to get rid of all of the rest! I did the Amazon look-up thing again and got rid of quite a few that way. As I cook things, I'm making a note in the cookbook on whether I liked the dish or not to help me evaluate the other cookbooks more thoroughly. But as with movies and music, there are so many recipes online that I probably don't need many cookbooks at all.

I think Mrs. Pea’s comment, though obviously emotional, was fantastically constructive: she explained why she felt the way she did and she described an alternative to the system she didn’t like. Comments are rarely more constructive than that!

I like my backpack, purse, and mail in the office; my coat, hat, etc. in the coat closet, my shoes on the shoe rack in my bedroom, and my keys in my pocket or in the front door. I also have a bowl in the bedroom where I put my keys and other pocket things, my glasses, and my barrette each night.

I admit that I often drop everything near the entrance as I rush in and go to the restroom, get a drink of water, and turn on the air conditioner. But that’s (usually) only for a few minutes.

Maybe I’m with davidsl. I do like to have a place to collect things that need to go out. The mail I can just put out because my mailbox is next to my door. But when I’m about to go somewhere, I like to collect things near the door. I’ve even been known to hang a bag of stuff on the doorknob, hoping that will keep me from forgetting it! Also, my mom has an idea I really like though I haven’t (yet?) instituted it, and that’s to post, near the door, a checklist of things to bring with you (or consider bringing) like purse/wallet, keys, glasses, hat, reusable grocery bags, walking stick, earplugs, dance shoes.

Thanks to these comments, I am really re-thinking what should be by the front door.

In fact, I just realized that my boyfriend’s gardening shoes are always near the back door and nearly always in my way. We definitely need to work out a convenient but good place for those.