Arrangeable wall

The wall where the TV hangs is a tricky one to hang art on - sort of a visual waste of space.  I was inspired by this post at Lovely Life and decided that something like it would be a perfect solution to display coffee table books and album covers - or just about anything.  It's sort of an ever changing wall that you curate.  It really completes the space, don't you think?

Thanks to our friends Daniel and Pat at Autumn Workshop we have our very own Arrangeable Wall.

Cat tower scratch pad

Being the crazy cat lady that I am, I've been searching for a decent looking cat tower for quite some time now.  Finally, I found Whisker Studio.  They have a customizable "Elevation Modular Cat Tower".  What I like most about this tower is that it doesn't take up too much space, including the base.  The kidney shaped shelves make it look more like a decorative sculpture than a cat tower, and the usage of IKEA parts make it really accessible as a DIY.  Taking it one step further, I decided to wrap the pole with rope so that it doubles as a scratcher too.  Hopefully now they will leave our new chair alone!

Happy weekend! (the second time)

The break in the middle of the week through me off a little, but I'm happy that it's the weekend again AND summer time!  Here's a funny moment between my cats - they're always fighting - cat fight!

 

Somedays are just for relaxing

the Apartment Vol. 2

This weekend I learned a very embarrassing lesson.  Somethings should not be "Done Yourself".  There are somethings that should be left alone... for instance ugly jumbled up cable wires outside of your building.  Are they connected or are they not connected?  In attempts to clean up the entrance side of our building, Mr. Z and I were over zealous and ended up cutting one of our neighbors' internet/phone/cable tv...  Yikes!  Luckily, our neighbors were very cool and calm about the situation, but we still felt terrible.  We all know what a pain it is to call the cable company, set up an appointment, and wait for the guy to show up between a time frame of 5 or so hours... that is if you get an appointment within 2 weeks of your call.  Hopefully that will not be the case.  To help lessen the blow, I got them a bottle of wine.  Oh man... I'm still cringing from it.

So, on to more things that are safely done yourself...

I love the way chalkboard looks so why not make a whole wall a chalkboard?  It makes it really convenient to write your to-do's and warms up the space a bit.  The only thing is that the stuff stinks so you have to have a lot of fans and ventilation while you are painting.  I wanted the wall to be magnetic as well, so I applied a magnetic primer.  However, I found that the magnetic primer makes the wall a little too course for a writing surface.  So if I were to do it again, I would only use the chalkboard paint.

A little trauma happened while we were painting... Loki one of our cats got into the chalkboard paint and his paw was black for weeks... so if you have animals, you probably want to shut them out of the room you are painting.  This stuff has a tar-like consistency.

Cat lady

Everyone I know who has cats have too many photos of them.  I am one of them.  But they are such strange animals that I'm intrigued, grossed out, and amused.  Look at them!

I forgot to show the finished whale that Naomi Kazama printed on Zach's old t-shirt.  As you can see, Clio liked the results.

There was a time earlier this year when I kept up on many of the blogs I read on the web.  It felt like an accomplishment looking at as many visually stimulating images as possible.  Let's just say that now... I'm really behind.  It sort of feels good, but I also feel out of touch.  Does anyone know how I feel?  There's so much digital stimulation now that it's hard to get time off of the computer!  Is there a good balance?  I tend to go for long periods of one or the other.  Like read several blogs linking to one another for several months AND look up anything I'm interested in, and ~voila~ it's at my finger tips.  Convenient, right?  Well, I'm trying get more balance in my life.  It will take some practice.

So today I did one of the only things that make working in Midtown West worth while.  Fabric stores!  When you need it, it's usually here along with other sewing accoutrements anyone would want or need.

Starting on the pillows for my sofa!  (If it ever gets here!)