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!

Loving the Process

As an actor, I am so inundated with daily rejection and hope that's here one second and gone the next that it's nearly impossible to be...well, present all the time. Where will I be three years from now? On a TV show or serving grande mocha lattes to undeserving reality show stars? Will I ever make it? How did I do on that audition yesterday? Am I going to die poor because I'm not saving enough now? I spend so much time fretting over what will and what may never be (thank you, Led Zeppelin) that once in a while I need to tell my inside voices (I call them my crazies*) to SHUTTHEHELLUP while I go do some yoga and breathe and just...be. Enjoy and focus on the present moment because that's the only thing that really matters right now. How can you be present in a scene when you're thinking about tomorrow? This is where the new-age hippie dippie west-coast mindset comes in handy. Ohmmmm....

I don't really meditate tarot cards, don't worry.

*I also don't really call them my crazies. That would be crazy.

The same goes with living space. I spend so much time frittering over detail in our new nest that sometimes I forget to just live and enjoy the lovely things about our new home. It's good to step back every once in a while, put down that endless To Do list--install curtain rods, install cuter hooks, repaint the chairs, plant a window box--and just enjoy where we live, even if it is a work in progress.

I've never been one to try to remake a place all at once. I'd rather have my living space be constantly evolving and filled with objects that have meaning to me, rather than knick knacks I picked up in bulk at West Elm in order to have my room "finished." Early British designer William Morris (not the big 3 agency now merged with Endeavor) once said, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." I've tried to follow that mantra, although not always successfully. There are a few broken chairs and swag bag-comped free DVDs of schlock like "Bad Lieutenant"--the Nick Cage version--that would attest to that.

But in honor of Morris, the socialist with a knack for making homes look beeeyootiful, I'm spending some time today to revel in some of the spaces I find beautiful in my home, finished or not. And I'm proud of it, GATdammit.

First, our most used room of the house. Here's my living room when we first saw it right before moving in:

woooooooooow a living roooom

Here it is, today.

zing!

It's an oasis where I spend daytimes rehearsing acting while the cats look out the window at the street, and evenings with my beau listening to the Beach Boys' "Smile," watching The Wire or Downton Abbey, or doing the New York Times crossword on our new iPad. How decadent! How deliciously bourgeois! The giant lamp and the mid-century regency chair I found on Craigslist from a collector and reupholstered myself. The cowhide rug I found on my first ever solo vacation to Buenos Aires, Argentina. My crazy gaudy-gorgeous regency table I also scored on Craigslist for an amazing deal by a woman who needed to get rid of sharp corners in her house for the sake of her quickly-learning-to-walk toddler (it was damaged by the movers, argh). And the good ol' Ikea Expedit shelf on the left has fixed our perennial stranded doorway shoe/sock problem by adding baskets that serve as His and Hers shoe drawers.

Note the kitty in the mirror. He's so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him.

Our faux fireplace mantel is always a work in progress. I placed some stuff there while we were unpacking and it's stayed there ever since. That's a Jonathan Adler miniature whale ornament gifted to me by my good friend, Shirley. That scary line drawing print of freakish demons and naked people on horses is something that Alex loves--and that used to hate--but have grown to love in context in its place on the mantel. And that photograph to its right--you probably can't see it-- says "It's the computer that brought us together." And it was.

Alex had been wanting a record player for a while so I found this Crosley beaut on the recommendation of my friend who is a musician and has tons of style. I liked it because not only did it sound good (besides a record player, it is also a radio, CD player, and TAPE DECK--whaaa?!) and looks perfectly mid-century cute and in place with the rest of the living room.

Here's our dining room when we first saw it:

And here it is now:

Still working on it, but getting there.  It's a lovely place to have breakfast while perusing our ever-growing pile of daily Variety. The painting was done by my dad, who's a chemical engineer-turned-artist. My beloved mid century chairs are also a score from Craigslist from a collector. Even though I love them aged and how the green paint has chipped over time, they are getting creaky and will have to get replaced soon (wedding registry?). I want me some gorgeously designed Hans Wegner wishbone chairs. One of these days, too, I'll be able to swap out my imitation Ikea Docksta table for a real Saarinen tulip table. You know, when I have an extra $1800 in my pocket. Oh look at me now, I'm already thinking about the future again. Think present! Now! NOW!

I'll end on my favorite view in the apartment, which comes from our bedroom, looking out onto the garden.

It's the perfect spot to cozy up to on a rare rainy day in LA.

but I don't wanna go to school, mom!

Well, there you have it. I'm present and stuff. Now what do I have to do tomorrow? I'm gonna go make a list.