Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Two of the long-standing problems with my apartment have been fixed. I now have both a working outlet by the comfy chair, and a working vent above the stove. How happy am I?

That happy. Thanks Etsy

But now, some other switching things around happened at the apartment.

The 99 cent art? fixed.

The homemade pop art? Hung.

The Aesthetic Apparatus poster? Moved to the kitchen.

The housewarming went well. 11 people fit in my apartment. And they all had places to sit.
Handles? Coming this weekend, allegedly. Refinishing the 4 cheap chairs? Slow but steady progress. Very slow progress.
Anyone have any tips for sanding complex curves in furniture? There are some very tight nooks and crannies I need to get all sanded.

Repotting a succulent for dummies

I decided to visit the local hardware and garden supply store today, to tackle a couple smaller projects, and get the materials for a larger project.

And now, you get to meet Prince.

Of my four plants, Prince was the one doing the best. So well he'd outgrown his pot. So I got him a bigger and better one. It's one those things where the ceramic pot looks nicer than the plastic pot he came in, and the potting soil is of a higher quality. There's also that weird moment where I said to myself You live in an apartment, you don't even have your own outside to plant things in, and you're buying dirt. You're serious about this, aren't you?

Ta-Daaaa!

The one thing I've learned about Echeveria, it's that you have to remove the outermost leaves from time to time, because they'll get mealy bugs in them if you don't. Also, water the soil, not the plant. Water will get trapped in the rosettes and cause the plant to rot. This happened to Kermit, my other Echeveria (who's green, not purple). Poor thing's still recovering.

The stoves have eyes

Good news on the landlord front. After a month and a half, my non-working outlet has been fixed. This just leaves the oven (fire hazard) and stove vent (non-existent, would be nice to have).

The landlord and I have a teensy communication issue. We use different words for things. So when the maintenance man came 'round to check out the stove, the landlord told me the issue was maybe with the stove's "eyes". Knobs? Burners? Turns out that he thought the issue was with the burners, when the issue was with a stain above the broiler. I drew him a map to the stain, so we'll see if it gets resolved.

Inspired by this progress, I decided to see what else *I* needed to do in the apartment.

Bedroom:
Hang photo above bed/sofa

Living room:
Hang small Chinese art (Fixed it! Now all I need is a nail)
Sell chairs
Install curtains (I really hate the vertical blinds, and the landlord gave me the ok)
Put Prince in a larger pot (It'll make sense when you see the photos)
"Restore" fake Eames lounger
Re-finish folding chair. (Paint?)
Figure out how to get a TV in here.

Kitchen:
Replace handles (en route)
Mount poster on fridge (just need some magnets)
Project to add some color to the space (planned, probably happening in a couple months)
Organize drawers

Dining room:
Get some flowers for the table
Hang up homemade pop art poster (again, it's the little things you don't realize you need until you don't have them. Like nails)
Hang up other planned poster (it's a secret!)(sort of)
Re-finish chairs

Bathroom:
Install handles (en route)
Art for back wall?

Closet:
More organization (tie rack, tidy things up a bit)

It's a pretty good-sized list for a small space. It's not like a lot of these are things that *need* to be done, it's just me wanting to take it to the next level.

Hope y'all are having a productive weekend too!

Shaking things up

Shaking things up at this little corner of the web. Trying out a new layout, something a little cleaner and a little classier. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the formatting of all my older posts is going to be a bit off. Also, I'm taking care of some other changes to keep things so fresh and so clean clean. Re-working the logo, trying to add in some features and headers. We'll see how it works out.

Of course if you get the RSS Feed you don't need to worry about any of this. And if you don't get the RSS feed, why not? It's free! And that's cheap at half the price.

Bring it on, Cranberry Juice

Living room: completed enough for now. I needed a rug, and boy did I luck out.

I came across an ad on craigslist for 20 Flor tiles, at way below retail. I wasn't 100% sure how large a rug I needed, so this seemed like a good way to compromise. I also got way more than I needed. Which means I can spill things on the rug and still be in good shape.

One downside of Flor tiles is that because they're in sections, it's harder to reposition them if you're not quite happy with the placement. How many times did I have to reposition them? Four. If I were a more clever man, I'd have measured and marked out where the rug was supposed to go. I go by instinct and my gut instead, and my gut really resented having to move each tile as I tried to find a suitable arrangement.

Shot from the opposite angle partially because I wanted to show off the other side of the room, partially because I didn't feel like making the bed.

Here's another shot of the trunk. It's all covered in Fedex labels. Kind of makes you wonder what used to be in it.

The incredible shrinking apartment

Thanks to the lovely site Floorplanner, I'm able to show what the apartment looks like.





















It's not an ideal layout, what with the useless little dry area behind the bathtub and the kitchen doorway I wish I could widen. The little voice in my head says it's better to forfeit your security deposit than to ask permission, but that is asking for a galaxy of trouble.

In the process, I learned something. The apartment is smaller than I had initially said. It's not 400 square feet. It's not even 306. Two hundred and seventy two, according to the calculations of the floor planner website. If I keep measuring it, I think it might disappear entirely.

The living and sleeping area is coming together, but I have a large rectangle that I'm going to have to make into a dining area AND a work area. I live alone, so it's not necessary but it's the principle of the thing.

Houston, we have a living area.

Operation go to Ikea and buy furniture was a success. Three really big boxes and a few blisters on my fingers from those darn hex-head bolts later, I had a living area. It's a good feeling, knowing that people can come over and actually sit down on real furniture.


It's a futon, and not the sort of sleeper sofa I truly wanted. I took stock of my bank account, my desire for something approaching a queen size mattress, and my back that really really should not be doing heavy lifting. The only conclusion was that this would be a good compromise because I cannot drop 3 grand on the perfect sleeper sofa.

I'm doing the ol' 'use an expedit bookcase as a room divider' trick. I'm also using the less-popular 'use an awkwardly-shaped suitcase as storage for bedding' trick. I'm going to be upgrading to an actual trunk soon enough when that suitcase goes back to live at my parents' house.

the living room is still a little dark, and I do need a rug, so I know what's next on the list at Casa Nicholas. Also on the to do list is this little teaser for future coming attractions:

Whatever could it be?

What a difference paint makes.

I've been busy, and the blog has not been very active because of that, but here's one of the things that I was working on in the interim: a repaint of the front porch. This was one of those tasks which wasn't immediately necessary, but because I offered to do much of the work, I was allowed to do it.

My mom sometimes uses the porch to do work, and it's not exactly the most inviting place to do that. Mostly, it had become a place for furniture that didn't really belong in other rooms. Something had to be done to make this into a space that someone would actually want to spend time in.

After ripping up the carpet, we discovered another layer of carpet. Though this layer was in decent shape, the carpet pad below had disintegrated. The plan was to paint the floors anyways, so this discovery wasn't a huge setback.


The first part of the project was to paint over the beadboard ceilings. The white immediately made the space feel more airy.


The trim was re-painted, and the walls were painted this light green color. At this stage, I remember wishing that the paint was a little bit darker, because I'd felt like the room looked a bit washed-out.


Lastly, the floor was repainted in a light grey. Again, the paint was a bit light, but we're going to get a rug to give the room a little more texture and dimension.

There are a couple other to-dos: Curtains for the east-facing wall, a new light fixture for the ceiling and adding another chair (more on that project later) For right now, the space is much better, more inviting and something I'm glad I worked on. One job that you can't really see in any of the photos, but was necessary, was replacing the broken sash cords in the south-facing windows. But now, the porch is not only fully-functional, but also looks better!