I’m participating in Apartment Therapy’s January Cure and blogging about my progress. Here are a few tasks that I completed during week three (and some that I failed to complete). And here’s the first installment in case you missed it.
Day 9: Create a Landing Strip
First, can I just say that “landing strip” is not the *best* term to describe the place you hang coats and drop your keys. That’s because landing strip already has a definition. And it has nothing to do with home decor. Apartment Therapy, did you Google “landing strip” before you asked us to create one? Did you see the listings for gentlemen’s clubs? Did you see the photos?
Ok, I’m off my soapbox. Here’s the front door. You’re looking at the inner door. We have two. You can see we already have some basics like a coat rack (and a homemade door snake to keep out drafts).
Straight ahead you’ll find a bookshelf with a key bowl. And a very ugly (but necessary) shoe rack. PS. I have a shoe problem.
What I was missing was a place to hang my purse. I don’t like hanging it on the coat rack because a purse buried under 4 or 5 coats can be hard to find. So I picked up this hook from Anthropologie and put it on the closet door.
FYI – that homemade curtain hides a strange little space where we hang our bikes and store the cat box. I’m a huge fan of using curtains to hide things (more on that to come).
The landing stip (do we really have to call it that?) isn’t perfect yet. I’d love to find a place to store my excess shoes. (I already have some under the bed. And some more in that coat closet. Hangs head in shame.) And I’m hoping to get a tiny stool or storage ottoman to put in front of the mirror. One upholstered with Les Touches or a knockoff would be killer. That would give me a place to put my boots on and perhaps even to store hats and mittens. I’d also love to refinish that bookshelf. It’s a family heirloom, but pretty beat up. Actually, if I could start from scratch, I’d swap that bookshelf for shoe storage, like this. Then the shoe tree could go away. And I’d replace the key bowl with a wall hook. Or maybe I’d find an antique half-moon table to go in front of the mirror. Would that look weird?
Day 10: Work on your goal project
I chose to paint the hallway. Already finished it. Bam!
Day 11: Try a Media Fast
Umm . . . we had plans to see Lincoln. And we did. So no media fast for me. But I consumed only historical, Golden Globe-winning, based-on-real-life-events media. So maybe that counts as a media diet? (Go see Lincoln, by the way).
Day 12: Declutter Books and Media
Magazines come into our apartment faster than I can read them, especially those text-filled weekly New Yorkers. And god forbid I should recycle a magazine I haven’t read cover to cover. (I paid good money for those words!) So I save them. And the ones I have read? Well, maybe I’ll want to re-read that particularly insightful article or try that recipe for chicken lasagna. Perhaps I’ll need to revisit that 2010 trick for applying black eyeliner. YOU NEVER KNOW! This kind of thinking (it’s an illness, really) explains why, over the past couple of years, the magazine piles have becomes stacks, and the stacks have become towers. It’s embarrassing. In fact, I recently unearthed an issue of Weddings. I’ve been married for a year and a half.
The Cure convinced me to purge. And oh how I purged!
I’m not going to lie, it was difficult. Even as I was bundling these beauties in preparation for recycling, I thought to myself: Maybe I could make some kind of magazine furniture out of them. Like this or this. But then I came to my senses.
The cat approved. Or maybe she didn’t. Her face is inscrutable.
Urban Cholita 