Apartment Therapy Style Cure Week 3: Organization Porn

For those of you who've been charting my Style Cure progress, I really have been doing the Apartment Therapy Style Cure these past few weeks, but I haven't had much time to blog about it due to auditions (And some juicy ones too! Nashville, Revolution, Anger Management...I can't complain). These weeks have been filled with assignments like "Shop til you drop!" and "Toss and organize." Easier said than done, especially when I'm focused on other stuff. I've slowly been slogging through all of these tasks, with limitations, of course -- we don't actually have enough space in our office to possibly get all the storage we would actually want in here. The room quadruples as two busy people's home offices, line dry laundry hanging space, and a guest room. So, while I would like to get as much feng shui flow in here, the reality is I only gots a 121 square feet. What's a girl to do?

Well, downsize and organize.

After my (failed) floor planning stint, I decided that moving the furniture around would be impossible, given the space we have. So I've made do with small improvements--with ginormous results.

For example, I just slogged through four years of old sides (scripts) from auditions and organized them into these adorbs notebooks from Target:

It's always hard for me to throw out sides...it's like a little memento of all the characters I get to transform into. It was actually kind of fun, looking back on all the weird and cool things I've auditioned for--indie movies that never got made, TV pilots that turned into huge successes (Revolution, Lost, Chicago Fire), and scenes I ran in class that frustrated the hell outta me at the time but now I look back and see right through it. By the way, turns out old sides make for a pretty comfy cat bed:

Remember this awesome leaning tower of paper-za?

I know, I know.

I finally sorted through my boxes of acting postcards, head shots, mailing labels, envelopes, and every possible size of printer paper, and sprung for this cool drawer organizer from Ikea, which doubles as a printer stand and cuts the floor space needed in half. It's aptly named "Alex."

I'm the man of your dreams.

Aah! Doesn't that feel soooo much better? As for our crazy overstuffed bookcases...

Heart. Attack.

God, it gives me agita just to look at this photo. It's. Got. To. Go. Really. I mean, the orange jersey from Key & Peele? The Gummo poster? (As cool as those are, they don't necessarily need to be on display.) The hanging laundry? The book cases? I painted that wall a dark dove gray hoping we could contrast it with some cool white furniture, but it's mainly been obscured by these black Billy Ikea bookcases. I really would've liked to switch these out for white ones, but for now, these will have to do the trick until we move into a house. I considered painting them, but the thought of dragging them outside and having to lay them on their sides sounded like a huge pain. So I settled on making them a little cheerier.

Made a weekend trip to my fave place Paper Source and found me some bright, cheery patterned paper and lined the backs.

Once I put these up altogether, I didn't love the pattern so much anymore. It's more floral and dowdy than I want. But I figured most would be covered up anyway by the books, and hey, it was only $21. I didn't worry too much about lining up the pattern since I knew books would be there:

Used some horizontal stacking and some objects like this vase to break up the lines. I love seeing all the colors of the book spines side by side.

Then I took those gattdam miles and miles of DVDs and Blu-rays clogging up our bookshelves and finally shelled out for their own little condo, using this unused corner:

That one's still in progress, as you can see. But I'm learning now. The key to success is storage, storage, storage! I'm pretty sure that's what the real punch line to that "How do you get to Carnegie Hall" joke is.
Phew!

A $1 Treasure Hunt

Let's bring the party back to the words "Tea Party," shall we? I've always loved the look of vintage teacups repurposed as planters, so in an effort to keep costs down for wedding decor, I've embarked on a quest for teacups to use in lieu of vases for our bar and guestbook table centerpieces. Wedding flower arrangements can cost around $75-100 each, so you can imagine how that really starts to add up for 18 tables. Throw in the bar, the guestbook table, and cocktail tables to dress and you're running into the tens of thousands for flowers that'll die in a day.

And that's why I heart succulents -- they're hardy, adorable, they thrive on neglect, and people can take them home as favors. Check out the magic you can do:

Sold! A trip to the Melrose Trading Post, the outdoor antiques market that pops up every Sunday on Fairfax and Melrose Avenue, yielded a few cool picks for potential succulent containers. Melrose Trading Post is usually pretty hit or miss, more often than not landing on the "miss" side. But if you get there early enough, you can find some good treasures. With my innate Chinese bargaining skills, I got these for roughly $1 each. All were made either in England, the U.S., or Japan.

Made in England

These blue and white cups are by Pennsbury Pottery, which I didn't know about when I bought them--I just thought the etched blue designs were very cute and Americana-y. Turns out it's a Pennsylvania (Amish)-based company that produced lots of art pottery from 1950 until 1970, when the factory burned down. On eBay, some of their single mugs go for as much as $20 each.

These pretty Japanese teacups with gold designs were bargained down from $3 to $1.50 each for a set of five. The seller was a very nice Japanese lady who seemed happy to part with her wares. Maybe they're haunted.

Can anyone read the Japanese brand?

Emma and Pilsen are both amazed by my finds

After exhausting the Melrose Trading Post, I decided to check in an unlikely place: The Jewish Women's Council Thrift Shop, set right in the heart of Little Ethiopia down the street on Fairfax. A little digging and I found these gorgeous British espresso cups, and a few vintage books to use as stacked centerpiece elevation. These were also $1 each.

That's a Howe grade school reader up top, dated 1917 and stamped with students' names from the era. On Etsy, these are going for about $10 a piece. The second book down is totes appropriate for me: The Village Bride of Beverly Hills (it's not vintage, but it's very wedding-esque, right?)

A sneak peek into the Howe Reader:

Bob and Ella gonna meet Obama!

 I also picked up a 1918 copy of The Magnificent Ambersons, the Pulitzer-winning novel by Booth Tarkington, which was later adapted into a movie in 1942 by Orson Welles (and, I feel, probably influential in some way or the other on Wes Anderson's similarly titled The Royal Tenenbaums). A quick online search shows that 1st edition copies of this are going from $100-$450. Not sure which edition I got, but it's dated the year of publication and I got it for $1!

 Lastly, James Boswell's London Journal. A little snoreworthy, but pretty.

 As I was paying, I spotted these silver Indian goblets behind the counter.

They reminded me of this picture I'd pinned on Polyvore a few weeks ago:

So I snatched up those suckas for $1 each. They can make cute decorative touches for our dessert table as well. (Did I mention we're having a dessert table?!)

Here's my attempt #1. I just used succulent cuttings from my garden, but I think if I get smaller, cuter, stubbier ones they'll work juuuuust fine.