I found some more stuff!

$2

vintage fabrics, at least one yard of each, negotiable

Large Pyrex mixing bowl, 70's canister set

$5, kitteh NFS

Here are some of the things in my outbox. Help me get rid of them!

sale!

You can buy any of these things through my etsy shop, with new discounts!

Holt Howard spoon rest, $5
Crown Devon teacup & saucer, $4
Fiesta salt and pepper shakers, $6

If you live in the LA area, I’d be happy to sell you (or give you, frankly) any of this stuff!

Vintage wall-mounted swing arm lamp, free!

Come on, just $10! It goes on the wall, and it's wood! and awesome!

Free! come get it!

also free.

these have seen better days, but I can't bear to throw them away.

This painting was awesome and free ... and oops! it's gone!.

If you want any of this, let me know! leave it in the comments and I’ll get back to you.

Whenever I approach any design project, whether it’s a brand or a website or a room, I begin by determining what I want the end emotional response to be. All the elements that go into the design – the colors, typefaces, ornamentation or lack thereof – are like ingredients for creating a whole idea. What I’m going for with my one room remedy is a soothing, warm beige sort of thing with lots of wood, old and handmade things, and whatever else it takes to make me feel like I’m on vacation, like I’m traveling on the mother road in the 30’s or 40’s and I’ve stopped at a roadside cabin. Here’s my color palette:

and my style tray:

Last week’s assignment was to research our shopping list, and this week we’re supposed to start buying. When you’re not buying from catalogs, chain stores, or other new stock sources, it can be a little difficult to find everything you seek in just a few weeks. So stay flexible, visit a wide range of thrift stores and antique malls, as well as online sources like craigslist, ebay, and etsy; and figure out what you can make yourself. For my room, I’ll need an overhead light (budget permitting), pillows, and some other roadside/route 66-ish (but not the tacky kind) accessories.

First, the vintage handkerchief pillow: great idea, or the greatest idea? Either way, it fits in perfectly with the travel theme. See the how-to here, from design*sponge:

You can find hankies on etsy fairly easily:

Beyond these, the possibilities for vintage travel things are endless!

New Mexico souvenir tray, $7 on etsy

These souvenir trays are everywhere. Hang them on the wall, or perhaps place them on flat surfaces to contain things. It is a tray, after all.

$8 on etsy

Hooray for pennants!

Vintage pillow, $15 on etsy

$12 on etsy

When I recently redecorated the bedroom, I wrote a little guide to translating your style tray and inspiration photos into practice in a real room, as well as some painting tips. Check them out here, and get your hands dirty this week!

Tonight, as part of the Fall Cure, I decided to clean out my spice cabinet. The stuff I use on a daily basis I buy in small amounts in the bulk section and put them in tins, but as soon as I got that out of the way, a dark, nefarious faction was discovered in the back of my cupboard.

Yes, this is monosodium glutamate. It appears to be from the 60’s or 70’s. And it’s nearly full. What possessed me to take this from my mother’s kitchen in the first place? Why did I keep it? Why did she?

Here we have an interesting collection of specimens. These are all from different eras, as evidenced by the slight differences in the label. The oldest dates back to my days fresh out of college, living on my own and apparently doing very little baking. The next saw me through my move to Los Angeles when, again, I did very little baking. The newest specimen is actually still within its use by date, and is identified by the “gluten-free” notation on its label. The completeness of its contents suggests that I still do very little baking.

These are tins of sage and nutmeg. I don’t know which is which because they are both comically past their expiration dates, and therefore, they’re both getting thrown away anyway.

Even though I’m in the process of becoming vegan, I’m not sure what the urgency was behind replacing my Worcestershire sauce so quickly. First, I almost never used Worcestershire sauce to begin with, and when I did, it was to marinate meat. If you didn’t realize, Worcestershire sauce traditionally includes anchovies, which are, in fact, fish. Anyway, is it just me, or is it bizarre that on the bottle of vegan Worcestershire sauce, it recommends that you put it on “hamburgers, meatloaf, poultry, seafood …” Really? I’m going to buy a clearly marked “vegan” sauce and then proceed to put it on meat? I also eliminated barely full bottles of olive oil that were mediocre even all those months ago when they were newly purchased, generic balsamic vinegar, honey, and almond extract that I have a feeling came from my post-college roommate.

Now, I have a newly organized spice cabinet with things from this year.

Well, I guess now that all my road trip and color contest nonsense is out of the way, I can get back to the business of curing. When I last left the cure after my breakup six months ago, I made it through week 3, the landing strip, which I upgraded for the color contest with a cute little trunk I picked up at the Pasadena City College flea market (recommended! 1st Sunday of the month):

Hooks for dog leashes, bags, and purse; also a mail sorter, key holder, and vintage cheese box for my phone, notebooks, and pen.

The other side has a hook for sweaters (coats and whatnot go in the only non-bedroom closet I have), a basket for important, deal-with-me-now mail, a yellow thing for loose change, a cat for immediate softness and petting, and a recycle bin for junk mail.

And yes, if you’ve been following the contest at all, I am also sick of looking at pictures of this room. Maybe I should paint stripes …. never mind. Anyway, since I missed week two because of vacation and my landing strip is already functioning quite well, I’m taking the rest of week 3 to focus on the kitchen cure that’s also going on. When I was cleaning out my spice cabinet, I realized that the wood my cupboards are made up of is not so nice. I could cover the bottoms with contact paper, but it gets peely and bugs me. So, I’m going to do what I always do: paint. A semi-gloss enamel will be way easier to clean and provide a bit of color:

Mine won’t look nearly as nice as these, since I’m starting with dark wood and not cream or white. But no matter. The Kitchen Cure asks you to tackle one special project in the kitchen in addition to cleaning and decluttering, and this is mine. Color thoughts? This is what the dishes cabinet looks like, all dark and dank:

Off-white is tempting for contrast, but will it be harder to keep clean?

I am thinking – only thinking, mind you – about dismantling my loft bed and creating an entirely different bedroom.

This loft setup has been incredibly useful, but I'm not sure I want to keep it anymore.

My ex-boyfriend built this loft bed with the stairs and dog crate underneath as a way to give us more room and have a large place for the dogs to go when we weren’t home. I still love it, but it creates this awkward hole in the middle of the room underneath the loft, and, well, there’s just something that feels weird about not changing a bedroom at all after a cohabitating relationship ends – especially if the one leaving built the bed. So these images are now on my radar for potential bedroom ideas. I have to say, the thought of having a normal bedroom with nightstands and lamps is kind of intriguing. These are all from design*sponge sneak peeks:

I love the subtle paint on the wall, and the varied assortment of small silhouettes is lovely.

I love the weathered wood feeling here.

This is my favorite - I love everything about this room.

I know this is a kid's room, but it's just nice, okay?

Cinderblocks to raise the bed? I think I can afford that.

As always, my budget is limited – basically zero. I would have to work with what I have, so I’m still trying to decide if it’s worth it.

Since the demise of Domino and their nifty online style file thing, which allowed you to save home decorating and inspiration photos, I’ve sort of just been assembling jpgs in a folder on my desktop. But imgspark.com lets you upload these images and create moodboards (currently limited to 2) using all your images, in varying sizes and against a grid or solid background. Very useful. Here’s mine so far:

Click to imgspark.com and view my board

This week is week one of the Apartment Therapy Fall Cure. It’s no secret that I’m way into the cure and I think everyone should do it, no excuses (that means you, my dear). Not only am I determined to actually finish it this year, but I’m going a little further: I’m doing a “green” cure, which, in addition to my usual modus operandi of limiting what I buy new (if anything), using recycled materials where possible, choosing environmentally-friendly paints and cleaners, and reusing what I have, I’m also going to reduce or eliminate as many animal products as possible. I could get really preachy and give you dozens of reasons for going vegan, but instead, I’ll just say this: animals raised as livestock take up an inordinate part of our natural resources including water and plants made into feed, their waste pollutes our water supply, overfishing for human and livestock consumption is depleting our oceans and destroying their ecosystems, cows release more atmosphere-destroying gas than cars, and jammed feedlots produce mutant strains of flu. There are lots of things you can do to help the environment, but few are as profound as adopting a vegan lifestyle.

Okay, end rant.

To this end, all the meals I cook at home during the cure (and for like ever) will be vegan, and if they’re any good, I’ll share the recipes. Here’s one to get you started:

Hearty Vegan Chili

1 tablespoon oil (olive or canola, whatever)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 stalk celery, also chopped
1 carrot, diced (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon chili powder (or to taste)
2 teaspoons ground cumin (always better to use whole seeds, toast them, and grind them yourself)
1 teaspoon salt
(see below – spices are added twice)
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of chipotle chili powder (optional)
3 cups vegetable broth (or so, depending on how thick you want it)
2 tablespoons chickpea flour (or your favorite flour, that was what I had)
2 cups white beans (I used dried and cooked, which I’m pretty sure is better than canned)
1/2 cup fruity, tart white wine
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon chili powder (or to taste)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne pepper (yes these are repeated)
1 28-ounce can stewed tomatoes
2 teaspoons tomato paste
2 cups prepared polenta (so start with 1/2 cup or so dried cornmeal)

Cook onion, leek, celery, and carrot in oil over medium high heat until just beginning to brown. Add red pepper and cook for another five minutes or so; add garlic and continue to cook for a couple minutes, and add the first round of spices. Let this get nice and brown and develop a fond, and then add a half cup of the vegetable broth to deglaze the pot. Add flour and let it boil down and brown again, and deglaze it again with another half cup or so of the vegetable broth. Simmer, stirring often, until most of the liquid has evaporated, and add the cooked or canned beans with a little salt. And yes, another round: let the beans get browned (you may need to add a bit more oil by this point), add some more of your spices, and just when you think you can brown no more, kick in the white wine and let it simmer down to reduce. Add half the nutritional yeast gradually and let it brown (again). Finally, add the canned tomatoes, deglazing the pan with the liquid. Bring to a boil, stir it up, reduce heat and simmer for about 30-40 minutes. Add the tomato paste and remaining vegetable broth. At this point, taste and adjust your spices accordingly -you may need much more chili powder and cumin – and play with the ratio of vegetable broth to nutritional yeast until you have your desired thickness; some people like really thick chili and others prefer more of a soup.

Serve with a generous spoonful of polenta.

Every time the entryway week rolls around, a.k.a. week three, a.k.a. “the landing strip,” I have this renewed fascination with hooks and sorters. This year I’m not in a position to buy anything new, even some cute little hooks, so I simply added an unused curtain rod hanger I found in the (newly organized) hardware drawer in the kitchen.

This bluish gray dark paint gives a whole new feeling to the room.

Before, the room was a light blue and the dining table fit longwise in the dining room. Painting the entire living/dining room area this sophisticated dark blue changed the tone considerably, and because it gets enough natural light from the skylights, it doesn’t make the room feel heavy or small. Turning the dining table 90 degrees allowed for a better separation of space, gives more real estate to the entryway, and creates a better workspace for the table (the dining room is now the home office).

Otherwise, my sorting system from the last cure has worked out pretty well, so my only improvements were a recycle bin and a hook on the other side of the front door, where there wasn’t room before.

This darker paint color actually makes the room feel cooler.

If I had been in the market for some new hooks and sorters, I may have been drawn to these:

via etsy, $15

A bargain at $8.50! via etsy.

Vintage kitsch letter and key holder, $6 via etsy

$13 via etsy

As you may know, twice a year, Apartment Therapy hosts the spring or fall cure, an 8-week program based on the book. I’ve started the cure three times so far, and have never actually finished satisfactorily, but usually I get at least six weeks through. When I started this spring, however, I only got started on week two before I jumped ship. Why so soon? Because at that point, my then-boyfriend and I decided to amicably separate. Although there are no hard feelings whatsoever and the breakup was relatively painless for both of us, the event did sort of throw a wrench in my immediate plans and it didn’t make sense to continue with the cure when he would be moving out over the next month or two. We’d lived together for four years, so the amount of his and hers stuff that got mixed together in cabinets, drawers, and closets was a little overwhelming. Thus, at this point, when most of it has been separated, it’s more important than ever to start over with this cure – with an entirely different purpose.

Relatively little has changed around the house since he moved out, and as he’s put it, it’s a little like a “tomb of memories.” The first chapter in Maxwell’s book talks about the importance of reclaiming your space after a breakup, and because I adore my house and have no intention of moving, I’m going to continue this cure from where I left off, this time with a different perspective.

Hidden messes are everywhere.

Unless you’ve done the cure, no one tells you how satisfying it is to actually go through every drawer in the kitchen, take everything out, clean it, sort the contents, and put back only what you need. It’s like grooming a really overgrown dog and looking at the pile of gross that you removed. The dog is happy, and so are you. This drawer – one of many – contained a pile of gross that involved duplicate takeout menus, manuals for electronics I no longer own, broken picture frame parts, and instructions for planting trees I’ve already planted.

Chalkboard paint in the kitchen: yet another bandwagon onto which I've jumped. Did I mention I'm becoming a vegetarian?

I love this new chalkboard corner. I found the paint for a dollar at a garage sale, and it plus the act of removing everything from the counters, cupboards, and drawers and rearranging them made the kitchen new again. I replaced most of the old plants, moved the canisters to the other side of the kitchen, threw out all my old knives and cookbooks, added drawer organizers (a.k.a. wooden rice bowls from japan that weren’t being used), and tossed out some old glasses that no longer had any matchy friends left. I freed up a drawer for pot lids and one for my grandmother’s old cookbooks and aprons. I cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer, which still actually had some stuff that he’d bought (fyi, I’m keeping the candy cane Joe Joe’s. Don’t worry).

I also swapped out all the art on the walls and installed a new (er, vintage) lighting fixture and will eventually repaint the floor in lieu of the marmoleum tiles I can’t quite afford. The end result is an emotionally changed space that feels new … and mine.

It looks like the same kitchen, but it doesn't feel like it.