Busy Work

I despise apartment living. Hate it. It's so cookie cutter and you cannot do anything to it to make it more you and less blah. You can only throw so many accessories and art around to make something unique to you. One of my few healthy expressions is drinking baking so I can eat the batter eating take-out trimming my own bangs accessorizing and re-accessorizing my apartment.

My mother bought me a white iron bed when I moved into my first apartment in 1999. I love it. I have dreams of putting giving it to my baby girl. Corey Daniel Allbritton hates it because it's white and iron and he says he does not have anything to lean his head against, which is fine because we really need a king size bed. So when Corey comes home and we buy a house, we're buying a king size bed. I like iron and he wants something he can lean against, so we compromised on an upholstered headboard. When I showed Cydney Wilson all that we had picked out for our future bed ensemble, she got an idea.

Baby Sister has, for her whole entire life, wanted my things. I put 100% of the blame in my not liking people in my house because people touch my things on her constant childhood need to ask to have everything that belonged to me. This is less constant and less annoying 23 years later, so when she asked if she could swap her queen-sized upholstered headboard for my queen-sized iron bed, since we're getting a new bed anyway, I said sure. There are two stipulations: she has to return my bed to me when I have a baby and I was not lifting a finger to swap out the beds.

Enter Justin Devore, Boyfriend Extraordinaire, who came and swapped the beds. I bought some black cotton duck from the Hobby Lobby and took it to the embroidery lady down the street from my apartment and reupholstered Cydney's headboard into this chic (I never use that word) magazine-worthy display you see here:

Corey loves this bed. He's only seen this one photo, but he declared it to be "his favorite bed of all time."

On a recent pilgrimage to the great state of Arkansas to eat, drink entirely too much for my advanced age and be annoyingly merry with Emily Williams, I purchased this console table that I am currently using as a TV perch. (This is the third console table I've had this year. The first was a bulky thing from World Market that my husband brought with him when he moved in, and I gave it to Baby Sister, who has a great big bulky TV in need of a great big bulky something to sit it atop of. The second was a trim, thin coffee table with a shelf that I got from Pier 1. That is resting comfortably in the third bedroom, or furniture waiting area, with several other pieces that I like and fear the need for in a future house, meaning it currently has no use but I cannot get rid of it. I have space in a storage building for the same purpose.)

Murphy felt that it's been too long since he was on the blog, and since he cannot sit still for photos, he makes the camera blurry when he's in pictures.

This is a buffet that I inherited from my godmother, Aunt Soupie. I love the piece but the finish isn't really me. I still intend to paint it black. but I don't want to do something irreversible to it until I know what its primary function in a house will be. Foyer? Dining room? I just mess with it all the time trying to get it to look right. Balanced. Interesting.

The mirror has to go. The lamp I just got on the same trip to Arkansas. I keep reading where you are supposed to have things that are living in rooms, so those are some hydrangeas and some coral on top of the stack of books. This is the closest I've come to being happy with this, but it's not over.

A couple months ago I was scouring online antique listings and local shops for a pedestal table and a secretary. The secretary project I was able to talk myself down from, but we should fully expect it to return with a vengeance once I get a house. The Hunt for the Pedestal Table continued and spread into other states. Imagine my delight, when during the same trip to Arkansas, Emily and I stumbled upon The Pefect Pedestal Table in an antique and gift shop near her house and she bought it for me for my 30th birthday!

Lookie! Miss Lily!

Me loves. This is my favorite thing in my house to stand and look at. And I rarely sat in that chair before, but now it's my preferred seating area in the living room. I've given up the couch to the boys and the dog.

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