Good Acoustics

If you couldn't tell by the title, my apartment is going to be empty for a while. Personally, I'm not in any rush to fill my apartment with furniture. That would probably be more in my mom's nature, but really, I want good comfortable pieces and I'm willing to wait for them. On the bright side, music easily fills my living room. Right now I have one comfortable argyle chair with varying gradations of brown. Since I don't have much money at the moment, I have to assess the pieces I want and be scrupulous with my money. My general criteria has to be met in the following order:

1. Looks good
2. Comfortable
3. Affordable

I'm not willing to just take the best two out of three, so understandably, my apartment will be empty for a while. My boyfriend Frederick, with his lusciously practical mind, generally tries to remind me of all the things I could do with the money I intend to spend on furniture. I do need a new computer, and a new mattress. He also related the point that furniture shouldn't be what makes me happy and I agree with him. What would make me happy is to be able to relate my style to people and have it emanate in my environment. I want my apartment to be a place I look forward to coming home to rather than just a large storage closet that I sleep in. That said, I think the hard part is over with. After scavenging many vintage thrift stores and furniture stores, Star furniture seems to be my jackpot (www.starfurniture.com). The sales consultant there was able to help me develop ways of relating what I wanted. I'm a big fan of clean lines, which means straight - no rounded arms. It's a slightly more modern look despite the fact it was developed in the 1950s. In addition to that, I'm a fan of tufting. Right now I'm in the market for a lounge chair and a sofa.

For the sofa, my number one preference after comfort is contemporary high arms:

Its not very easy to find, or acquire cheaply. This couch is from Anthropologie and I've sat on it in the store. It's very comfortable and made of linen. This couch is probably the epitome of my preference for clean lines.

It appears the key to nailing this style is the high arms being thin and the legs being simple.

To the right is another version of this high arm couch, it is slightly thicker and it has more cushions. This could work as a compromise, but the Anthropologie couch carries the style better.

It would be unwise for me to limit my sofa selections to expensive, rare styles, so here are a few more I'd make exceptions for:

This one has lower arms, but notice the straight line appeal. The back is tufted and I'm kind of fond of the butterscotch color.
This couch pretty much is low on the straight clean line appeal. I liked the degree of tufting. I could even live with the rounded arms because of how I like the tufting.

I have this general tendency to associate tufting with comfort, which has been the case in my experience. With the sofa, I'm looking to get it in a blue, gray, or yellow. No patterns. I'm looking for longevity in my pieces. Fred wonders why I'd look for longevity when I'd just want something new and different. New and different isn't the case with furniture. For one thing, it's expensive. I don't want to spend a fraction of the money I'd spend on a couch I'd like on a cruddy piece that will just make do for the while. I don't see much of a point in that. This is furniture I'd want to travel with me. Truthfully, I'm not to big on change when it comes to my environment. I've been listening to the same music since 6th grade. Same friends since I was 4. I'm not very adaptable to change.

When it comes to lounge chairs, I haven't quite found a picture of the perfect one online even but this one comes close:

It's the Corrigan chair from Anthropologie. You've probably guessed, I sat in this one at the store too. It has a low, spacious seat and a rounded head. I would prefer it in brown and I think I have seen brown versions of this chair at Barnes and Noble bookstore in the reading sections - obviously not for sale.

It's good to scope out and determine what you like, but I view comfort as of the utmost importance. I'm not about to overpay for a good looking chair I don't want to sit in. That's why I think it's important for me to sample the furniture at show rooms. Comfort makes me apprehensive about ordering furniture online. Consequently, I wouldn't mind ordering anything online that I won't be sitting on:
...like this awesome mid-century modern coffee table. Since I'm looking for longevity in my furniture now, I'm coming to appreciate a solid wood construction and mid century Danish furniture (hard like a rock, and the tables don't shake).

Ooooh Apartment

This is the first time in my life that I've had my own place. With that comes a few extra...extras. For instance, I've always had a roommate that brought the majority of the living room furniture. Great, I get to pick my own now, but a sofa is not exactly cheap. For now, I have a virtually bare living room. Since my place is now MY place, I don't feel the need to be courteous to anyone so it's been almost two weeks but it still looks like I just moved in the place, boxes and stuff still packed everywhere.

Decorating is expensive. At the same time, I feel as though if I had the money for everything I wanted, my decor may be in bad taste.

I feel like decorating is going to be a slow process just because I have the opportunity to get things just the way I want them. I still haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Sisterly Love

I remember one time that my sister was in town a couple of months ago, we were walking towards Whole Foods in mildly wet conditions. My sister could sense her impending fall, and I kept telling her that if she knew it was coming, she should do something about it. She fell. I helped her up and told her:

See, you don't love yourself enough to get sandals with better traction.

Decorating?

It's been so long since I've had time to blog that, guess what? I'm moving again! It'll be nice to start the summer off my shopping for furniture and getting settled in my new apartment. This will be the first time I get to live by myself. Before I use to be wary of living by myself, but now, I'll be one semester from graduating and I think the change will be good. I get to have everything my way.

I'm curious how I'm going to approach decorating my new apartment. I kind of have to watch my spending. I've been getting into flower arranging, but that's a bit of an expensive habit. I only do it when I feel really stressed, or when I have flowers. The first arrangement is one that I came up with after I had some roses left over from this lesson I made on the chemistry of perfume. I bought some extra flowers that were on sale and made the arrangement which I think is nice by itself, but it started molding fast :\

The second arrangement was made around February when Frederick got me a bouquet for Valentines Day. It did not mold as fast and it lasted longer. I'd like to have fresh flowers on a regular basis, but they're so expensive. I may resort to potted plants since I'm going to have a balcony and ample sunlight. While I should be thinking about finals and final projects, it's much more fun to think about decorating my new place. I'm still trying to flesh out what kind of feel I'm going for. I'm going to try, as much as possible, not to get my furniture at Ikea. I have nothing against Ikea, I just want to try vintage stores out first. Something a little more funky