THANKS MARTHA STEWART

or maybe just my apartment-mate's mom?
Thanks to her, we were gifted "glass of milk" off-white for the trim, and "morning fog" light blue/gray/green(at some points of the day) for our living room.  I spent the better part of this past weekend mercilessly priming and then covering up that neon green and magenta that once was.  Being thorough was pretty darn hard with colors that bright, and it would be a dream to repaint the ceiling, but I think we should count our blessings at this point.

Look! You can actually see our lovely bay window now!

It was one of my apartment-mate's (barn-mate?) birthday on Monday, and also the first day of classes here at Swarthmore.  But since I currently feel more like a housewife than a student, I've been baking around the clock.  For her, I made mini heart-shaped chocolate molten lava cakes, and this "fairy cake" with the remaining batter.  For my other friend's birthday yesterday, I made some dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla-lime frosting with coconut shavings on top.  Finally got some use out of those limes that were sure to grow mold soon in our fridge.

Oh, and my computer is fully (I hope) recovered from another crash earlier this week--just what I needed to start the semester off right.

Next project: painting the dining table chairs, under the bay window bench, and maybe some coffee table/low bookshelf that's currently in our 4th empty bedroom/hoarder's room.  And the hallway!  We still have 2 more gallons of "glass of milk".

I MIGHT BE GOING CRAZY

...but at least my kitchen looks nicer, or so I think.

Last night after the Crystal Castles/Rusko/Sinden show, I couldn't sleep at all.  In my middle of the night internet browsing, I came across Apartment Therapy's post on cupboards without doors.  It was 3AM but all I could think about was taking off the doors to my cupboards.  So after doing that, and some more cleaning and moving and organizing (all of those words make me feel like sighing by now), it was 6:30AM.  Hmmmm....sleep?
But still, those cupboards--better, but not great.  They were in need of a paint job.

See the difference?  The top picture already has the bottom left side painted.

And now with dishes.  I'm not sure if I want to only have all white/off-white dishes, or if I prefer the small splashes of color yet.  I'll give it a few days.  But really, I do love the openness of this.  It's sort of the same approach that I'm taking to having a neat and tidy wardrobe by foregoing the closet--things have nowhere to hide.  Also, don't you always hate it when you can't figure out which door contains which things, and when you're cooking/using a lot of dishes and you have to keep opening and reopening the doors?  Done and done.

Simultaneously, I was also trying to take care of that annoying white mark on the hot pink living room walls.  I found some "magenta" paint in the closet, that only turned out closer to a Shining-red-rum-red than anything else.  Plan B: mixing that paint with a pint of lavender paint that I knew I would never use again.  Too bad I didn't think to only use some of the red and some of the lavender, and then add a whole bunch of white paint, instead of the half and half combination that I did, because it probably would've turned out a lot lighter (and nicer) than this color.  So our living room kind of looks like the kids section of Ikea now, but that is a fine temporary change from that white spot that was driving me crazy.  Yeah I know I did a terrible paint job, I can live with it.

As a reward for all this madness (I've also been eating fudge around the clock...), I bought myself the Twin Peaks gold box set at last.  True love.

I'm off to Baltimore for the weekend tomorrow.  When I return: dealing with those hideous doors in my room.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I kind of didn't want to post photos of the rest of the apartment, or of my room for that matter, until everything has been settled and received its proper make-over so that I could do some nice before/after collages.  But really, I don't have the patience for that, especially since my roommates still haven't moved in yet!  So here's a little mini apartment tour:

The largest bedroom, currently storing some of my stuff/subletters' stuff as I am still organizing.

The bathroom.  Still need to replace those moldy shower curtains and bleach the blue out of the bathtub, but I'm going to save that for later today.  But I did put up a window curtain, which the bathroom has been sorely missing for the past 2 years.  (My room is between the largest bedroom and the bathroom)

The third bedroom.

The fourth bedroom, currently storing more stuff, to be made into a breakfast/tea room :)

The living room, which needs a good cleaning still, in addition to getting rid of some of the stuff that's there (the pile in the lefthand corner, the fridge, the stuff on the couch and chair, the white chair and cushion).  Also need to figure out a solution to that glaring white paint mark on the wall...

And the kitchen, which still needs a bit more organizing.  Also, still trying to figure out a way to not have this fridge block half the entranceway.

So, a la Joyce's Finnegans Wake, this is really a work in progress right now.  Unfortunately, I don't have too much time before now and Friday (when I head down to Baltimore for the weekend) to complete any large projects (a headboard, finishing the curtains), so those will have to wait til next week.