LMAO Oh, my "living room" is special right now. I briefly had someone move in with me over the summer. That person is gone now, but their belongings remain, including boxes and furniture. Adding to it, my mom had to move from assisted living into a rehab center. I'm told the move will be short-lived and I thought she'd be back in assisted living by now. Well, suffice it to say, she had kind of a studio apartment and she now has a furnished hospital room... all that stuff had to go somewhere. The living room it was. I literally cannot access anything in that room anymore. It's not even a room, really. It's just a pile of boxes that don't belong to me.
To make matters worse, my mom apparently had a battery-operated alarm clock. It goes off every morning. I have no idea which box it's in...
I packed my mom's stuff. Moreover, it is buried in a sea of boxes. Even if I knew which box it was in, I'd have to move 20 boxes and maybe some furniture to get to it.
Yikes! You poor thing! It sounds like a hoarder's heaven but a space-lover's nightmare. At least the battery will run out. We've made the mistake of allowing a friend to use one of our containers to store her furniture when she lost her house and had to move interstate to live with her sister. Three years later, it's looking probable that she'll never need any of it, and yet she wants to hang on "just in case." Don't want to come down hard, for fear of jeopardising the friendship. I wonder how others handle these dilemmas.
I've given people a deadline in the past or explained that I need the space back by a specific date for a reason. Our city brings massive trash bins to neighborhoods once per year to let us clean house, so that works well as an excuse. "The bins are coming and I'm cleaning. Do you want to pick your stuff up before the bins arrive or would you like me to get rid of it for you?" That looks pretty harsh in print. I feel certain I sounded much nicer and even more helpful when I said it. lol
Anyway, I have some other household projects to tackle, so I can ignore it for a little while anyway. I hope you find a solution to your dilemma.
I suspect you're very good at handling many types of situations with people. With my friend, I may have to wait until she has a break from her p-t job and can manage to travel up here. Some of the items are huge, like double beds, couches, dining table etc - difficult to handle alone. Also depends on weather - can't do it in the rain or the stuff gets ruined.
Spacious and six-sided with windows on five of the sides. Backs up on our dining room in front and a small office in back. Front and center is a large sofa with two easy chairs facing it in front of the window but more facing on the sides of the front. On the back wall is a chair and a table with a light on it. On the side walls where there is not a window are book shelves, also under the windows on the three sides facing tot sofa. On one iside of the sofa is a reading lamp sitting on the floor. Three carpets on the floor - one in back of the sofa and two smaller in front of the sofa and between the sofa and the easy chairs. On the walls are displayed some of my paintings and prints. Another floor lamp sits in back of the easy chair on the front side of the house. Under the side window at the front of the house sits stereo equipment and my husband set up two floor speakers facing and at angles to the sofa to the outsides of the easy chairs. The bookshelves on the two sides of the room in the front contain CDs and LPs and the one closest to out dining room is about half recorded music and half books. My favorite room in the house and usually mine to do with and use as I wish!
Thank you. Very comfortable and more me even than my kitchen! No not a painter or a print-maker (unfortunately - not creative or talented or facile!) but I have been fortunate enough to acquire a number of nice pieces over the years.
I guess your living room might have much in common with those of others, but I'll bet it also has your unique personality expressed there too. Maybe photos of your relatives, maybe ornaments you really like, or symbols of things important to you, perhaps favourite items collected over the years.
Hello there Nom de Plume. My living room is part of a larger space which include the kitchen and dining area. The furnishings are simple, a couch, a few old, but cool chairs, some tapestry's on the wall, a small antique din. table and chairs and a small "country" kitchen..really not much, however, and the reason I love this place is the rear of the house is a 20' wall of glass that looks out to a forest of Redwoods and cypress trees.
I would adore a space like that! :) Conifers are such grand and sweet-smelling trees. California? Have always loved open-plan living, character and individuality in furnishings, lots of natural daylight, and the sense of space and connection to nature. If one can achieve one's ideal nest, it contributes immensely to the quality of one's life and happiness. Many thanks for your answer.
Hello again Nom de Plume Yes...my little slice of paradise is right in the middle of the San Francisco peninsula in the small town of Woodside. When I got the place it was very overgrown and not cared for. I spent the first few years cleaning up and landscaping the property. I was a single dad with 2 kids. After their dances and football games their group of friends would end up at the house and would usually stay for the weekend so I had carved trails through the redwoods, set up seating areas and fire pits. I planted about 75 miniature citrus trees and then went on a year long statue hunt, started with one I bought at an estate sale and now have a dozen or so setting in the "orchard". I spend most of my time outside and love the setting, but it is a lot of work..the only thing missing is the kids, who have been on their own for a few years now...
We have citrus here too. What with manure, mulch, pruning, and spraying white oil and detergent emulsion to knock off the aphids, they really are a lot of work - but the fruit... well worth it.
So you know..it is a lot of work, but it is a labor of love. Mine are all small so it does make it easier to tend to the trees, but that is a small part, keeping the "lawn" trimmed and the fencing and weeding and watering, finding the statues and placing them. It is more of a garden than an orchard...
Stupendous. Those are real finds - those statues - high-quality craftsmanship. The citruses are babies, so you'll be faced with some tough choices as they grow - whether to take some out to allow room for the others, whether to prune them into hedges or a labyrinth around the statues, whether to keep the fruit at picking hight and let the sculpture be seen above them, or create "gallery rooms" that let the walker come upon the art unexpectedly. Your place looks stunningly beautiful? Ours is wild by comparison; the trees are mangoes, custard apples, avocados, white sapote, mulberry, blueberry, camelia sinensis, papaya and banana growing along terraces on steep hillsides.
Getting ready to paint in a week or two, so currently my walls are boring eggshell. I will be painting them a color called "Creamy Chenille". I have an Eiffel Tower clock on one wall, a large Eiffel Tower-shaped lamp , two stacked decorative "Paris" trunks, a pretty, black tv hutch thingy that holds my 50-something inch tv. A very light olive-colored Lazy Boy sofa, a picture of a 1956 Studebaker Champion Sedan on another wall, and a painting of an Eiffel Tower on the other wall. Wood floors with a large brown, olive, blue area rug. I like Studebakers and Eiffels, if you can't tell. My dog's Frisbee is nearby, although he is spending the weekend at my daughter's and son-in-law's house. (We share custody)
Thank you for such a richly detailed answer. :) Love timber floors. I remember my last time painting the ceiling (white to bounce as much light around as possible) - no way to move anything out, so covering everything in drop sheets and carefully juggling the ladder for access. Astonishing that I achieved it with no drips or falls. I never climbed the Eiffel Tower, but did enjoy seeing it from various angles during the brief phase when I lived in Paris. Something wondrous about it - like a stiff three-dimensional spider's web. Have never ridden in a Studebaker. What makes them stand out for you? Would you like to own one? I gather the custody thing is working out amicably - quite an achievement. Your living room sounds full of character - as if stepping in there would take a visitor several steps forward in coming to know you.
Thank you, Nom. How lovely to have lived in Paris. That is my dream, even if for only a year. I love Studebakers, because my dad had one when I was very young. It was a black one with either red or black interior, and being about 3 or 4 years old at the time, I remember thinking the car looked mean and scary to me. Something about the grill, I think. He sold it when I was about 4 years old, but it's a classic. I love old cars.
Ah yes, the things we associate with our parents when very young. With my father it was his study, painted mid-blue-grey, lined with floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelves, stuffed with books, the low coffee table with his typewriter and its endless mechanical hammer and ping, the chess boards with games he played by mail, his soft armchair covered in brown linen, and the Baluch rug on the glass-tiled floor. Books sunk into my system and never left. The Studebaker sounds lovely. We have an annual classic car rally in our area. It's quite spectacular to see the variety of old beauties kept in such beautiful condition, and the people in them dressed in period costume.
Just Asking 