enamoured with it, and with myself for finding it LOL.The access wasn't brilliant but the movers managed to get everything down the stairs and through the door without anything getting wrecked, and my new bachelor pad is slowly but surely taking shape.
The bathroom is set in Paris (France, not Texas) circa 1925. I managed to find some black decals of the Paris skyline that now adorn the bathroom window. Once the inside window panes steam up when I'm in the shower then I can pretend I'm in Paris 'cos it's just about believable if I look out the window through the condensation *smiles*. I've stripped out the yucky plastic towel rails and lime-ridden shower head in there and replaced them with a curvy S-shaped heated towel rail that has aspects of art deco form to it, and one of those giant 'sunflower' shower heads. I've also added a General Electric art deco standing clock which might be from as far back as the late 1930s. Not bad for $35.
I didn't want to have to paint the entire room so I chose a shower curtain and bathmat that pick up the accent colours already in the room. I have a bunch of art deco style prints to hang once I get the frames for them, and I just need some kind of fixture with shelves to go around the cistern so I have somewhere to stack all the clean bath towels. Being creative, devious, and pressed for cash I decided against buying any serious art deco furniture. Instead, I found a piece of furniture in an art deco book that is encrusted with mirrored glass that I can copy the design of. I can get a similar-shaped item from Canadian Tire for a couple of bucks, and I've ordered a small roll of self-adhesive mirrored vinyl that I can cut to shape and stick all over it. All this and looks too LOL ;o)Then it's just a case of painting one wall to cover all the holes and 'missed' patches on it (I think the painters must've done the entire room in under ten minutes). This is the most fun/creative part for me - leafing through art deco books with a sketch pad and pencils handy to draft anything that looks as if it might work as a mural. I think I'm gonna be pretty chuffed with it when it's all done.
I'm still short of one or two pieces of furniture for the rest of the place. There's currently a pile of 'stuff' on the floor that doesn't yet have a home. A lot of it is stationery - I seem to accumulate it every minute longer that I live. I have writing paper and envelopes to rival Staples Business Depot, a sufficient quantity of staples to fashion a 38" regular chain-mail tunic (in case I'm ever taken with the notion of playing Dungeons & Dragons), and enough post-it notes to wallpaper the entire apartment if I ever wanted to.
...but sunflower yellow and fluorescent pink wouldn't work with the colour scheme.
For me the little details are the most satisfying. On one bookshelf there's a spotlit set of design tools that doesn't look like much, but it's actually an homage to my Grandfather. He was a surveyor back in the UK in the 1950s and the tools were his. In the kitchen I'll be sticking a small decal that depicts humankind's evolution from ape to homo-sapiens. It's an innocuous nod to my religious beliefs, or lack thereof. All in all, the apartment, its furnishings, and the little details with hidden meanings become a little more personal to me the further into the apartment one moves, and it's good fun putting it all together.
The neighbourhood rocks too. My upstairs neighbours were totally gob-smacked when I showed up at their front door with a couple of bottles of wine to introduce myself. Don't Canadians talk to their neighbours? But, they're nice people and both restaurant managers so their work schedule is at the opposite end of the clock to mine. This is important because it means they're not home when I am, and allows me to DJ as loud as I want to without having to worry abut upsetting anyone *grins hedonistically*
At one end of my street there's a Loblaws, a Price Chopper, and a Canadian Tire. Sweet: all my groceries, and home improvement projects taken care of. At the other end there's (a) an ATM from the bank that I have an account with, (b) a 7-11 for emergency milk and other things, plus (c) a huge selection of restaurants and coffee shops. I've tried one restaurant and one diner thus far (both good), but there's a cool looking Thai place and a Vietnamese restaurant a little further along.
Oh, and where my street meets Queen Street East there's a streetcar stop too. Talk about 'landed on my feet'! This is all good news because it makes it all the more likely that I'll be able to stick around for longer without having to move house again. In the last decade I've moved house EIGHT TIMES! One of those moves was 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean too. No wonder its been such a long time since I felt settled anywhere.
I'm also particularly proud of the fact that I haven't smoked any cigarettes since I moved in. I'm not sure exactly how long it's been but I've stepped down from the 21mg nicotine patch to the 14mg one so it must be at least six weeks. This is notable because when I've tried to give up in the past I've often caved in, either at the one-month mark or at three-months. The only downside is that I haven't had the proportionate increase in appetite because I still have nicotine in my bloodstream. So, I still haven't found anything that makes my mouth water at breakfast-time. My virility has bounced back with a vengeance too, for which I currently have no outlet so to speak. Dating still seems a long way off, and there are still a few anxieties there that I'll have to deal with head-on before I feel comfortably confident. Anyway, cigarettes and all other Sarah-related sources of anxiety have all been eliminated from my home life save one - a travel-sized bottle of shower gel. Some months ago when Sarah proported to be in hospital I put together a care package I wanted to mail her. She alleged that she liked taking showers so amongst the items was a 'sampler' set of four wicked shower gels I brought back from the UK. It was all thoughtfully assembled with four matching, clear, travel-sized squeezy bottles in a clear Clarins cosmetics zip-bag.Of course, neither that shower gel nor any of the other items made it out of the house, let alone anywhere near Sudbury. In order to mail them, I'd have had to have persuaded Sarah to tell me where the f**k she was, and it's taken until now to use the bloody shower gel up. However, once that's gone there will be no visible stimuli that'll remind me of her anywhere in my apartment.
Home improvement-wise there's still a lot to do though, and I've already overspent so the next homeware purchases will have larger periods of time in-between them. That said, I might post some 'before and after' photos once any of the major projects are complete. All in all though, I have travelled a long way from living in a home I never felt was mine with a woman who doesn't love or support me. The more I customise this place, the further away the divorce feels, and the less emotional impact it has on me.
No comments:
Post a Comment