My torturous slog towards a beautiful, functional craft room continues! The last major breakthrough in that ongoing project was finishing the striped painted floor of my attic. I accomplished that before moving into my house, but then turned my energies towards renovating my bedroom. Now that that's (80%) finished, I turned my attention once more to the attic. Although there's still a lot more I need/want to do, the majority of the 'heavy lifting' is now done, and my scattered nonsense is starting to coalesce into a functional workspace. 

The floors were the first upgrade I managed to accomplish in the attic, and so naturally the next thing to tackle was the walls! Like almost every other vertical surface in my home, the attic walls were aggressively and gratuitously textured by the previous residents, a pockmarked look I found unappealing. 

Because the texturizing wasn't done particularly well, or with any sense of restraint, it was necessary for me to (once again) borrow a heavy-duty belt sander from my local tool lending library to file down some of the more extreme protrusions. As with the bedroom, it was a very unique workout, lifting a 25 lb. belt sander above my head for several hours- made even more complex by the fact that my attic walls pitch in at an angle about three feet from the floor. Because of the pitched ceilings, and the cramped area of the attic, there were a lot of strange little pockets and junctures where the belt sander wouldn't fit, and that's where I occasionally used a chisel and hammer to get things relatively smooth. 

Once I'd finished sanding off the largest protrusions, I wiped off the excess dust with a damp cloth and a tack cloth, then put down a layer of primer. As I did in the bedroom (and likely will in many more rooms in my house), I applied a skim coat to the primed wall to fill in some of the 'valleys' left by the texturized paint. Once the skim coat dried, I sanded it smooth, wiped it down once again with a damp cloth, and applied another coat of primer. I repeated this process once more for a second, smoother skim coat, then cleaned and primed the walls for paint. 

I wanted a color that would be bright and cheerful, and compliment my many-hued floors, but without overwhelming the small space or any future projects on which I'll be working in that space. The original palette for my floor stripes had included a burnt orange as well as a buttery pale yellow, so I called back the yellow. I painted a few swatches of 'Lily' and 'Lemon Chiffon' in strategic locations to see how various iterations of sunlight and artificial light would affect the colors, and ultimately settled on Lemon Chiffon.

This is, of course, the fun part! I put down two beautiful layers of Lemon Chiffon and the room immediately began to feel more inspired, vibrant, and welcoming. Because I plan on adhering cork tiles to the ceiling for further storage (and also to keep me from bonking my clumsy head on plaster), I only painted vertical wall surfaces, leaving the pitched and horizontal surfaces primed. 

My baseboards, like the windowsills, railings, and all the other wood trim in the attic, were plain, unpainted, dark wood. They were incongruous at best with the painted floors and positively hideous with my new Lemon Chiffon walls. Because everything else is already so bright, I wanted to keep the small space feeling relatively airy. I played it safe by painting both the baseboards and the windowsill the same off-white with just a whisper of pink (Sherwin Williams calls it 'Marshmallow') as my floors. 

My baseboards were sequentially numbered (thank goodness I had the presence of mind to do that!) and stashed around my house. I lugged them all up to the attic and went to fetch the sawhorses my dad "loaned" me ages ago from my backyard. A cranny in one of the sawhorses had become resident to one of the most terrifying things I'd ever seen- you know how the xenomorphs in Alien take on the shape of whatever organism the facehugger impregnates? This was a straight-up alien-spider hybrid. Naturally I did the mature and adult thing and made do with one sawhorse.

With the baseboards primed and painted several time over, I was ready to put them back in their original places. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the walls had been re-shaped, some of them wouldn't fit without a fight. I went back to my local tool lending library and borrowed a rasp to file down the edges until they could slot together again. With the baseboards nailed back in place, I took the opportunity to remove the grate from one of the attic windows (a fire hazard) and paint the window trim as well. Finally, I returned the switch plates to the wall, and a beautiful room began to emerge in one little corner of my attic.

Now that walls and floors are painted and dry, I can finally start to shift things around in my attic with an eye towards their permanent resting places. After shuttling boxes that I packed two years ago downstairs, upstairs, and between segments of the attic indefinitely, this day has never been more welcome!

Storage in my attic is definitely going to be a challenge- although the square footage itself isn't too terribly small, the pitched ceilings severely limit my shelving and furniture options. Of course, the upside to that is that there is a significant amount of floor space that I'm already unable to walk on due to the angle of the ceilings, so using that floor space for storage doesn't really affect the flow of foot traffic through the room. 

As someone remodeling her home on single working lady's budget, I know that the best way to get Ikea furniture is to go on Craigslist and find it for half price. As you can see, I got a jump start on my collection of shelves, and more patient trawling though Craigslist ads will eventually yield a fully-furnished attic at a fraction of the price. 

I also placed what is known as "Pepper's chair" back in its permanent home. I had originally trashpicked it from my previous neighborhood as a stopgap measure before I had saved up to buy a couch, only to find when I finally had the money for one that Pepper had claimed the chair as her own and I couldn't get rid of it. I plan to eventually get a lamp for that little nook, and, if possible, a skinny wee side table, perfect for placing hot toddies upon while reading a true crime book on a winter night.

Once I find enough bookshelves and get my boxes unpacked and organized, I'm going to start looking into options for putting cork on the ceilings, for storage and decoration. Before the cork goes up, though, I am going to have to hire an electrician to add more lights throughout the attic. I need to paint the railings and re-install the hand rail in the staircase. In what will be a significant undertaking, I'm going to assist my dad as he builds a custom drafting table which will fold out over the staircase, and fold back up and latch to the wall when not in use. And finally, when that's all done, I'll paint the stairs to match the floor in the rest of the attic.

Then, and only then, will I have run out of excuses not to be making fabulous things 24/7. As for now, I'm going to take a hard-earned break, perhaps fixing up my house by simply pulling weeds while sipping a beer in the summer sun.

It's been a busy couple of months for me! I was invited to help a friend test recipes for an upcoming cookbook, which was a tasty distraction throughout the holidays. Then I had to get majorly hardcore to work on finishing up the renovation of my bedroom, something that has been slowly dragging on since I moved in last August. 

And now, I'm finally done (ish)! 

Oh, and by the way? Some of these are shitty Instagrams because that's how I roll and I didn't even have a nice iPhone with a half-decent camera until recently. As dogs with sunglasses say... deal with it!!!

When I bought my house, the bedroom's crowning glory, and the first thing to violently punish your retinas, was a smurf-colored wall-to-wall carpet. The mirrored sliding closet doors were in nice shape and exactly like those in my parents' bedroom, which of course made me want to get rid of them immediately. The walls, in the bedroom as well as in 75% of the rest of the house, were liberally and enthusiastically slathered with white textured paint. Because why not look at your wall and say, "I want to be reminded of the grotesque Woman in the Radiator from Eraserhead every time I open my eyes"? The kickboard was a painted a blah beige, a hue I call "let's-get-the-house-on-the-market-ecru." The window frame, doorframe, and door (including hinges!) were covered in approximately 247 layers of paint, crowned lumpily by the offensively unoffensive beige. The curtains were crinkly synthetic that looked like they were maybe from a dollar store and clearly conveyed the spirit of being legally obligated to provide window coverings to the buyer. 

The first thing I did, and I mean the very first thing I did once escrow closed and I had the keys in my grubby little paws, was go in there and rip up the smurf pelt. It was primal and immensely satisfying to tug and feel the pop-pop-pop of tacks giving way. Less satisfying was crawling around later, painstakingly wheedling staples out of the wooden floor with a flathead screwdriver. The good news was that there was a wooden floor! And it was in semi-decent, if neglected, shape. At this point, I called in a pro, and after four days of sanding, filling, staining, and lacquering, the wood was restored to a glossy, rosy floor that was a pleasure to walk on barefoot.

Sadly, the beautiful new floor was immediately covered up with tarps- because then the real shit show began. I tackled my walls' acne scars with fervor and a belt sander from my local tool library. The belt sander weighs around 25 pounds and the texturizing was on the ceiling as well as all the way up the walls. So, that was a lot of fun. By the time we got to the closets, I said "fuck it! My clothes will cover it up anyway!"

With the majority of the texture now sanded flat, I cleaned the walls of all dust and grit with tack cloth, put down a layer of primer, and got to work filling the divots and dents with joint compound. Then another round of sanding, this time by hand with 60 grit, another go-over with tack cloth to remove dust, and another coat of primer. Then more joint compound! Then more sanding, this time with 80 grit! Then three more layers of primer! And I'm finally ready to paint! 

The painstaking work of de-texturizing my walls was made significantly less horrible thanks to the tireless assistance provided by my dad, who spent many weekends driving between my house and his to help with my labor of love. Dads are the best, right?

I painted three walls, the closet, and the ceiling in a matte-finish slate grey paint. On the three walls, I painted 4" diagonal stripes of the same paint in a satin gloss-finish with painter's tape guidelines. I learned a hard, hard lesson by using sub-par painter's tape, which, upon removal, took sizeable chunks of the fresh matte paint with it. A round of vigorous cursing ensued, followed by a further round of sanding, filling, sanding, and priming before attempting it again with better quality tape (I recommend Frog Tape for delicate surfaces). Trim and the door was painted in a barely-there ice blue (yeah, haven't gotten around to the window yet).

The fourth wall was reserved for a sumptuous wallpaper from Brooklyn-based Flavor Paper. This pattern is called Elysian Fields and features bats and venus flytraps instead of the dainty birds and roses found in traditional floral prints. This colorway, Licorice, is hand-screened matte black ink on high-gloss black polyester. This paper is as expensive as it is gorgeous, so I chose once again to go pro and hired someone through the National Guild of Professional Paperhangers (yes, that is a real thing) to worry about matched seams and pattern repeats on my behalf.

With the frames and door scraped down to their beautiful, but vulnerably soft, original redwood, I sanded away imperfections, filled in years of wear and tear with wood putty, primed, and painted anew in a barely-there ice blue. The kickboards got a nice coating as well. Using an electric drill with a wire brush attachment, the hinges and original doorknob were restored to a coppery glow. The hinges got a liberal dose of silicone lubricant to make them whisper-quiet and the door was re-hung.

It's not entirely done- a new decoration scheme of course calls for a new quilt on the bed, and that will take quite some time (especially as my sewing room has yet to be renovated or set up). I need to figure out some sort of closet door situation, and I have further plans to organize and display my wardrobe (and slowly let it get totally out of control). And a teeny tiny part of me kind of wants a chandelier!

But that's part of what makes a house a home, right? It's never done!

No, not Crapmas, although one unnamed retailer began running ads with a Gingerbread man in September this year (seriously: fuck you guys). Rather, my favorite American holiday, one to be celebrated with the frantic accumulation of cheap consumer goods, is not Christmas, Black Friday, or even one of those "let's honor the sacrifices of our veterans with a bitchin half-off sale" Memorial Day shindigs.

October is my second-favorite time to shop for clothes, housewares, and makeup. My absolutely favorite time to shop for all these things is All Saints Day- aka the day after Halloween, when all that awesome crap is 50% off! Hey-oh! It's not all crappy plastic fake bones and rubber bats, though. You can get some fun stuff that you can use year-round that doesn't necessarily scream "HALLOWEEN BLOOD PUMPKINS!" and isn't super chintzy. 

Here are some of my favorite scores from years past, as well as the best of this year's finds so far! Naturally, these Halloween finds are used and enjoyed year-round in my household:

Do you love it? I love it! I got it at Ross! These three nesting bowls are really nice and have a repeat skull print on them. And yes, I got them at Ross.

Look at these sparkly skull votives! They look classy and sophisticated because they are. These are straight-up Pottery Barn, y'all. Nicer stuff that upper-middle class folks buy at full price to complete their DIY Martha Stewart tableaux. I bought these at the Pottery Barn in The Castro the day after the 2008 election. It was an emotional time- we had just elected our first Black president, but Californians had also made same-sex marriage "illegal."* I found comfort in the simple things, like insane discount clearances of nice housewares with bones on them. In addition to these votives, I also picked up a lovely set of glossy black salad dishes with various animal skeletons printed on the underside with silver, but I think maybe my ex ended up with those in the split. It's okay, we're still friendly-- so I can stop by some day to hang out and then steal them back when he goes to the bathroom.

*How'd that work out for you, bigots?

There may be a bit of zombie overload in popular culture today, but as long as that results in zombie garden gnomes available for purchase, I'm okay with that. I got this little guy (suggestions for names? I'll take them) recently at a Spirit Halloween store. You know, the roaming seasonal stores that, for a brief two months, revive all the vacant retail spots that are likely proliferating in your local American city. This dude was was with a bevy of other zombified gnomes (and one zombie lawn jockey), but they're all pretty pricey, so I may have to go back for his friends in November. I actually think this is a bit too scary to put out front where the little Trick-Or-Treaters can see it, but it's definitely going to be a year-round fixture in my back garden (once I get it going).

Lately I've taken to saying (in reference to Spirit) "what the fuck is Halloween? This is my favorite new clothing store!" It's my corny schtick, for now- once November hits, I'm going to move on to addressing any and all females (including cats and babies) as "girlfriend." Anyhoo, these skeleton leggings are not only going to be happily worn year-round by me, they're also the most slimming pair of leggings I own!

Seriously. There are Adventure Time knee socks with Finn and Jake and I'm expected to only wear them one day out of the year? I love the Jake sock- he's saying "I'm a sock!" I like to look down at my calves, chuckle, and say "you sure are, buddy!" Also check out these sexy metal/goth chick cross tights! Oh, sorry-- I meant 'sassy.' Sassy is the new sexy. 

One of the best parts of Halloween is all the fancy lady stuff you get to buy! Like extra gory nail stickers. I got these two packages at Walgreen's this year. Spiderwebs with a blingy dewdrop and a golden spider, and vampiric stickers that alternate between dripping blood, splattered blood, and sexy red lips with jutting fangs. I've heard of vagina dentata, but digital dentata is just craziness. Halloween is also a good time to source and stock up on glow-in-the-dark nail polish!

My friend Katie alerted me to the fact that every year Wet-n-Wild puts out a line of Halloween makeup called "Fantasy Makers." Wet-n-Wild does not do any animal testing, so any of their products which contain no animal products are vegan. I spent a while in the aisle of my local Walgreen's trying to read the erratic ingredients printed on shrink-wrapped plastic, but I'm pretty confident that I came away with a few good vegan items.

The mascara was way more subtle than I had expected it to be. I like the green, even if I think it could be punched up a bit more, but the pink was hardly there and if anything had the effect of making my eyelashes disappear. There was also blue but I didn't buy it. The eyeshadow palette ("meteor shower") is the only one in this year's line that I am pretty sure is vegan. The ingredients have one of those "May contain" caveats which lists cochineal, but as this palette was the only one without any pinks, reds, or purples, I figured it was safe. 

Overall, like the mascara, the eyeshadow and the eyeliner (in "techno," ha) were decidedly underwhelming. When I gave it a go I didn't look like I was ready to hit Carnivale so much as I was recovering from a glittery black eye. So I used a little more to make it more realistic- this may end up being my Halloween costume: Sassy Glamorous Faerie Prizefighter. 

Happy Shopping, and Happy Haunting!

This will come as a surprise to absolutely no one who knows me, but I am kicking MoFo off with a blog entry on food inspired by David Lynch's noir soap opera, Twin Peaks. Which is to say, I'm writing about pie and coffee, because there is no other food or drink in the town of Twin Peaks (aside from donuts).

I recently moved into a new home and am faced with the exciting, if daunting, task of decorating. There's always been an artistic appeal to the Black Lodge, where evil doppelgangers roam zig-zagged hallways and slip between crimson velvet curtains. I decided to update the look a little by swapping out the red for a fuchsia sash on my zig-zag curtains, and I'll be getting a bold pink couch to complete the look (just as soon as Ikea has it back in stock)!

So I let Twin Peaks inspire my living room, which in turn inspired my pie: raspberry! I used the raspberry pie recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Vegan Pie in the Sky. Let me tell you, those ladies know a thing or two about proper vegan eats. My new kitchen is about twice the size as my last one, so making  pie seemed like a luxurious project to lord over all my new-found counter space.

Now, like any good fan, I know that cherry pie is more emblematic of Twin Peaks than raspberry, but I think the Black Lodge-style crust ties it back in nicely. Besides, everyone knows the doppelganger of cherry is raspberry. EVERYONE. The pie was delicious and I had to invite friends over to help me finish it lest I eat it all myself. Because I totally could, and maybe I will next time. Don't judge me!

Here are some more photos, and a chance for me to show off some of my fine collection of memorabilia. The Double-R mug was a reproduction made for an art show last year in England and the matches come from Twede's Cafe in Snoqualmie, Washington, the site made famous for being the Double-R's exterior in the series. The recorder just kills me because it is an MP3 recorder- and I really do have a mini cassette recorder (two, in fact) just like Cooper's. Naturally, it is somewhere in one of the two dozen boxes I have not yet unpacked, and I have no idea which one. So, purists, sorry. I'M SORRY. Alright, enough with the yakkity: