overdue update, part 3: our apartment

editor's note: this is the third in a three part series of...overdue updates. gosh, my title was so effective this editor's note feels sort of superfluous. anyway, the other two are directly below this one. don't miss out!

after a lot of painting, hauling, throwing away, and stowing in hidden places, our apartment is finally completed. last night we had an open house so our friends around here could see us and our new place, but just in case you couldn't make it and you don't live close enough to expect you'll be able to stop by in the next couple weeks, here are some photos of our place.

when you first walk into our apartment, this is what you see. it's our kitchen, and we're pretty pleased with it. note the shelves and radical dish arrangement, which we did ourselves, and the excellent yellow ("semolina", the paint can says). also note the fire escape exit out the window, which is how you get to our excellent roof-top views of the city.





here's the other wall of our kitchen. as you can see, there's not a lot of storage space, which leads to such things as dish displays, or (as in this photo) a suspended dish-drying shelf system, which is unanimously referred to (by kim and myself) as "ingenious". hm...also, we have a mat by the sink, which is nice.

if you look to your right when you come in the front door, you see a bathroom. this one, in fact. but i mean, it's just a bathroom, so...let's move on, shall we?










don't just stand there in our front door, come on in! you could walk, for example, into our living room. it has these windows, which is pretty much my favorite part of this place. that, and the tall ceilings. it's really pretty nice. if you come over, you can have dibs on the love seat. kim made the coverings for the cushions you see here, and even though it was her first such endeavor they turned out really great. she's kind of amazing that way.

to the right of those windows is the old music corner. as you can see, i've got some more plywood crates--my dad and i were busy when i got back to nebraska. this is probably my favorite corner of my favorite room in the house. i just think it looks really quite nice. and now there's room for expansion of the collection, which is of course really important. what good is a record collection if you're not always getting more and more and more? exactly.

next wall to the right is the door back to the kitchen. don't you just love how ridiculously detailed this tour is? aren't you glad you're not here in person, and feeling obligated to say "oo, neat!" or "i love what you've done with the color in this room!"? yeah, i thought so.


i'm sure you're wondering, so i'll tell you. the criteria for the selection of records to place on a wall display is complicated, but can be broken into four broad categories: musical quality, artwork, overall value, and context. obviously, if i don't actually like the music, the album has no business being displayed. and, since it's doubling as decor, the artwork had better be pleasing to look at. value refers to a record's worth. this could mean monetary value, as in the case of that death cab album, which is both an original pressing and out of print, or to sentimental value, such as its neighbor the notwist album, which i purchased in barcelona. what a souvenir! finally, context can mean the color of the wall behind the record, or to the records around it, or to any records also being displayed. two records by the same artist just wouldn't do, for example.

fret not, dear reader, our tour is coming to its end. here's our bedroom, and the final room in our apartment. i like the bedspread, and the color, which kim selected and even painted while i fell asleep on the bed, mumbling how i'd be very happy to help her tomorrow if she'd just quit for the night.

here's a very nice piece of furniture, which we bought off the previous tenant of this apartment. not only is it full of books we love (well, mostly), it's also got a ton of character and looks just amazing. plus, we didn't have to move it really at all, since it was already in the apartment when we got here. i wish i could at least pretend to be ironically taking this much pride in the apartment, or at least in the detail to which this pictorial show is going, but...i can't even pretend!

here, for the sake of completeness, is the last walls of our bedroom. and there's our closet door! as you can see, my desk had to sacrifice its amazing paint job for the room, which was kind of sad, but ultimately i suppose the desk and i both knew that one day its wild color scheme would meet its end for some greater, more color coordinated good. all the same, i sleep better at night knowing its bright colors aren't gone forever, they're just resting beneath the olive exterior.


so that's the apartment--believe me, it's even better in person, so come by and see it (us)! we'd love to have you come visit.

and finally, this is my 100th post on this blog. i wish i had something momentous to say, but i feel like the milestone entry being one that droned on endlessly about the boring minutiae of something like home decor feels ironically, beautifully appropriate on its own, and we'll leave things at that.