Red Carpet Building, NBD.

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of a sun break by running outside our building with our rug and shook it off on the street. Don't worry, it didn't have garbage or anything littery. Just a little dust. Is that tacky? In any case, while we were out there we decided to glam up our apartment building with a little red carpet treatment.

Before and After: Living with an EXPEDIT

I was home sick this weekend so I finally decided to tackle the EXPEDIT bookcase in our living room on Sunday afternoon. Naturally I asked Warren to help. When we moved in we just haphazardly put everything on the bookcase that we needed to put somewhere. As you will come to find out, our apartment is very small and every area has to be thoughtfully planned. We came together with a lot of stuff while at the same time getting rid of furniture that did not fit and dealing with an apartment with little to zero storage. We should probably have not brought this huge shelf into this apartment but an EXPEDIT shelf is hard to get rid of because it comes in handy in apartment living (Seriously check this out). I will admit that I think it is a little overpowering in our tiny little living room so I am hoping to eventually replace it with something a bit longer and lower like a long console table with storage. Our edit, rearranging and organizing helps it blend into the room more and is much easier on the eyes. I kind of love it. 

What we did:

• Removed some accessories that we are willing to donate to a thrift store (we'll see if that happens)
• Removed family photos and relocated to a shelf elsewhere in the apartment
• Color blocked our books
• Alphabetized Warren's 200+ records
• Dusted

Next Step:

• Buy four BRANAS baskets for the bottom row's unattractive necessities

A closer look at the after: 

 

                 

Sad Pony Art

Somebody should turn this pony left outside the Lifelong Thirft Store into art. I guess it already is?

Keep Calm and Carry Onazar

I have been sporting the Keep Calm and Carry On poster in my apartment(s) for a few years. I loved it since I first laid eyes on it on Apartment Therapy. I couldn't find one on etsy so I bought one on ebay directly from the UK - totally worth it. The poster has since had a presence in each and every apartment or studio I have lived in, four different places including where I live now. It seemed to have a much stronger message for me when I was single. Now that I am with Warren and we live together, he is the only reminder I need to keep calm and carry or as he puts it "stop freaking out!". Ah, love!

I googled "Blogazar keep calm carry on" and this is what I got (see I really did used to blog regularly):

2008

On February 27th 2008 I posted about purchasing my poster. 

Just over a month later I posted right after finally receiving the poster in the mail. I like seeing the contrast in the amount of stuff I had back then and what I have now. Those days I had just moved to Seattle with a few suitcases and was slowly starting to buy stuff and create my home here. Almost 5 years later I have bought things, given things away, thrown things away, moved in with Warren and inherited his things. He has a lot of things but more on that in blog posts to follow. 

In April of 2008 I made the mistake of submitting my apartment in Apartment Therapy's Small Cool Contest. I thought it would be fun and that I would get some helpful feedback and maybe some encouragement. I did get some of that but mostly I got a wake up call:  my apartment was not ready to be seen  in that kind of platform nor was I emotionally prepared for the comments that lay ahead. Oh how I love blog comments (sarcasm). Here is my post on that whole debacle (aptly titled). This is  my submission on AT: here. 

2009

Early 2009 was not a good year for me. For many reasons but mainly for financial ones I had to move into a tiny studio apartment, I mean tiny. Everything was in the same room, everything... todo. I had to make areas out of tiny corners and use of every bit of space I could find. I posted this about my "kitchen area" where my Keep Calm and Carry On poster ended up. 

2010

I finally moved back into an inhabitable apartment, the largest one I had ever had in fact. It was great! On February 28th 2010 I posted this about the first day in that apartment. The poster had not found its place yet. It eventually ended up in a nondescript wall in my hallway but I can't find a photo of it on the wall. I miss the space in that apartment but not the noisy neighbor upstairs. My Sister lives in it now so I glad it remained in the family. 

2012

Today the poster hangs above our stove in our fabulous kitchen. I seriously love this room. Like the rest of the apartment it is still in progress but we are off to a great start. The poster has inspired splashes of red throughout the space and reminds me so much of a very different time in history and in my life but definitely allows me to appreciate the calm of today. 

I was out of the home blog loop for a while and it seems that since my love for the poster sprung a few years ago and the trend took off, so did peoples dislike of it. I guess it is a very specific and visual trend item. Once you have seen it, I can see how it gets old. I was starting to consider putting it away because it is such a bold statement and maybe it isn't one that I want to make anymore. After seeing the video below, I am glad I did not. This video  recently came out about the history of the poster and it made me fall in love with it all over again. I think I might even try to age my poster a bit to look more like the original that hangs at Barter Books or maybe even try to get some of the other ones. 

All in all any reminder to stop freaking out and calm the eff down is much appreciated. For that reason alone I will most likely have this in my home for years to come. Nursery? Office? Storage closet? Or maybe in a window facing outside in case Seattle ever comes under attack? I am sure I will find a fitting place for it. 

OMG, Shoes.

 I want to be a shoe snob, but I am not. I don't know if these shoes are oxfords, wingtips, derby's, brogue  or some variation of whatever those are. I think the key is in the Vamp but I don't know what that is. Let us move past that. 

I love this pair of shoes and that is all I know or care about. They are brown leather Polo Ralph Lauren  (or  Ralph Lauren Polo) shoes with a fabulous leather sole and wooden heal. The sound they make when I walk on hard surfaces makes me real happy. Walking in them has been so much fun that I wore holes in them last summer when I refused to take them off. Seattle is not the type of town where having a bad shoe is a good idea. I never let that stop me. I often came home with a wet sock and even worse, sometimes I had gravel in my foot. No bueno. 

Shoving them in the closet was hard to do. I thought my relationship with them was over but in classic Eleazar tradition, I couldn't let go. One day while walking to QFC I finally stopped to notice the shoe repair shop in the building. I have lived in this neighborhood for a few years now and it has always been one of those places I never stopped to think about. I don't get shoes fixed. I buy shoes, wear them out, buy new ones, repeat. 

Before

Finally after about six months in the closet I took them in swearing I would not pay more than $40. For some reason places that do repairs of any kind intimidate the crud out of me. I built up the strength and went in there on Saturday. The man behind the counter was everything you'd think he was. He was working on a noisy machine, dirty and surrounded by piles of shoes. He handled the shoes like an expert. I was sold. $78 dollars and 48 hours later, I have my shoes back. He did not promise they would look new but he said that he would replace the leather sole, wooden heel and clean and waterproof the rest of the shoe. 

After

He was right. They don't look new but they look and feel amazing. More importantly, they no longer have a duct tape sole. I am sure no one will notice a difference when I wear them. I will know. My feet will know. 

Why not pay to repair a show you love? I paid $12 for these and have now paid $82 to get them fixed by a man some people call a Cobbler and a $3 pair of shoe laces. He should have thrown the shoe laces in for free is you ask me, but repair men intimidate me and I just went with it. I do plan on going back. Maybe next time I wont have to pay and have the entire sole replaced.

Check out Broadway Shoe Repair on Yelp, aqui.

D'oh

This is what happens when you stay in.

Photo courtesy of Madagascargar.

Welcome

Sneek peek at the cohabitation

I'm baaaack!

Tumblr and I are over. You can check out what I have been posting since I left blogger last January by clicking aqui. You might notice that I did not post very much. I never felt it. It just wasn't meant to be.

Since I left blogger I met my boyfriend, W.
We recently began cohabitating and are loving it.... so far ;)  I still work in the non-profit world, love design, hitting the town and my fearless neighborhood, Capitol Hill.
Expect more on all of the above.

Friday nights

Moved to Tumblr

I have moved the blog over to Tumble.

Come check me out there!

http://blogazar.com/

-Blogazar