7.27.2010

APARTMENT INSPIRATION: J. MORGAN PUETT

I have a folder on my laptop entitled "Apartment Inspiration" that I like to look at every now and then.  Lately it's been growing exponentially, as my fallback to not being able to actually do anything to my apartment for a good two weeks or so has driven me to OCD-level planning.

According to wikipedia, J. Morgan Puett is a "conceptual installation artist" and the daughter of a 3rd generation beekeeper and painter.  I don't quite remember on which blog it was that I first saw her work, but I was charmed.  In fact, I can't even find where the first picture comes from on her website, but it's my favorite by far.  The second two are from the series "Chicken Coop", under Interiors.  Inspiring, but not what my apartment will look like!


7.26.2010

WHAT IS "THE BARN"?

I did a quick google image search to see what would come up for "living in the barn".  Maybe it's not that surprising, but what I got were images of beautifully remodeled barn houses featured on Apartment Therapy and the like.







"The Barn" is not like those houses.
The origins of The Barn are unclear to me, and probably most of Swarthmore's student body at this point, but my friend may have found out the truth during alumni weekend last month.  Apparently, the lack of housing choices drove a group of SWIL (Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature) to rent out this spacious 3-story, 6-apartment (24 bedroom) barn-like building as an off-campus haven.  Hardly close to the hipster-laden associations that the place is now known for.
How long ago this was, I do not know.  What is clear though, is the state of decay it has fallen into since then.  I am not exaggerating when I say that a lot of people would like this place to be condemned, but I think no one living there has made that move yet because 1. it is the cheapest rent you'll find and 2. there is a certain sense of "roughing it" when living there.  I should also add that because the apartments have always been passed down through Swarthmore students, that there is little intervention from the landlord.  Bad for when you want your ceiling that just fell in fixed, good for when you want to do whatever the hell you want with the space.
So here it is, in all its glory.  I pray that it holds up for at least another year.













PLANS (originally from my website/a test post)


In two weeks I will be moving one floor down into my apartment for the year, and let me tell you, I can not wait. 
In the meantime, I have been trying to figure out what is the best way to adapt my new domain name to a functioning blog.  I have some, albeit limited, html capabilities, but I can't for the life of me decide if I should make the whole damn thing scrolling, or have links for separate posts, or have a few posts on the first page and then when they accumulate, have them moved to an archive?  Usually people want to see something on the front page though, right?

So let's try this out, just for a test run's sake.
Some quick post-it doodles about how I'm going to arrange the furniture in my room. 
I realize that this system is going to make it take me a long time to do posts, but maybe it's worth it?

I also for the life of me can't figure out how to put in a comments box.  I also realize that whatever I put in is going to off-set the flow of posts.  Hmmm.