Tag Archives: oh… this house

who lets me have a credit card?

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IDIOTS, THAT’S WHO!

i sold my couch, so i figured i could dip into my bootcamp savings to buy a few household things to tide me over until i get my new sectional. i can use some of the couch money to pay for my bootcamp, and then use some of my paycheque to add to the couch fund.

check it out, i’m doing math!

i often check the SALE section in online stores because then i feel less awful about the terrible decisions i’m making.

on with it.

i painted our living room a deep mocha/brown colour, and it’s GORGEOUS. the main colours in that room are brown, black, and white… WOAH, I AM SO WILD!

the couch we’re likely getting is a light sandy brown, and all the furniture in there is black, clean-lined ikea stuff. the accessories are all different- a white rice paper floorlamp, also from ikea, my white & black tegan & sarah poster from their show in 2007, a hand-carved elvis portrait in natural wood and painted black wood- you know, whatever!

the window in the living room is AMAZING, and i never really wanted to cover it at all, but i figure one curtain panel (pulled open to the side) would still showcase the amazing details, let in some light, and add a bold pop of … boldness?

so i bought this:

the floors in the house are old hardwood, and although it’s awesome to have floors original to the home, the ARE a little bit rough- covered in paint splatters or scuff marks here and there.

we’ve decided to use the steamer trunk as a coffee table (which doubles as storage for ALL of our linens! … towels, sheets, washcloths, etc). perfect for space-saving and extra storage we DON’T have.

but then i was all… well… i need some sort of rug to go under the steamer trunk that kind of ties in all the colours of the room- not one that MATCHES 100% (because that’s boring), but one that GOES with the room. and it couldn’t be one solid colour because stains and pet hair would be way too obvious (lesson learned in previous houses)

this is me being logical.

(are you buying it yet?)

so i stumbled upon this little bad boy:

and oh my gosh, i really love it.

the living room is the one room in the house i’m DYING to finish and show all of you- mostly because of the whole couch fiasco, and also because it’s one of the nicest rooms in the house! it’s small, but it’s cozy and has loads of character, and i think the things we’re putting in the room will really make it stand out. it’ll have such a comfortable, relaxing feel to it- and it ties in perfectly with our kitchen.

can you tell i’m beaming right now? we are SO close to the finish line and i’m just paralyzed with how excited i am.

thanks for your patience- and you can look forward to some picture posts (before & after) next week!

happy weekend, babies.

xx

- e

a REAL progress report (not just me swearing at everything, sort of)

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remember that time i said i was getting a kitchen window put in?

i lied.

i live in a really old house, so when things like windows break, they have to be measured and custom ordered to replace them. custom orders take a few weeks, and then to actually get irresponsibile fuck-head contracters in takes, um, forever. there was a little rain a few weeks back, so they were a whole five hours late. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE AN IDIOT. dan had to head off to work, and i don’t really like strangers in my house when i’m not home, so i turned them away. fine- my fault, but still. when we finally got another appointment (a week later), they were an hour late, and then told us the window was too large.

shouldn’t you know basic math if your job requires you to MEASURE things and then FIT THEM INSIDE of other things? i don’t know, it just seems appropriate.

and so now, we wait. another few weeks for the window to be ordered, and then however long it takes the guys to get to our house to actually replace it.

i have zero sunlight in my kitchen, a cardboard box for a window, and no freaking idea what the hell my backyard looks like. it’s really bumming me out.

in other news, though…

I SOLD MY COUCH.

that’s right- it’ll be out of the apartment on sunday, and i’ll have a new couch by april sometime.

tonight, the rest of the apartment is being painted and unpacked, and then all that will be left is the window and couch. that’s PRETTY exciting. it also means we can hang the rest of our paintings and posters on the walls in the living room and hallway, and clear out the leftover boxes that were cluttering up the living room- which has essentially just been a dumping ground, lately.

not to mention, on saturday morning, our new stove will be delivered! i’m most excited about this, because we asked for a smaller one, so we could fit our washer & dryer next to it. then we won’t have to worry about the dryer being an eye-sore in the living room or trying to force it into our hallway closet.

things will really be starting to come together after this weekend, and i couldn’t be more excited to just sit back and ENJOY this godforsaken apartment. (ps: i love you, apartment! i’m just cranky!)

this weekend i’m also signing up for eight weeks of bootcamp! you know what that means? i can wear bathing suits and dresses all summer without slitting my very own wrists. i’m not fat, internet. but i have my mother’s genes, i’m shaped like a pear, and i drink A LOT of beer. i could lose fifteen pounds, tone up a little bit, and be really excited about not feeling like the human blob.

i’m trying not to be unrealistic. i never wanted to be skinny- i love being curvy, and feeling like a woman… i just want my confidence back.

what are my goals? i want to have more energy, and be more willing to leave my house and enjoy the spring when i get home. i want to cook healthier foods again, and not worry what every single human is thinking when i take my pants off at the beach. mostly? i have this really adorable pair of blue high-waisted jeans. i can’t button them, and my thighs are a little too thick for them, so my main goal is to fit into those comfortably. to be honest, i never wear jeans or any pants comfortably unless they’re high waisted- mostly because of my shape and the fact that jeans have just never been my friend.

so there are my insecurities and bleeeergh, i hate talking about that kind of shit, but whatever. i figure if i put it out there, i could really force myself to make the effort and then i can share my results with all of you.

aka nudes.

not really, but yeah, alright, maybe.

wish me luck!

xx

progress report the, uh, third?

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a lot got done in the mancave last night!

essentially all that’s left to do is get a couch and a wardrobe for all my clothes… other than that? DONE. i promise i’ll have real pictures when i do before and after shots, but in the meantime this is a super late, super dim picture of what was done lat night:

i set up my sewing area… hung up some pictures of me with my favourite montrealers, and set up my machine on a little black table… i used to have a pretty wonderful sewing table, but i sold it when i moved. all of my sewing stuff and fabric is in a box in one of the cubbies in my expedit bookshelf in the bedroom. HIDDEN! just the way i like it.

secondly, we mounted dan’s milkcrates onto the wall to use as bookshelves, or in this case tape shelves. secondly, we mounted the DVD shelves to store all our movies, tv series, and dan’s video games. i also hung the pippen jersey i got dan for christmas last year. also, that yellow car? LOVE. it used to belong to some old friends and i’ve brought it to just about every single apartment i’ve lived in. i just can’t part with it. and on the wall next to the curtains is a picture of dan and i in our halloween costumes last year, and a few (less naked pictures) of the shots julie took of me for valentine’s day.

it’s not much, but to be fair, the mancave looked like this not a week ago:

now, the kitchen is yet to be painted, but i still managed to make a cute little curtain for the pantry. the colours of the kitchen will be mocha, red, and black mostly… so the fabric i chose is a nice cream colour with hints of black and red. it’s totally shanty and crooked, but whatever! i did it super quick and you can’t even tell that i didn’t measure or pin it.

and our kitchen window is being installed TOMORROW! holy shit ya’ll, WINDOW PANES. frig, yes.

and also, i piled all of the garbage bags and empty boxes in the hallway next to the door so tall you can’t even walk by. do you think dan will take a hint and take it out today on his day off?! i’m a passive-aggressive jerk-off like that, okay? it’s how i get things done!

dan is super lucky to be in love with an asshole.

AMIRIGHT?!

want, need, must have

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… i’ve got my eye on you, motherfucker.

now all of you, pray to the internet lords that someone in this here city will buy my (new) old couch so i can afford this one. i really miss sitting in my undernothings watching criminal minds somewhere that ISN’T my boudoir. and for serious, if dan catches me eating dinner in bed one more time, i think he actually might disown me.

wherein i am a douchebag

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“so, how’s the new place coming along?”

*eye twitch*

ask me one more mother flipping time how the new apartment is coming along, even though you totally know i don’t have any mother flipping furniture to sit on, and no, watching HBO on demand for hours on end in a lawn chair doesn’t count as mother flipping furniture.

i get it- it’s the polite thing to ask when people move. but people, neither of my living rooms have couches, half of our belongings are still in boxes, i can’t hang up or put any of my clothes away until i get paid on the 12th and spend all my money on a large armoire, our kitchen window won’t be installed until the end of the week, i won’t have new kitchen cabinets until the end of the month, i haven’t even painted the hallway or kitchen yet, and i am up to my eyelids in laundry.

frick.

the only rooms that make sense right now are the bedroom and bathroom- and thank goodness for that because i would be about ready to pack up and leave if i had to sleep on the floor or shit in a bucket at this point. and even still, dan was showering when one of the knobs on the faucet flew off, hit him in the leg, and wouldn’t screw back on. lucky for us, my landlord was around the corner because he’d just dropped me off after our visit to home depot, but for the love of christ. our kitchen window is a fucking cardboard box (barely) holding on with painters’ tape.

it has been the slowest moving process of my entire existence, and that’s sad considering i’ve moved nine times in the last five years. i am getting chest pains every time i think of all the work left to do. i’m heartbroken to be selling the one piece of furniture i am so completely in love with because it won’t fit through the front freaking door. and i can’t even get a new couch until i sell this one, because i need the money for it considering i’m a broke ass.

sigh.

i’ve had the opportunity to get more work done two or three times this week, but i’m sick of humans and strangers being in my house. the landlord, the contractors, the cable guy, the internet guy… i appreciate the help my family and friends have been offering but i am so sick of wearing pants. and i am so over all the blisters from building shit and painting all the time. and i just want things to be finished.

and yes, this is me whining like a four-year-old because i didn’t fucking sign up for this bullshit (well, sort of. to a certain extent).

/end rant.

moose and i had to be up early saturday morning for the cable guy, so we just cuddled and watched some tv together

and i am only posting this because i actually spend every waking moment talking to jessi… she is my long distance lover, and i actually talk to her more than any other human in the universe. more than my actual local friends. and we send each other stupid pictures constantly, and this was no exception… she wanted a picture of my outfit before i left the house saturday night, but first i sent her this with the caption “wtf, every pair of tights i own has some pretty questional holes!”

…case in point

my good friend julie is leaving for BC forever :( … on saturday we got to have a nice girlie dinner with some friends and then head back to her place for some drinks. here’s julie being silly!

on sunday dan and i spent literally the entire day in bed together, it was perfect, and it was nice to soak it all in FOR ONCE! we didn’t get out of bed until 4pm!

my handsome babies

i don’t know if this is too dark for you to see, but moose is passed the fuck out! and i am watching the crazies on tmn… perfect sunday night while dan was at band practice.

i’ll check back when i’m less wrist-slitty.

send love, please :(

xx

i have nothing to sit on and i want to cry

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oh, please! i just moved… as if this was going to be a positive post.

but for seriously. the move went 99% perfectly. we had a few beers with them at 10am and one of them even looked like ice T… like, it was uncanny. and he told me i was “fit”. it was pretty awesome. they even had matching pony tails. my life is basically a law & order SVU episode.

anyway.

so it went ALMOST perfectly.

except…

in case you can’t tell, that’s my couch. my brand new $1300 brown leather sectional sofa. that won’t fit into my goddamned apartment.

cue psycho with neck tattoos going ape-shit.

“TAKE THE CEILING OUT, IT’S FINE”

“BREAK ALL THE WINDOWS, WE’LL JUST HOIST IT UP THREE STORIES”

“I’LL GIVE YOU TWENTY BUCKS IF YOU GIVE ME A NEW COUCH”

i was being really rationial, obviously.

lucky for me, a friend of mine moved into my old place and he doesn’t currently have a couch, so he has no problem couch-sitting until i get my shit sorted. essentially i have to call to see if they’ll trade me for a couch that WILL fit, or give me some money back, or something. if not i have to sell it and buy a new one while still making payments on this one.

COOL, HUH?

not only that… we were planning on picking up a really awesome vintage sofa from my gam-gam’s place sometime this week for the mancave, but after attempting half of my sectional, and not even being able to fit THAT through, i know we have zero chance with gam-gam’s couch.

i refuse to have anything but a sectional in our main living room because the room is perfect for a sectional, i have been waiting forever to have one, they look good, and they are SUPER comfortable. i’ll have to find one that comes apart in pieces smaller than the one i have. not to mention mine is REALLY bulky and wide, so there’s that.

as for the mancave? we’re going to have to settle on a smaller loveseat or something. which really bums me out because it could use a bigger couch, especially that it’s a “hangout” room, and we’ll need the extra seating.

sigh.

in other news, i built my first ikea piece on my own while dan was napping. i acquired like, six blisters and i totally used a hammer, but WHATEVER! it looks great!

the bedroom is mostly done, except for a few things to hang on the wall still (hooks, maybe a few more paintings or posters), but otherwise it’s basically finished! it’s beautiful and relaxing, and i am so excited with the end result. this is the view from the bed

and normally, with all the moving i’ve done, moose the cat has always had a REALLY hard time adjusting. he won’t sleep, he barely eats and he’s a total head case. he normally spends the first two weeks hiding wherever he can. but this time? the minute i let him out of his cat taxi, he started sniffing around, playing, finding new places to nap. he’s been AWESOME, and i’m so happy that this place doesn’t make him anxious at all. i woke up the first morning in the new place to a very relaxed moose sleeping at my feet.

here he is exploring the mancave

i finally had a night to myself last night… and it was AMAZING. i went grocery shopping and bought tons of fresh and healthy food, and lugged the like, 45lbs of it back to my apartment alone, on foot. that in itself was a huge work-out! i wanted to be upset about it but it felt good to get some fresh air and work my muscles a bit. not to mention, the three flight climb to my apartment with that much extra weight on? holy hell. and then i made myself a nice dinner, watched all my stories, made some tea, had a bubble bath, made cookies, and ate them in bed with a big glass of milk. it was SO relaxing, and i totally needed it.

i still can’t get over how much character this place has. it’s so adorable, and the bathroom is probably one of my favourite rooms in the house. here are some pictures i took from the tub…

do i look tired?

… because i am fucking exhausted

progress report the second

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parents.

they are the glue to the mucked up pieces of my life, man. my mama and pops came to the new place with me last night to help out. and do you want to know what was accomplished?

oven/stove: cleaned
bathroom trim & door: painted
bathroom: cleaned top to bottom
kitchen and bathroom floors: scrubbed (on hands & knees)
oven & fridge: removed for cleaning
kitchen baseboards: scrubbed
desk and small tv table: painted white
living room: painted

i seriously can’t believe the amount of effort that was put into everything we did last night. every room is completed- we just have to paint the hallway now. and of course, once the new kitchen is gutted, we’ll paint that before the new cabinets are put in. but we’re pretty much at the final stretch right now, and i’m am STOKED.

remember the powder blue bathroom with blue trim and a yellow window? no? let me remind you:

and now:

and the ancient oven that was so caked with grease and black with char… the one we were totally convinced would end up in flames if we so much as turned the oven on? that one? my pops spent an hour cleaning it. it’s shiny and perfect!

(… you see all that black stuff in there? GONE.)

ideally we’d want an apartment sized (white) oven, but ya know, whatever… this’ll do! and at least it’s clean and usable now.

we also cleaned up the kitchen island (which i plan to add a black skirt to, on three sides to spruce it up a little and hide the open storage since, ew, open storage.

tonight i’ll be packing up the majority of my apartment (whatever’s left to pack), and cleaning a little. the dresser and most of my bedroom storage is already gone so basically all the clothes i own are currently on the floor. and i’m going INSANE. i’ll just box it up and live out of boxes for a bit.

tomorrow: dinner with khala & gunsmoke show @ the clocktower
saturday: painting the hallway
sunday: photoshoot & some montrealers are in town for a show (hurrah!)
monday: work, final packing
tuesday: MOVE DAY!

i’m so excited ya’ll. i took tuesday and wednesday off to unpack and settle in, so hopefully i’ll have some before & after pictures soon!

but in the meantime, if anyone wants to come give me a massage and rock me to sleep every night, that’d be awesome. i’m EXHAUSTED.

xx

progress report

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we’re alive but i’m beer-bloated, broke, and exhausted.

i’m obviously going to do an apartment tour once everything’s been done (with REAL pictures), but in the meantime i thought i’d give you guys a little peek via my blackberry.

first of all? barf.

this is the dirtiest place i’ve ever had to clean. at this point, the routine is: vacuum, mop, paint, vacuum, mop, paint. for every single room. the bathroom on the other hand… is more like, disinfect, bleach, scrub, gag a little, spray, scrub, cry.

case in point.

another pet-peeve: when people paint the giant, original trim or borders in old homes the same colour as the walls. what in the what?! are you crazy?! these homes are full of character and beautiful features, and people are like “yeah, whatever man, paint it ALL!”

the cutest little window in the bathroom was painted YELLOW, and the trim and walls were all painted baby blue. i know. what the frick, right?

i painted out the yellow and did all the trim white. tonight, the bathroom will be painted a tan/brown colour and on wednesday, it’ll be scrubbed from top to bottom by my mother- bless her soul (and stomach of steel). she has cleaned the bathroom of every single apartment i’ve moved to. reason number one: because she is a saint. reason number the second: she is a bathroom nazi. she used to get mad if my brother and i didn’t pull the shower curtain shut after a shower, or wipe the counter after we brushed our teeth every. single. night. but hey, ten some odd years later and i rage… RAGE if dan leaves the shower curtain open after a shower. sigh. fact of life: you WILL become your mother, no matter HOW HARD YOU FIGHT IT.

anyway.

yesterday i got afternoon drunk, listened to pussy galore really loud and managed to paint the entire bedroom (two coats, yo!) and it’s beautiful and fresh and ready for furniture! i went with a nice olive for the bedroom

dan quote: “this is where all the magical and weird shit happens”

the mancave is already cleaned, painted, and half set up! everything is looking fantastic and things are getting done quickly. i’m pretty positive everything will be ready for the 1st :)

on letting go

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(…) so now i’m on a bus writing to you. it’s about 1:45am, everyone is sleeping and the stars are gorgeous. the engine of the bus is relaxing. it’s pitch black except for this little light above my head. my feet hurt from all the walking, along with my brain from thoughts of the little time spent with such a beautiful you. it’s been two days away from where my heart is, and it already feels like an eternity

i’m not good at packing.

i over-think and under-plan and fuck, i’m a mess. frankly, this is the first move i’ve made wherein i am not running, or doing things hastily. this has been planned and carefully thought out and yet, i’m programmed. i’ve been wired to act as if moving means hiding, running. i am so overly stressed by my situation at work, and i’m worn. on the bright side, i’ve been carefully boxing things i know i’ll enjoy having in me and dan’s apartment. i’m purging the poison i’ve been stowing in my boxes, in closets, under piles of clothes, in my heart. i’m ridding myself of furniture we don’t need to make room for pieces that will complement everything else we own. i’m choosing things based on dan’s taste, and mine. things that will mesh together in our home.

i trashed my m box.

i’m so sick of this negative non-sense i’ve been carrying around like a coward- like some sort of fucking medal showcasing my broken pieces. and i’m done with that. it’s a new year and a new opportunity and a new house. i’m starting from scratch, again… and this time i’m doing it right. i’m completing my healing process and moving forward. m has no right to invade a space i can finally call home, with a man who has me completely wrapped up inside of him. dan has helped me heal more than he’ll ever be able to understand, and i’m so grateful for his patience.

originally i wanted to make a big production of the disposing of the m box. but truthfully? the scars are reminder enough- what good will it to to wallow and cry and give him the fucking privilege of making me cry, again. and so i scrapped that idea, briefly sifted through the only happy pages of our relationship, and then trashed it. goodbye, good riddance, fuck you. that’s it. that’s all it deserved.

i am so drained from work and trying to deal with my anger. i had a panic attack for the first time since, well, m… to be honest. i haven’t felt so ripped apart and beaten down and years, and it’s time to be healthy. i can’t keep letting people destroy me like this if i ever plan to be happy again, on the inside, i mean. my brains, my heart. i need to fix myself.

what am i looking forward to this weekend? alone time with my lover. not doing much of anything, really. we’re celebrating valentine’s day on sunday- and i’m not quite sure what dan has up his sleeve, but i do know i’ll be giving him the framed (silly & naked) pictures my friend took of me, and i can’t wait to see the hilarious look on his face.

tomorrow’s a new day, and i’m turning today’s page.

i’ll see ya’ll on monday.

xx

little elle’s apartment tour

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if anyone knows about the severity of my procrastination issues, it’s jessi.

i promised her, oh i don’t know, three weeks ago, that i’d do a photo tour of my apartment (a la tattoo tour i did back in july). but i’m super lazy and my apartment always felt too messy, and as per usual i’d find a million other reasons to be a bad blogger!

there are a few things you’ll notice by taking a peak inside my apartment…
1. moose the cat is super curious and follows me everywhere
2. i painted pretty much every room in this house a different shade of green or tan/brown. i REALLY like earth tones.
3. i like things to feel homey, cozy, and warm. hence the obsession with candles, incense, personalized art, lights, and pictures.
4. everything i own is a healthy mix between modern (ikea furniture, clean lines), and vintage (awesome vintage finds online, or at craft stores, etc)
5. i’m totally fucking neurotic.

enjoy!

the living room- this is what you see when you first walk in

the view from the couch

my james dean print, and some of the wall of fame

the dining room

my beer-mas tree! …all of my ornaments were lost in the mold when i lived at miss house two summers ago, and because i was (am always) broke, this was my next best idea. also, those prints are some of my favourite. the pink one is a picture of two people on their laptops, and it says “can you like, show me how to feel so i can know how to feel”. the green one is a painting my old roommate skinhead jesse made me, and it says “ride the tiger”, the other one is a screenprint of two boys laying on a bed, talking.

to the right of the door is my hooks and shoe rack. i have over 30 pairs of shoes (not all pictured), and they are just thrown about because i’m messy like that. whoops?

this is the hallway from the living/dining room down to the rest of the apartment. that first door on the right is a huge closet- where i keep more of my shoes, about 15 sweaters and coats, my mops and vacuums, and other random storage.

the end of the hallway. to the left are the kitchen and bathroom, and straight ahead is my bedroom. that jesus picture on the wall was scored at value village for $3! i’m not religious in the slightest but i like religious paraphernalia, and let’s be honest- jesus looks bad ass in that picture. that vintage steamer trunk was scored online for $20! there’s also a closet there to the right- that’s where i keep moose’s litter box, all the towels and linens, and all my cleaning products.

welcome to the TINIEST galley kitchen in the world. i apologize for all the dishes- but at least they’re clean!

my favourite part of the kitchen… my vintage french porno magnet, the awesome spice rack my brother and sister-in-law got me for my birthday, the first salt & pepper shakers my parents got in their first apartment when they were seventeen, and the blue sugar dispenser my mum got me at an antique store when she was vacationing with some girlfriends

my tiny little bathroom- i got that awesome white linen shower curtain at wal-mart for under $30, and everything i could ever need in the world is in that basket on the toilet. also? that print is from the bikini kill record i got a few years ago. SO awesome.

this is irrelevant, but i just happened to reorganize the medicine cabinet, and i was pretty stoked about it. dan just got home and showered and i heard him open it and he said “WOW!”, so trust that it’s a huge improvement from what it was!

entrance into my bedroom

the (most comfortable) bed (in the world), the bedside table (that dan refers to as my “sex shop”… enough said), the laundry hamper, and the dresser dan and i share

the tv, my small vhs collection, the few books i own (i’m VERY particular with books), a few star trek movies, the tegan & sara print i got at one of their shows in 2007 i think, and my favourite lamp of all time!

to the left of the bedroom is my cat hair covered pullout couch, more shoes, and the smallest closet in the history of time

so that’s that! i hope you all liked that…

…and take it all in now because those of you who’ve been following me for longer than a few months know i’m totally moving soon.

;)