Impossible to work

My apartment is slowly coming together. I’ve been thinking nonstop about what to do to make the place comfortable and homelike. So I’ve been looking at a lot of really pretty pictures of items I will never be able to afford. Sarah (who, in addition to being a great collaborator is a low budget home decorating genius) has seriously helped me think this all out. I now have a firm idea as to how I want to turn my apartment into a pleasant living space. She helped me pick out prints for the curtains in each room (including a fun romp through a pile of remnants at the Hancock Fabrics on Broadway), and came up with additional colors to round out each room’s palette. I spent the afternoon at her place looking at interior decoration magazines and catalogs coming up with ideas for what should go into my apartment. Since I’m sure you all care about my interior decoration as much as I do, I’m going to tell you a bit about it, in particular, the dining room.
After all that poking about online and flipping through magazines with Sarah here’s what I (re)learned: I like modern designs (particularly those of the mid-20th century). To be fair, part of it is just that Ikea makes a super cheap knock off Saarinen Tulip Table (uh, I mean, they make a table that is wholly its own but is inspired by Saarinen’s Tulip Table). I got one of these Ikea Tulip, I mean Docksta, tables off of Craigslist the other day for a whole lot less than I would have paid at Ikea. For the time being, I’m going to throw some cheap stackable chairs around the table while I hunt for, ideally, tulip-style chairs (that I can afford) to go around the table. Yes, my dining room is going to look futuristic (moreso when I’m able to replace the crummy desk in the corner with a nicer looking one). What can I say? I think the Tulip Table looks cool, and there’s no bumping into the table legs. I can’t deny that I’m amused by the fact that Burke’s take on Saarinen’s chair design (which uses a four star base instead of the round base that gives these items their name) were part of the set on Star Trek. Lest you think I’m turning my dining room into a sterile modernistic nightmare, I plan to use the Marimekko blue Unikko print to make two rows of cafe curtains, get (or make) a chocolate brown table cloth, add put some things on the walls (there is currently nothing on my walls) to make the room not sterile. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a lively floral print? Sadly, until I can afford to get 4 yards of that material (or find some for cheap), I will continue to use the awful awful miniblinds. But one of these days, I will have nice looking curtains to pull the room together.
The dining room is probably closest to the way it’s going to stay of any of the rooms. Sarah and I are going to ye auld Ikea in Schaumburg this weekend to buy make-do chairs for the room (it’s going to take a while to find the chairs I want at a price I can afford), hopefully some area rugs, and stuff for Sarah’s place. The curtains are a bit down the road (I’ve got to make curtains for the other rooms first), and a new desk is very low on the list of priorities, but there just isn’t going to be too much stuff in the room in the first place. I’ll get before and after pictures up on flickr soon enough, for those interested in looking at the room.

I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ll tell you what I plan on doing with the other rooms in the days to come.