Philly fall colors
Oh, one more thing: we’ve got a Philly girl in the semifinals of the Apartment Therapy Fall Colors contest. Right now her studio is a mere few votes behind some guy from L.A., whose West-Elm-colored stripes I am not a huge fan of, anyway. Click on the picture to see the two spaces and vote!
Mara Zepeda house tour
Design Sponge has a tour of Philadelphia Weekly contributor and calligrapher Mara Zepeda’s (dude, I remember fact-checking her stuff back in my PW intern days!) pretty Powelton Village house, proving that a freelance writer/artist and a grad student can totally put together a really beautiful home despite having the budget of a freelance writer/artist and a grad student. Lady’s got a lot of art I would like to get my hands on, that is for sure.
How to get rid of blank walls
OK, you are no longer living in a dorm. You do not lead a completely joyless life. Nor do you live most fully when playing World of Warcraft. Failing to put anything on bare, white walls, like in the picture above, sends a signal to potential sex partners that you may be at least one of the above. So what to do with bare white walls to make a good impression?
PAINT:
Obviously, painting is a good option if you’re allowed; a hardware-store gallon of paint is only about $20, painting most rooms only takes a few hours and not having your wall be dorm-room white does wonders for your quality of life. But use really bright colors sparingly; they look pretty on the paint chip but are way darker than you’d expect when covering an entire room.
ART:
Hanging art is another option. However, keep in mind that if you’ve seen a piece of art in the apartments of more than a couple people, you should maybe keep looking for something more interesting. For example:
None of the above posters should be found in an adult home. The message you want to send is “I am interesting and have my post-collegiate shit together, potential sex partner” not, “Dude, I just discovered this SWEET underground artist called Dali, oh no WAY you’ve heard of him too? BTW, don’t you totally love beer/college/some movie/faux-arty lesbians? Because I totally love beer/college/some movie/faux-arty lesbians.”
You spend half your life just covering up (your coffee table)
There are some craft projects that make me go “Whoa!” and some craft projects that make me go “Nice!” But there are very few craft projects that make me go “YEAAAAH!” This is one of that last kind.
I’m not usually so much a coaster girl (I’m more of a ‘all horizontal surfaces of my furniture have at least one light circle’ girl), but this project, done by Jeanne Lombardo over at the Philly Makes blog, is utterly Boss.
Having coasters that feature young Bruce Springsteen’s ass would probably increase party coaster usage at least 300%, and just think what a delight it would be to put the set back together at the end of the night.
Some other albums I thought might work well as jigsaw-type coasters:
My personal preference would be one in which each individual square had a lot of teeny details that a coaster holder may not have noticed when observing the cover as a whole. The Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls” is a good one for that, as are Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” and Architecture in Helsinki’s “Places Like This.” I mean, good god, just look how awesome every single individual square of “Dangerous” is on its own!
Or something super EPIC in that fantasy/metal way:
Or you could go for one like Lemon Jelly’s Lost Horizons (which has helped me get innumerable papers done over the years, thanks, Lemon Jelly!) in which each square could be its own little painting, although your chances of coming across this in the vinyl section of a thrift store are low:
And finally, Roxy Music’s “Country Life,” because who doesn’t like boobs?
tons of taxidermy
Hell yeah. I hate the term “man cave” and even so, hell yeah. How about I just give you the ad:
tons of Taxidermy Vintage – $1 (Pipersville, Bucks county)
Reply to: sale-ahnuu-1228656089@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-06-18, 8:53PM EDT
I am cleaning out my man cave. Lots of assorted skulls, horns, skins, some mounts. 40 years of collecting
from around the world……..rare and unusual…………very reasonable.
call me Louie 267 261 4715
- Location: Pipersville, Bucks county
- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Side note: I quit smoking yesterday. If anyone has any info on where one might procure a fake cigarette, not one of those fancy electronic vaporizer ones, just a reasonable facsimile of a cigarette I can put in my mouth and pretend to smoke, for the love of god tell me where I can buy one. Any other smoking-quitting advice would also be appreciated.
I may also be posting more frequently about things that I hate, such as the term “man cave,” for the next few months. Bear with me!
Things you can do: Bowie bust
A few things that led up to the Bowie bust:
1. I cannot not buy crappy busts in thrift stores if they are under $5. I love them.
2. Since I continue to buy them, the whole “spraypaint it a bright color!” thing is getting a little overdone in my apartment.
3. When I moved into my apartment, I turned a large portion of one of the living room walls into a giant chalkboard for calendar/grocery list purposes. Every time I have a party, the chalkboard tends to get covered in crudely drawn penises. Like so:
4. To see if we could avoid the wall o’ dicks at the party we had a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend came up with this idea, which is harder than you’d think:
5. The crappily drawn (I can say it, I drew it) cover of Aladdin Sane (far left, middle row) has therefore been staring at me for about two weeks now (I’ve found myself humming Ziggy Stardust while making dinner for no reason several times), so the obvious thing to do was glam old Napoleon up.
Materials:
1 crappy thrift-store bust
White spraypaint
Pink/lavender, red, blue and black paint (nail polish would probably work, too)
1 picture of Aladdin Sane (here, I’ll just give you one)
So if you did Warhammer as a kid… this would be the time to pull out the old teensy paintbrush. I do not have one; in fact, I have never even heard of Warhammer. I ended up using my smallest paintbrush and a needle for the detail work.
First you take that sucker and spraypaint it white. Be patient and use two or three thin coats, giving them time to dry in between, otherwise it’ll get goopy and drippy. Then get out whatever you’re using as paints:
First, give the whole face a light-pink/lavender coat, then shade in the cheekbones and eyes etc. with a darker pink. THEN comes the big lightning bolt, and save the black for last.
At first I was going to leave his eyes open, but it was too creepy and I just painted eyelids over them.
I was fortunate enough to have won a set of iridescent paints at Art for the Cash Poor last weekend, and they were perfect as a top coat. I’m sure glitter nail polish would work, too.
And now Napoleon Stardust may take his place amongst the other tchotchkes on the Anal-Retentive Bookshelf of Happiness!
P.S. Extra special bonus points if you can identify all the albums:
the coolest rugs on the planet
Simply put: It would appear that I have found them. Enjoy.
"the global warming rug"
"das rug"-- hey, it's honest!
"the felted river stone rug"
"grand, grand splash rug"
…annnd my personal favorite I’ve decided that I cannot live without:
"over easy egg rug"
Found on craigslist
Uh, someone with a car should get on this posting immediately. I would do something with them, but I’m a renter.
ceramic italian tiles (essington)
Reply to:sale-qqkdc-1201051354@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-06-02, 4:13AM EDT
- Location: essington
- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
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PostingID: 1201051354
Wrap your giant creepy bunny presents in this
Really liking the idea of these new wrapping papers from the drawing board of Shauna Alterio and Stephen Loidolt, who comprise Philly’s design duo Something’s Hiding in Here. We’ve mentioned them before for their mustaches…
Incidentally, the couple was recently featured on Etsy’s new home tour video series, “There’s No Place Like Here…” giving the internet a look at their enviable renovated Philly loft space. Including their globe collection.
Here’s the video…
I was sure I’d seen that globe collection somewhere before, and indeed, the couple’s digs had been featured on Design Sponge, ReadyMade Magazine, Apartment Therapy Chicago and other big-traffic blogs.
But I’m confused, Apartment Therapy thinks they’re from Pittsburgh? It’s clearly the same space, and that issue didn’t come out too long ago… ah well, write it off to out-of-staters.
Something’s hiding in here etsy
What looks to be an awesome moving away sale
Bridget Pizzo, a Philly-area photographer and stylist, was recently featured on Apartment Therapy for the extremely awesome rehab she did of her grandparents’ old house:
And when you check out her flickr photostream, because she documented the entire rehab in photos, there’s also an album with hundreds of pictures entitled “Lots and Lots for Sale” in which you can find normal stuff like wireless routers and vacuums that people need to sell when they move away interspersed with several of the furniture pieces seen in the rehab photoset, including the black-and-white chairs above. Oh, man, I covet this mirror and chair:
Her contact information’s on her website and blog.
beezy.peezy’s photostream: “Lots and Lots for Sale”
Apartment Therapy LA: Bridget’s Before and After
Bridget Pizzo: Do It for the Story
via Peacock Feathers