L it under Living in an apartment has its benefits, but most of the time it leaves you wondering where to store things. One thing I have never been able to find a proper space for are my dish towels. At one point I was storing them in the bathroom cupboard...until I realized how gross that was. 

I have lived in an apartment for a few years now and the most valuable lesson I have learned: Use space wisely.  Having moved from a three bedroom house with a finished basement to a two bedroom apartment about the size of the main floor, space is a very valuable thing in this place.  Shelves added to closets, storage drawers and even the space under EVILBOY's captain's bed are all put to use.

One thing that has always bothered me about this place is my living room. I (stupidly) went out and bought a big giant glass corner desk.  I spent hours upon hours putting the thing together, only to find out it took up almost half the room. Plus because it was glass, everything was always just there.  Transparent for all to see.  Cords, weird little USB devices, memory cards, pens, and papers galore were constantly strewn about my workspace, which always made the living room look cluttered and not very comforting.

I am the worst at getting before pictures, so I don't have any before pictures of the desk area (actually..consider yourself lucky!) but I do have a before picture of the dining room:

Believe it or not, that was actually on a pretty good day.  As  you can see it was a very busy room, but the strange thing is it was never really used for eating.  The table I have is a very old drop leaf style table.  The chairs are from a completely different set.  I just fell in love with the chairs, but unfortunately they did not fit under the table at the sides, thus wasting a lot of precious space.  Not to mention it made eating at this table very uncomfortable. I always had to cover this table because it was pink (which is not bad - but think Pepto pink) and had a lot of little holes and "slices" in it. I think the previous owners used it as a work table, which is a shame because it really has a lot of character.


Of course I couldn't get a before picture...because I just don't think of these things!  So I lightly sanded the table and removed the leaves on the two sides.  For some reason I had yellow stuck in my mind that day. It really didn't belong with the colour scheme I was thinking of, but in the end I think it worked out pretty okay.  My plan now is to have this yellow table set up with only two chairs, turn it the other way and use it as an all-purpose table. We can eat here, draw here, drink coffee here, unfold sewing patterns...anything really! So many activities!

The biggest problem I encountered with the office design was the actual desk and shelves.  I drew this idea down on paper just by looking at the space where I wanted the desk to be. I knew I wanted to have the filing cabinet as a middle section, but I had a feeling my idea for supports were going to be all off.

I walked into Home Depot with my plan, fully expecting the nice man working there to tell me I was crazy and that I should probably buy 100 other things than what I had planned.  However, the man just agreed with me and said it shouldn't be a problem.  That was my first little boost of confidence and all the motivation I needed.

I bought a 4x8 sheet of melamine and had my new best friend cut it into the following:
2 ft x 7.5 ft - Desktop
1 ft x 7.5 ft (x2) - Shelves

There was a sign that said the first two cuts are free and afterwards you will be charged $1 /cut but my guy didn't charge me any extra.

One of the things I didn't really expect was the cost of the brackets.  I decided that the melamine was cheap enough, but it was a little heavy but almost "flimsy" at the same time, so I better not cheap out on brackets.  I think that really saved the whole project because I could definitely see this going all wrong pretty quickly with some smaller brackets or "decorative" brackets.   I ended up buying heavy duty brackets made for closet shelves.  They have a hook on the end which I figure would be good to hang things from if needed or if I do ever decide to hang a pole for ribbons etc. I bought 6 brackets for the shelves.

For the desk itself I bought two heavier brackets as I figured that was where most of the weight would be distributed.  However, once I put the desk together, I realized that two wouldn't be enough to support the weight at the front of the desk, so I added two more cheaper brackets to the front just to keep it stable.

Unfortunately, when I got the melamine home, I realized I had made a fatal error.  When I measured the length of the area, I didn't take into account the window ledge (very important).  I figured I could slide it in from above the ledge - big mistake!!


The melamine ended up getting wedged into the wall.  It was so bad that I ended up having to run out to Wal-Mart at 10pm to buy a handsaw to try and cut the melamine free from my wall.  Do you know the looks you get when you run into a Wal-mart just as they are closing, sweaty and scratched up, to buy just a handsaw?  You should try it sometime.

The good news is, I was able to free the melamine from the wall. The bad news is the handsaw I bought SUCKED. I'm not even kidding, it took me an hour and a half to cut a bit off the end of the melamine.  When I brought it back to the area to put it in, all proud of my cutting skills, IT WAS STILL TOO BIG!! I ended up borrowing a power tool saw thingy from someone and that worked wonders. However, my cutting skills are probably not so fantastic and the edges are not very straight. When it was all in place, I had to go through with some white acrylic paint.  Melamine has rough "wood" edges. You can buy strips to cover this, but I figured with the use they would probably just fall off anyway, and I was trying to keep costs down.

I'm still surprised someone thought it was a good idea to lend me a power tool.

Everything pretty much fell together once that was done.  I bought a little chair at a thrift store and recovered it.  Unfortunately it's not the most comfortable chair, and I work from home sometimes, so I had to bring in my old ugly office chair.  Still trying to figure out a way to make this office chair not so ugly. I may be brave one day and try to recover it with some funky fabric like I did to the little chair.  I think that may be taking on a lot though.  I also went back to Home Depot and bought a couple little pieces of wood to make little display shelves for some of my action figures.

And now for the big reveal:



































It took about a week. There were many scrapes, bruises, bumps on the head and feet spray painted, but it all came out nicely. I added a little curtain rod from the dollar store to hold some ribbon.  The red chair is now on the other side in the "sewing area".  I have also added my sewing machine to that side as well.  I found that little white shelf that holds up the monitor at the thrift store. I'm not even sure what the purpose of it was in the first place but it sure worked out pretty well (after I used the power saw to hack off the legs!). 
  

Here is the yellow activity table.  The chairs are going to be changed in this area because they are just way too big -- even though I still love them a lot.



This is the computer area. I mentioned earlier about the chair having to be switched out.  I will keep you updated in case I get brave and decide to recover my current office chair.  For now, it is just big and ugly and it makes me sad.



I fell in love with this ugly little spice rack.  I don't even think it's made out of real wood. It's old and flimsy, but a can of red spray paint added some new life to it.  It's a great place to store my paint collection (for now because I only have four bottles!!).


I'm going to tell you the story about the lamp.  It's not a good story.  You see, I spray painted the heck out of that metal base.  Then I touched it and had to spray paint more.  Then I dropped the base, but didn't think anything of it.  Then I re-covered the shade with some leftover fabric from the chair and some pretty red trim.  I used a glue gun and burnt myself five million times.

When it was all done, I looked at this beautiful lamp in awe.

This was totally me

and then came the moment of plugging it in...

...and nothing! It was broken!! I assume dropping it was the fatal error.  Alas, I have a beautiful lamp-like decoration now.

The worst part of the whole story?  I had painted the lamp before I painted the table.  I ran out of paint for the table on the last leg.  I'm sure that if I wouldn't have painted that lamp, I would have had just enough paint for the table. Ugh.

The total cost for this entire project was around $150. Keeping in mind I had the filing cabinet and craft table already. I now have an entire corner of my living room that I don't know what to do with, but I kind of like it that way!

I can't help it.  I've turned EVILBOY into a toy-collecting nerdlet.
(and I kind of like it).


I find real joy digging through people's old unwanted belongings to find action figures for my kid in thrift stores. I have banned myself from eBay, ever since the whole blue ranger motorcycle incident of 2012..but we shall leave that story for another time.

Tonight as we stopped into a thrift store on the way home, EVILBOY pointed out a shelf that he wanted to put his power rangers on.  My eight year old asked for a shelf. To display his collection.  I was elated!  My inner Martha Stewart was going wild with ideas.



I ended up putting "Sticky Tack" under each action figure's foot and standing them up on the shelves.  I had EVILBOY tell me which ones go together (it was actually a very hard task!) and we made a pretty cool display!

.

I can't get over how grown up this makes his bedroom look though.  He has his very own collection of something.  Even if it's a collection of violent little men in spandex, it's still pretty cool!

EVILBOY is on his way home today.  So glad he wasn't here last night during that big storm, or I would have been a little more afraid.  That was one of the worst storms I have seen in a while.  At one point when I did get a little nervous, I called my mom, but the reception was wonky - that made me a little more nervous.  When I finally did get to speak with her, she was at bingo during a power failure.  At bingo.  No power - grumpy mom.

I sometimes feel guilty for sending EVILBOY away for most of the summer, but the truth is, he got to do so many things that I wouldn't have been able to do with him and he got to visit family that we wouldn't have been able to see for the whole entire summer. One of the hardest things about being a single parent and working full time is not being able to have the finances or time to travel and visit family.  I am very grateful for the things EVILBOY got to do, even if I did miss him a whole bunch!

I spent most of the time re-organizing his room. Making it a little more grown up. Putting away all the baby things that I liked (well most of them anyway!).  When I was done, the room felt so empty.  It didn't have reminders of him playing in it - and it smelt like cheap pine, not little boy.  It was kind of sad. 

I love this carpet.  It was only $3 at a garage sale.  Best. Find. Ever!

The jar of super heroes and the disgusting vat of grow dinos

I finally got around to unplugging that alarm clock that just flashed 12:00 for months.  Every time I would set it, EVILBOY would unplug it so he could play his keyboard.  I gave up - time for it to go!  I love the monsters on the top of this shelf, they are my fav!  If EVILBOY doesn't want them, I may have to move them to my room >:)

Do you remember these old Little People buildings?  I used to play with these buildings (almost the exact same ones actually) when I was a little girl.  If I had to pick EVILBOY's favourite toy, this would be it.  The only problem is, apparently these are valuable so when you go to buy them at the thrift store they cost an arm and a leg - totally unfair!  I collected these ones at the Goodwill and Salvation Army store who don't seem to want to capitalize on children's toys.

I love EVILBOY's bedding.  Although a nautical theme really wasn't my first pick, it was just too cute to pass up and it replaced his old Cars bedding just nicely (except for his favourite pillow which will remain until that pillow case finally dissolves into dust - it's almost there!)

Those are original EVILBOY works of art over there.  They really bring the room together, don't you think?  Also see: Messy bookshelf - makes EVILFLU go crazy - don't mind if I do!!!

We did have a casualty.  HERMAN the crab decided to croak.  It was so sad to find his little body all withered and out of the shell *nightmares*.  He did live a very long life though, which was quite surprising to me.  Unfortunately I must break the news to EVILBOY when he gets home.  I will let him pick another little critter (hopefully not a crab) to put in his tank if he chooses to do so.

"This is why I never wanted to live in an apartment" he said as he pushed by me, throwing his chubby hands up into the air and exhaling loudly as he squished by me.

He is six.  Where does he get this drama queen stuff from?

(actually, don't answer that)

I never intended for us to live this way, and yes things do get a bit cozy in here sometimes, but he has to accept that this is our home now.  He has never taken a move this badly before, and to be honest I thought he would be more settled in by now.

The fact of the matter is that apartment life has its ups and downs. Not having to worry about yard work, less area to clean, cheaper rent/bills, high up where burglars can't reach us and meeting new people are all perks.

(oh and we have a pool here too!)

Then there is having to get rid of a lot of your personal items that no longer fit in an apartment (for Mason it was a lot of toys and for me it is my turquoise chair and ottoman - which I'm still trying to make fit in this place), sharing laundry/having to pay for laundry (not that it's any different than paying it on your bills - it's just something about paying it upfront that bothers me), living next door to the Homies, constantly telling Mason not to jump/roll cars across the floor and of course some of the neighbours are somewhat - they totally suck!

Like the guy who plays Stairway to Heaven almost every night just before 11pm.  I'm alright with a little Stairway to Heaven once in a while, but what I can't stand is this fool trying to teach himself how to play it out on his balcony every night.  I also cannot stand the shrieking woman who tells him to shut up every night.  I can't quite figure out who is more annoying.

Then there are the party animals who live downstairs, just below me.  The smoke from their cigarettes give my curtains an oh-so-lovely hint of nicotine as they "party" out on the balcony with their friends, using the F word in every other sentence. I especially enjoyed the time one of them puked over the side.  I was so very grateful that they lived downstairs and not above me.  Another funny time was when one of the party animals got offended and tried to convince everyone that he was smart - as he cried.  It's like a party animal soap opera down there.

Above me is the constant mover.  This guy must have furniture attached to his ass or something because all day long furniture is being moved around all up in there and sometimes it even gets moved around late at night, which makes me imagine that the guy upstairs has a pooping problem that forces him to stay on his toilet all day so he built a rolling toilet to get him around.

I guess sometimes it has a little more downs than ups but this is our home.

I have to say, I expected living in an apartment to be a lot more Melrose Place and to be lot less Golden Girls.

Living six floors off the ground is a big change though. Now the only other living things I see when I look out my window are birds and the tops of trees.  One time I saw a squirrel too.  Six floors up is pretty high for a squirrel I thought.  It's a lot different than looking out your window and seeing potential burglars walking by your living room window. 

I am still afraid to stomp on the floor.  I cringe deeply when I drop anything and hold my breath until I know for sure that the person in the apartment below me isn't going to come up and punch my face. I am also afraid to raise my voice, watch reality television or listen to sappy music because I know that someone on my floor would be able to hear and probably make fun of me.

It's going to take some time to adjust.

but I think we're doing okay!

I find myself laughing like a lunatic when I realize I don't have to go out and weed the garden, mow the lawn or pick the bags of dog poop out of my front yard bush (I know..wtf??).  In fact, I will never have to pick that bag of crap out of the bush again.

and that makes me happy.

Being way up high, having a cozy little space, being even closer to a park and re-arranging my furniture also makes me happy.

Lugging groceries up to the sixth  floor does not make me happy.  Just sayin'.

Red.

I am going to paint that shelf red. Not just red, bright red, like a wagon. It's going to be red and beautiful and it's going to make his room more cheerful when we have to move to the apartment. This red shelf is going to make everything better for him.

I circled the block two, three times, stalking my prey, looking for a perfect time to stop, directly in a spot that was clearly marked NO STOPPING. "Just my luck" I huffed as I disobeyed the law and pulled the car to a halt in front of my treasure. I hurled open the hatch, slammed down the back seat and awkwardly fiddled with the shelf that now suddenly seemed not so spectacular as I once had pictured it. I shoved it in and ran around to the front of the car like I had just robbed a bank. I guess in a way I did, I robbed a bank of someone's trash, because I'm weird like that, and I can't stand to see beautiful things end up in a landfill.

I come from a long line of garbage pickers. My mom was a picker, specializing in antiques and old rotten chairs that came crashing down into a pile of splinters when my dad's big fat friends would come over and sit on them. Then my mom would be angry and hate my dad's friends until she found her next treasure. My grandfather was the greatest picker of them all. He actually figured out a way to make a living from trash picking. His specialty was lawn mowers. He probably had fifty of them in his garage at one time, each waiting to be fixed. Then he would sell them. Lawn mowers and riding toys for me were his treasures. My grandfather's father was probably a picker too. He most likely specialized in muskets and kittens to punch in the face. Not really, but I think he must have been a pretty mean dude so that's the first thing I thought of.

The shelf was yellowish, once white. It had a subtle smell of smoke, which explains the yellow stains on what once would have been a loved piece of furniture. The legs were wobbly and there were cobwebs firmly attached between the legs. It deserved to be red. It deserved to be a place for a little boy to keep his toys and books. This bookshelf did not belong in the trash.

Saturday morning I lovingly sanded the grime off the shelf. I tightened the legs and I opened a fresh can of red paint to bring this piece back to life.

One coat. It took hours.

I closed up the can and took my brushes in to wash the red out. I ran them under warm water and rinsed them with a tight grasp.

I only realized there was a problem when I saw the water beading on my skin.

and then this happened:


Looking at the pictures, I'm sure you can figure out my intentions and how I failed to remove the red paint from my now stained hands. To be honest, I don't remember exactly how I did get the red paint off my hands, I had so many mixtures of concoctions, trying to figure out the best way to make my hands no look like those of Dexter  before I had to a) drop EVILBOY off at a play date b) meet someone from KIJIJI to sell a DVD and c)go to the BEAVERS banquet.  So pretty much of all days to stain your hands blood red, that day as the worst.

My hands really didn't look much better by the time I had to drop EVILBOY off for his play date.  When the father opened the door at EVILBOY's best friend's house, I felt like he was staring at my red hands.  I laughed moronically and explained that it wasn't blood (WTF??) and that I was painting. Then I decided we needed groceries.  Again I could feel people watching me as I pushed my cart through the busy store.  When I made eye contact I just laughed manically and explained that I was painting.

I spent the rest of the day explaining to a KIJIJI customer and scout leaders that I had painted something red.

and this was only after the first coat.

Suddenly the "wagon red" didn't seem like such a great idea. 

The moral of the story:
Never wash brushes out with your bare hands when you are working with glossy paint.  Also do not explain to normal people that your red stained hands are in fact not blood because more than likely they will nod and laugh, but secretly they are thinking you are a psycho murderer.