Just a Little Late

A couple hours late, but still my best wishes for your holiday season!

Pines & Paintings

Today was a day sans work, sans class. Can't you already tell this is going to be a good post?

My main mission today was to get the house ready for my roommate's small Christmas party she's throwing tomorrow night. We still need to do a little cleaning and de-cluttering, but other than that things are about ready to go. I really wish this party was coming at the end of winter break so everyone had some nice, clean, painted walls to look at. Oh well.

First thing on my agenda today was to pick up a tree. A REAL Christmas tree!

I have NO idea how that fit in the trunk of a Pontiac Grand Prix. Since I have these amazing 9' ceilings I got an 8' fir of some kind. Sorry, I forgot what kind already. Whatever it is it makes the house smell amazing. Lets see your plastic tree do that!

And with ornaments please?



Aahhh, that's nice huh?

I also got a wreath for the door out front. It occurred to me that the white lights on white strings on my white house didn't really do much for the festive holiday spirit during the day.

Since all of the walls downstairs look like crap, I used those paintings my roommate made last year to disguise the imperfections (as much as possible) and turn this place from 'construction site' to 'warm, welcoming home'.

I still need to replace that light switch cover.


Fireplace and TV walls.

Good-bye mister stick-man smiley.

Dining Room. This room is pretty much dedicated to her paintings of a particular nude model who she chose to paint in green. She's somewhere in the ballpark of 80 years old. I think it's kinda funky, although I'm sure my mom wouldn't approve! I actually had to draw this same lady in one of my drawing classes for about a week. Mmm... I am feeling this HUGE urge to purchase some blinds since this room faces the neighbor to the west. Did I mention the neighbor to the west is a pastor? Yeah, I'm not sure how much he'd like this view.

I also put up this shelf quickly to put my glassware on before the party. The kitchen cabinet shelves are about an inch too short to fit the taller stemware on, so this was my best option. They had been on top of the fridge until now, but I think this is a little better.

We're going to do some checking around tomorrow for a cheap-o dining room set. Thrift store shopping anyone? We'll see what I can come up with.

Tis the Season

...for freezing off all fingers and toes while displaying your pension for cursing in front of the neighbors. Ok, so it wasn't that bad. It was cold though. Isn't it nice? I can't decide if it's good enough the way it is or if I should add lights around the windows on the second floor. It seems like I decked out the porch, but disregarded the fact that there's a second floor at all. I would like to put lights up along the top roof line, but without a taller ladder (than 6 feet) I'm pretty much out of luck. I could pretty easily throw another string of lights to circle the upstairs windows to draw some more attention up. Yay? Nay? Why do I really care? I don't know.

I finished my studio project on Friday and had my critique. How did it go? Hmm... well I've had better. One critic in particular really laced into the project and repeated his problems with my project again, and again, and again. This was so frustrating because I knew that I screwed these things up, acknowledged this, and he still kept talking about it. The worst part about it was that I could have done much better. AND the project was about PRESERVATION!!! That's what I want to do with my career and I go and blow the project. My problem was that I was worried too much about preserving the original structure and didn't think enough about how it would function today. A learning experience I guess.

One final on Wednesday, then the winter break is mine to get some work done on this shanty! Goals for the break you ask? Here's the list:

* repair walls in living room, dining room, stairwell
* paint walls in living room, dining room, can you guess? yeah, stairwell.
* repair ceilings in living room, dining room
* pain ceilings in living room, dining room
* finish repairing, then install storm windows flanking chimney
* get dryer repaired
* install doorknob on NW bedroom door (sorry roomie! I'm sure he's been waiting)
* paint upstairs doors and trim
* buy snowblower

There are a couple of other things I'd like to do, but I don't think I'll have time. We'll see. I'm excited to get the walls done because my roommate's an art major and has a whole bunch of paintings to hang up. I'm planning on getting a tree tomorrow. My roommate's throwing a Christmas party on Wednesday, so I'm thinking a tree's in order. Oh, and some cleaning. Lots of cleaning!