All posts in: DIY Tutorials

I Like All Colors That are Black or White.

Posted: Nov 10 · Comments: 130

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably already gathered that I painted my living room! I’m bad at keeping secrets when provided with so many social networking outlets. Oopsie!

Before:

AFTER!

I like it! I don’t LOVE it, to be honest—the color’s a little bluer than I was expecting—but I do like it a lot. WAY better than the red, even if I end up repainting it eventually.

I know there were some fans out there of the red, but I hated it. Hated it. Even if I had wanted to keep it, the walls were in R-O-U-G-H shape and it would have needed to be redone. Not that it matters, it made my head hurt and my eyes bleed. At no point ever in the entire time I’ve lived here did I think to myself, “Hey! Maybe I should keep this red. It’s so funky!” That, by the way, is a good example of something I would never say aloud, in case you were struggling to think of anything.

Something I would say? “I’m painting our living room Paper White by Benjamin Moore in matte. The ceiling will be White in eggshell, the moldings will be Super White in semi-gloss. The doors and fireplace mantle will be Onyx in Pearl.”

Something Max would say? “Do whatever you want, but please stop talking about it. What’s for dinner?” OMGYOUGUYZDREAMY.

Because I get questions in the comments and the occasional email regarding this very important and surprisingly mysterious concept, I’m going to tell you how to paint a room. Well, how I paint a room. You can do it however you want but my way will always be the right way.

PREP:

1. Locate, patch, and sand holes with spackle. Really sand, now. Don’t be a punk.

2. Move all your furniture and crap into the middle of the room, cover with a giant $2 plastic tarp.

3. Try to go inside your furniture fort, look around, pretend you’re in a quarantine chamber in a space ship.

4. Put drop cloths on floor around perimeter of room.

PAINT THAT SHIT:

1. STAY HYDRATED. Painting is hard work, don’t kid yourself. It will take you many hours, most of them standing, which is more physical activity than you’re generally comfortable with. That’s why I recommend you stay hydrated. I like to stay hydrated with a couple beers or glasses of wine because, let’s face it, painting’s the fucking worst. Worse than famine. Worse than natural disasters. Worse than Rick Perry. (Maybe not worse than Rick Perry.) The point is: loosen up, settle in for the long haul. So drink some booze, smoke some weed, whatever works for you.

2. Gather up your supplies. You will need: paint, a paint brush (or several), a paint tray, a roller (and pad, I always use “semi-smooth” for walls), and a ladder unless you’re a giant.

I like to use a 2″ angle brush, and because I was feeling a little crazy that day, I bought a stubby one without a handle. What am I, a leprechaun? I don’t know what came over me.

3. Start by cutting in the perimeter of the ceiling with your brush, since the roller can’t paint corners. ”Cutting in” is a fancy painterly term, and when you say it, you’ll sound like you know shit.

4. Paint the ceiling with a roller. Now, you might think you can skip painting the ceiling. “But it looks white,” your lazy ass says. YOU ARE WRONG. It is not white. When confronted with real white, it looks poopy and horrible. Like so:

PAINT YOUR CEILING. You won’t regret it.

5. Start by cutting in with your brush around moldings and up the corners of the room. This was a special pain in the ass because I also had to do it around all those fancy wall-moldings, too.

6. Prime, if you have to. You should really prime if you’re painting a light color over a dark color, or the other way around. For dark over light, ask your paint store if you should use a tinted primer. At this point, things will look terrible.

7. Cut in around the moldings and corners again, and paint another coat with your roller. Then do that again. You probably want two coats, maybe three depending on what paint you use. I used Benjamin Moore’s Regal Select, which is really nice stuff. I usually go with just the plain Regal (it’s a little cheaper and still very nice paint), but I really didn’t want to do three coats.

8. After you’re done with the walls, paint the moldings! Now, you might think you don’t need to paint your moldings. “They look white,” you say.

WRONG AGAIN, STUPID. You need to paint your trim. Just do it, you’ll feel better.

Now, this might shock you. DO NOT USE PAINTER’S TAPE. There is a time and a place for it, but it’s really not necessary in most cases, certainly not for painting most moldings and stuff. Normally, it just messes you up, since paint gets all up under the tape and ruins your clean lines. It also takes forever to apply, and really isn’t as fun as you think it is to rip off. You really just need your angle brush, a steady-ish hand, and about three minutes of practice to really get the hang of things. If you are going to use painter’s tape, please for the love of god use it right.

The last people who painted my apartment apparently did not read the tape instruction manual and thought it would be easier to cut their tape off  the wall with an x-acto knife. This is not only wrong, but evil, because it leaves TEENY TINY slivers of painting tape that will slowly separate from the walls over time and drive the next painter totally fucking insane trying to peel off. It’s not right, it’s not fair, never do this ever or your karma will be in the shitter. And that’s a promise.

9. Clean up, put your furniture back, and you’re done!

Max bought that painting a couple weeks ago from his friend Matt Uebbing. We’re still deciding on art placement, so it’s not hung yet, but we’ll get to that.

I decided to paint the wall moldings with the ceiling paint, which is just off-the-shelf BM “White” in eggshell. It offsets nicely with the wall color without being SO in-your-face, and the finish is every-so-slightly glossier than the matte walls. I just used a 1″ brush, and it took forever.

Before:

AFTER!

Before:

We really need some art on the walls and to fix up that super sad stuff happening on top of the mantle. All in good time.

Obviously, I painted the fireplace the same BM Onyx as the doors, and I really love it. I used to totally hate the tiling work, but now I think I kind of like that too? I don’t know, for some reason now it seems kind of perfectly-antiquey-poopy-brownish-mustard. Masculine might be the word I’m looking for. Anyway. The new paint has really changed my views on them.

I am totally in love with my new lamp, by the way. Like, if I die, and I’m ever reincarnated as a lamp, I think it would look a lot like that.

Black Doors!

Posted: Nov 3 · Comments: 140

There are moments in a relationship when you realize you’ve gone and found yourself a good thing. Max came home from work one day back in August to a sweltering apartment and my small, crouched figure slumped on the floor. The trouble was that somebody had stuffed wads of newsprint inside the walls that conceal our pocket doors, thereby blocking their ability to open all the way. Because this was during my it’s-hotter-than-hell-outside-fuck-it-I’m-a-nudist phase, I was unshowered and wearing only underwear. And maybe socks, for modesty’s sake. Strewn about on the floor surrounding me was a collection of our household items—a set of tongs, a broom handle, an umbrella I’d broken—and the pile of old newspapers I had slowly persuaded out of the walls over the course of what was, realistically, a several hour long effort. This is behavior that I have come to recognize as the norm for Single-Daniel, but is probably better avoided during the fragile first six months of a relationship. Yet there I sat, dirty and frustrated, reappropriating our spatula as a sort of primitive tool, much like an ape.

While alone it’s easier to focus exclusively on the task at hand, but the presence of another person inspires a sort of quick self-inspection, followed by an assessment, followed by shame. Alright, you might think, he’s seen me. Play it cool. Do you look ridiculous? Yes. Do you have a compelling reason? Certainly. And when he opens his mouth to say something like “What in the fuck are you doing down there?” you need to explain yourself. Hurriedly, you try to come up with a reason why the doors sticking out a couple of inches instead of receding nicely into the walls is a pressing problem riddled with threatening functional implications. Further, one that can only be addressed while sweaty, dirty, and mostly naked. You decide to bypass the accusatorial interrogation and just skip to the explanation.

“Some asshole past tenant stuffed about a million newspapers into our walls, and that’s why the pocket doors won’t open all the way, which looks all weird and is probably why they keep skipping off their tracks and I’ve been trying to fish them out but they’re really stuck and I lost track of time and I’m really sorry but I broke your umbrella.”

“Which newspaper?” he replied. And there it was. Not angered, nor shocked and appalled, nor even slightly surprised that he might come home to find me in such a state, there was something immensely comforting about his apathy.

“Oh, just a bunch of horse racing schedules and statistics and stuff, from the mid-70s. Nothing interesting.”

“Oh, bummer.”

And then I went back to sticking my arms into the wall and he told me about his day at work. And it was good.

Aside from what is now obvious (that Eugene Tombs was nesting in our apartment), all of our doors had an exciting laundry list of things wrong with them. The paint was chipping off the pocket doors. The bedroom and bathroom doors didn’t close. All the hardware had been painted over by careless landlords and tenants for years, and was not only ugly but also didn’t work. Poor doors. So abused.

When I first moved into this apartment, during the brief period that it was still technically just my apartment and I could be as big of an asswipe as I wanted to be, I told Max that I was going to paint all the doors black. I told other people this, too, all of whom expressed deep concern. “Really? Black? Like, black-black?” FUCK YES, BLACK. But let me just say:

Before:

After:

Yeah. They’re rad. I love my black doors. The color is Onyx by Benjamin Moore, in Pearl finish. It’s basically the perfect, perfect black. I want to live in a world of Benjamin Moore Onyx.

All the doors in the apartment (there are only three other ones, including the front door) are getting the Onyx treatment too, and I love it. Bedroom door before:

And AFTER!

I love them. Love them. You can tell me anything. Tell me they’re ugly. See if I care. I do not care. You know why? Because I love them.

LOVE.

My affection isn’t just a paint fetish thing, though. It’s also the hardware. I’m so happy with how the hardware turned out. Because it had been painted over so many, many times, it all had to be carefully cut and scraped and stripped away from the doors. Here’s a fancy close-up image I made by cropping a much wider image I had, because I took no proper before pictures. My blogging fanciness knows no bounds.

Stripping paint off stuff is one of those intensely tedious, endlessly satisfying tasks that just keeps you coming back for more. Once I got it all detached from the doors, I stuck it in a pot of boiling water (and a little dish soap), and let it simmer like a delicious hardware stew for a while. Like so:

No, I do not still cook food in that pot. Luckily, it was from a thrift store and I don’t feel too bad about it.

After a bunch of the paint has boiled off, it’s time to move this party to the sink, where you’ll scrub and pick at the stragglers while burning your hands through latex gloves beneath scalding running water. It’s fun! Let your kid do it, he/she will have a phenomenal time.

All kidding aside, it’s really kind of amazing to restore something like this—probably well over a century old—to an original, functioning condition. Hearing that door click! closed for the first time was super rewarding, and using the doorknob everyday feels like such an awesome privilege that I totally fucking deserve. 

Aside from that, I think we can all agree that the mix of the black door, the white trim, and the brass/pewter-y hardware is pretty dope. It’s all J.Crew-Men’s-Shop-Yale-Club-Old-New-England-Classic-Fancy up in here. All of those associations make perfect sense to me.

The pocket door hardware was slightly more challenging because it’s not actually very old, so the brass was super shiny and new and weird looking when I stripped the paint off them. I found something online that told me to wet them with vinegar and stick them in a hot oven for a few minutes, which would help age the brass. Usually I’m not a fan of trying to obtain faux-old finishes, but this was tiny and subtle and totally worked and I love them now.

Best for last? Okay. Best for last.

The bathroom door was a whole crazy mess of gloppy old paint and filthy and sadness.

Like, gag me with a spoon, as my father would say. But you know I’m all about that black porcelain knob.

Insert some boiling water, some taking the door off its hinges, sanding and sanding and sanding down the bottom so it would close, a few coats of paint later, and…

Here’s the outside. The wood handle makes my heart sing. I just rubbed on a couple coats of Danish oil after it dried out from the boiling and it’s so pretty.

On the inside of the door, under all the paint was this super cool lock. In case you can’t make it out, it reads: “New York City 1883 Make.” EIGHTEEN FUCKING EIGHTY THREE. That shit is old, and awesome. It had a petrified cockroach carcass inside of it. That’s history. I think it was painted black originally but the boiling took off all the paint and I ended up liking the raw metal, so I spray painted it with a matte clear coat protection so it wouldn’t rust in a steamy bathroom.

Wider angles to come, when I get my act together and photograph the bathroom. Things are looking a little different in there! (See what I did there? I love to play the tease.)

Miles of Bookshelves

Posted: Sep 16 · Comments: 68

I’ve heard this nasty rumor going around that there are actually stores into which one can enter, select a piece of furniture, leave with said piece of furniture, maybe perform some light, jaunty assembly work at home, and begin using it immediately. It’s the sort of thing I imagine most intelligent people might take advantage of, or perhaps those with a vested interest in their own happiness.

I never fucking learn though. I convince myself that building projects will be easy and simple, that what I really want isn’t something that IKEA can readily provide, and that there’s no reason for me to shy away from a little DIY. Then I end up covered in plaster dust and ruing the day I ever turned my nose up at a perfectly good BILLY bookcase. This is the short story of my life, perpetually retold here for your edification and enjoyment.

When Max moved in, he didn’t bring that much stuff. This was a good thing, both because I am an evil dictator and because I already have a lot of stuff. But if you are planning to move in with Maxwell Tielman, know this: 1) I will cut you, get your filthy whore-paws off my man. 2) He comes with books, and lots of them.

For a couple weeks, there were basically books EVERYWHERE in the apartment—on two mini folding bookcases Max brought with as temporary measures, the horrible free milk crate monstrosity I cobbled together, and little piles all over the place. It became eminently clear that my little pipe and ply shelves of yore, which served me well in Manhattan, just weren’t going to cut it here. I’m a Brooklynite now; I read stuff.

But I had new things on the mind, anyway—or, rather, things fed to me by the industrious, ever-stylish, and regrettably blog-less Maya, who DIY’d up some amazing wall-to-wall shelves using standard steel L-brackets and nice chunky pieces of lumber at her digs:

Amazing, right? Unfortunately, I don’t have any walls in my apartment that are really ideal for some true wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelving, but I figured it could work for a smaller amount of space and still look pretty great. So I did it.

Yes, they’re big. They’re bold. These books ain’t messin’.

There are some downsides to living in a fifth floor walk-up, like wheezing for breath by the time we get to our apartment door. But this also means we’re on the top floor, which means full, unrestricted roof access (you know, until I’m told otherwise. I don’t ask a lot of questions). Which means I finally have a place to build things and not turn our apartment into a total hellhole in the process.

Instead of using thicker pieces of timber, we opted for 1″x12″ pine boards, cut down to about seven foot lengths by the gentle, grumpy hands of Home Depot employees. The brackets are 12″ L-brackets, which I opted to spray paint Rustoleum matte black. After sanding everything down, I stained all the wood with a mix of Minwax’s Walnut and English Chestnut, which is basically the same as my favorite Jacobean stain that I think they stopped making. Boo.

Oh, and a word to the wise: ALWAYS keep your scraps, even if you don’t think you’ll need them. It’s nice to have a few pieces of leftover wood to test out your staining technique on, figure out how long you want to let your stain soak into the wood, etc. etc.

I’m hesitant to even show this picture of how they’re attached to the walls. Those of you who know anything about attaching very heavy things to walls are going to scream in anger about why I didn’t just screw directly into studs, and the answer is embarrassing. I couldn’t find them! I have an electronic stud-sensor, but it’s basically useless for old plaster walls since the plaster is on top of lathe, and the lathe is on top of studs, and this building was built in 1890 and your best guess as to where the studs are is as good as mine. I test-drilled and test-drilled and test-drilled for forever before giving up and just going with Plan B: toggle anchors. These babies are big and strong and require HUGE pilot holes in the walls (barely covered up by the brackets themselves), which I know full well are going to necessitate some exciting repair work for the brave soul who takes these shelves down. Hopefully that person is not me.

Drilling all those big holes is messy, messy, messy. I should really stop using my vacuum as a ShopVac, I think the identity crisis is slowly killing it.

Once all of the brackets were up and the shelves were screwed in (using 1/2″ wood screws), I decided to paint all the screw heads with Rustoleum matte-black enamel, an oil-based paint that matches the spray paint I’d already done on the brackets. I just went along, row-by-row, and touched up all the heads with a little foam brush. Twice. All 128 of them.

Because Max isn’t really one to stain wood or operate power tools or worry about painting screw heads, his major contribution during all of this was to design and print some custom little bookplates to go inside all of our books. You can read way more about that over on his blog, but I think they turned out to be the super-cutest pragmatic insurance policy ever. This way, if his eye lingers, I will know exactly which of these many books to bring to the roof, set aflame, and piss all over the ashes. No, I don’t repeat these threats several times a day, how dare you?!

Back to the books. So many books. The shelves are spaced so the bottom shelf is nicely size for larger-format texts (like design books, etc.), and the upper shelves are well-sized for more standard sized books.

Now I just need to pretty-up that region between the bottom shelf and my desk. And get over the fact that I now think I should have hung the whole thing about 4 inches lower. And my ever-sneaking suspicion that our vintage teak nightstand shelves make the whole room a little too shelfy. Here I go. Shutting up now.

FRÄCK Hack

Posted: Aug 10 · Comments: 92

Even as a small child, I knew that the waiting room of my dentist’s office was due for a makeover, what with the slouchy green leather sofa placed below an enormously out of scale woven Mickey Mouse tapestry, mounted upon glossy beige walls. The carpeting was a black and white flecked shag number, laden with the smell of fluoride and drenched in children’s tears, stapled over enough carpet pads to give the illusion of walking on a pillowtop mattress. It was the sort of place one could tell was designed to make children comfortable, which only served to put me more on edge. After all, this was a house of medicine, not Discovery Zone, and I longed for it to be treated as such.

We had this ritual at the dentist, wherein we were afforded the opportunity to choose our fate by selecting one of two distinct treatment options: “the easy way, or the hard way.” The easy way was simple enough to understand: once perched on the avocado-green pleather exam chair, we were to remain calm and accept whatever form of torture was bestowed upon us, hoping we’d emerge alive but armed with the knowledge that if our deaths did come to pass, we’d at least go with our honor and dignity intact and be remembered for our good-nature and obedience. The hard way was significantly more mysterious—what would happen if we chose not to comply? Would they spank us? Would they not give us a lollipop at the end? These are big questions when you’ve only lived for half a decade, so I took it upon myself to give it a try at least once.

I committed to the act with admirable devotion, maniacally screaming my way into the exam room, mustering all my strength to wriggle free of my captives. Once forced into an exam chair, I rocked back and forth angrily, unclenching my tightly-wound jaw only to emit a series of high-pitched, tortured wails. This, before a doctor or glimmering, vibrating tool had even approached me. Eventually, I heard somebody give the command: “strap him down.” Catalyzing a renewed wave of rage, I howled in agony and kicked a nurse before all of my limbs, thighs, and torso had been tied down with the aid of rough velcro restraints. And that, my friends, is when they administered the electric shocks.

In reality, no pulses of electricity were sent to my brain, but I do remember lying there and wishing I could call the whole thing off. I was still crying, but now they were tears of shame and defeat, produced in a longing to undo the damage that had been wrought upon my reputation and ego. I had been a fool, and I longed for the easy way once more.

I think “the hard way” is generally how I approach most home-related tasks. While it’s usually a sticker-shock-induced bout of “well, I could just make that!,” the resulting effect is hours of work I could have spent doing other things—like my dishes, for instance—had I just had the good sense to purchase something pre-made. This is how I’ve come to regard all DIY projects.

So when I decided I really wanted some cute wall-mounted accordion-style bedside lights to go over the new floating teak shelves, I didn’t even hop on my Google machine to try to find some. I knew they’d be pricey, or ugly, or both, and the chances of finding matching vintage ones that wouldn’t cost a month’s rent seemed slim. Besides, I already had a plan. Or, well, an inkling of a plan.

Say hello to the classic IKEA FRÄCK bathroom mirror. We’ve all seen them. We’ve probably all used them. We might even have one, or several. They’re only $4.99, but they’re well-made and super handy for small spaces or a beauty regimen that is more advanced than mine.

That’s a pretty cute light, am I right?

I know I just talked ad nauseam about the virtues of the “hard way,” but actually making these lights was really, really easy. You just need a few simple parts, about 15 minutes, and less than $20.

1. IKEA FRÄCK mirror, with the mirror part thrown away (it just screws on and off of that threaded part at the top)
2. Lamp socket, the kind with a hole on the side for the cord to escape.
3. Adapter Nut
4. Plug
5. Wire. Any lamp wire will work, but since I generally have a phobia of exposed wires and this is, by definition, exposed, I ordered some cute twisted red cloth wire from Sundial Wire. It’s only $1.40 per foot, the shipping was really fast, it’s cute and really nice quality. I’m tempted to order the 250-foot spool, you know, just because. I’ll use it eventually.
6. Tools: flathead screwdriver, wire strippers.

If you’ve never rewired a lamp, just know that it’s basically the easiest thing ever and there are about 8 trillion tutorials on the internet on how to do it. As I am not anything approaching an electrician, I won’t bore you with my retelling and lack of proper terminology. Still, step 1: wire that socket. Any good lighting supply store and most hardware stores should have a good selection of sockets, make sure you get the kind that has a hole for the cord to escape through that’s NOT the bottom hole, since that’s what holds it onto the accordion part. After it’s wired, put the socket back together.

This is the most important piece, and also the tiniest: the adapter nut. At least I think that’s what it’s called. This is the piece that adapts the threaded part on the IKEA accordion base to the bottom of the light socket, so they can screw together tightly. I got mine by bringing the accordion to a lamps store and the employee immediately finding the right piece, so I assume most lamp/lighting/hardware places should have them.

After the adapter nut is screwed on tight, gather the cord in your hand and screw on your light socket.

After the socket is in place, thread the cord through the back of the FRÄCK hardware, between the wall plate and the supporting rod. I made those terms up. I only draw special attention to this because you’ll want to decide which side you want your loose cord to hang on—since these are for bedsides, I wanted the cords to hang on the outside of the accordion, so the cord is threaded in opposite directions on the two lamps. All of this will make sense if you’re actually doing it. My ability to form legible sentences is failing me.

Then, just wire the plug. Again, this is SO EASY (even if you’ve never done it). A monkey could do it.

Once it’s all put together, hang it up and you’re done! I chose to top ours with 25W chrome-tipped bulbs. They aren’t terribly bright, which is how I like a bedside light. All moody n’ shiz.

When they’re not in use, it’s nice to be able to just push them back towards the wall, where they’re completely unobtrusive. Also, having something wall-mounted instead of a traditional tabletop lamp frees up space on the nightstands, which are only about 8 inches deep. More room for books or glasses or mugs or your crystal balls or… I don’t know your life.

I’m super-duper happy with the little lights. All the virtue of having done something “the hard way” (think of the times you get to impress people with “oh yeah, I made those in my free time”!) and none of the actual effort ordinarily inherent in that choice. Which is the best sort of DIY, if you ask me.

Settling In

Posted: Jul 13 · Comments: 44

In the last month and a half, I have been to:

1. Las Vegas
2. Chicago
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Buffalo
5. Washington, D.C. (again)
6. Pittsburgh

Oh yeah, I also moved. As you well know. And I’ve also had an abnormally heavy stream of house guests. And I’m getting on another plane tomorrow.

It’s been busy times around here, folks, what with all the planes, trains, and automobiles. All of these little jaunts have been fun, really, but between them all getting this apartment in order has been slow-goings at best.

First, this place had to go through an extensive cleansing process—to say that it was dirty would really be doing my hard work a disservice. Think filth. Think grime. Think… this monstrosity lurking beneath the stove.

When time is tight and the days are short, you switch into survival mode. The goal becomes not one of beautification, but instead a strained task, geared towards minimizing your houseguests’ impression that you’re a squatter.

Which is all to explain that not much has been done here. And everything’s looking a little crappy. Every room is bursting at the seams. There is so much to be done that my head spins, and yet nary a paint brush has hit the walls. It’s kind of intimidating, but really just annoying that I’ve technically been here a month and things still look like this. Let’s do a run-down, shall we?

This is my hot mess of a bedroom. The desk is covered in miscellany, I hung up the Calder litho on an existing screw left in the wall, and the upholstery on my bed needs some repairs after it had to be taken apart in the move.

This is the sorry state of the bathroom. The walls are still lavender. The medicine cabinet is packed. I had to move two existing shelves from the bedroom into the bathroom to replace that tiny ledge. Trust, all this is temporary.

The kitchen. Oh, the poor kitchen. It’s packed to the gills and crying out for more storage. I haven’t been able to get the oven to work, the refrigerator leaks, something’s wrong with the window. And it’s still super fug.

The living room looks the most moderately-okay. Taking down those weird little shelves between the windows and the horrifically dusty venetian blinds went a long way towards making me feel better, but the red paint and the stacks of art and the half-assed vignetting are making me crazy.

The only thing I’ve really accomplished are these milk-crate bookshelves, which I think we can all agree is a good example of what happens when DIY goes awry.In the right space, executed well, I can actually see some version of this looking pretty good. Not here. A coffee shop around the corner gives these crates away for free, so in a fit of omg-what-do-I-do-with-all-these-books, I grabbed nine of them (including the three in the kitchen) …

…and drilled some holes around the edges and stitched them together with kitchen twine.

Yeah, they’re glamorous. No, they’re not staying any longer than they have to.

I know I’m a whining, complaining disaster, but I’m actually loving living here—when I’ve actually been here. The neighborhood is great and the apartment has so much potential. I can’t wait to really get going.

For those of you wondering, I got my security deposit from my old apartment yesterday. They knocked off $100. I’m okay with that. 

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