>I know it has been a while since I have updated on my apartment therapy project that started in Oct/Nov. For the past few months I have been buy and collect pieces in a pile in my living room. This weekend my interior desinger friends came over to pull it all together.
So far, so good. I am really happy with the decision to spend the money on making my apartment a home. The place feels warm, cozy and welcoming. To nice to keep messy 
Here is a sneak peak of a little “Do It Yourself” project that one of the ladies (Kelli) did. I purchased the brown 3′ by 3′ dresser from a guy on craigslist for $10. To say the least it was a piece of garbage, but Kelli had told me that she can make anything work. I dropped it to her house and when I got it back, it was painted black with silver hardware. The hardware isn’t anything special, Kelli bragged that they were the cheapest that the local hardware store had to offer.
>****Updates from previous weeks: 01, 02, 03
****Pictures of new and old things to decorate.
Week #04: Retial Therapy
BONES
-
Clean up living room and related closets
No closets in the living room and the room is bare, bare, bare. It has been cleaned over and over.
-
Repairs are being taken care of this week
Done, done, done
BREATH
-
Declutter books and all media
I have decluttered my books, but I have not purchased a bookself to put them on yet. That is planned for this Wednesday.
-
Cancel 75 percent of the catalogs you receive
I only have one subscription and it is about to run out. I will not be renewing it.
-
Empty outbox this week
I can’t wait to do this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEART
-
Confirm what you need to increase or decrease color in each room
Bathroom needs color, bedroom and living room need accents they have plenty of color
-
Identify what you need to increase or decrease softness in each room
Bedroom: needs softness like flowers and personal touches
Living room: needs a plant, rug and pictures
HEAD
-
Cook three meals at home this week
This has not happened even once since I started apartment therapy and I know it won’t happen before the end of the year. Next year I plan to eat more balanaced meals at home, but that is not related to this book.
-
Send out invitations
As soon as I finish this post I am going to finalize my invitations. I have decided to do an electronic using blog format. I made a collage of before pictures and a collage of things I have purchased. I think it will work out okay.
>
Today, I have decided to end my blogging year. I completed my last budget for the year and I will get paid for the last time in 2010 on the 15th. I leave for the holidays on the 21st to the north east and then to the middle east. I will return on New Year’s Eve.
I have a little more Christmas shopping to do, but that money has already been allocated so there is no need to track it.
This is my plan:
- Provide Apartment Therapy update
- Provide Reverb10 responses
- Provide 2011 goals
>My last apartment therapy update was on week #3…well week 4# has come and gone and I haven’t made any progress. I don’t think it is going to happen this week due to the holiday weekend. I promise to be back on track soon. I am off to unpack some boxes now.
I haven’t posted much because I am in an entrepreneur class that is helping me prepare to open a financial coaching business in 2011 and I am learning a new dance choreography for a Dec 4th performance.
More updates soon….I hope.
>****Updates from previous weeks: 01, 02
****Pictures of new and old things to decorate.
WEEK #03: The Landing Strip
BONES
- Vacuum, dust, and mom (wet or dry) throughout your home
-(11.14.10) Done, Done & Done!
- Clean your entrance and any related closets
-(11.14.10) This was easy because the entrance is practically non-existant. In the closet there was a box full of stuff that was moved to the Outbox without hesitation. It was full of kitchen stuff that I put there when we moved in and we haven’t used them since.
- Arrange to have all repairs taken care of in the next three weeks.
-(11.14.10) The only thing that isn’t working is a window won’t stay open.
BREATH
- Declutter your entrance
-(11.14.10) Done!
- Move all old mail, catalogs and magazines to the Outbox
-(11.14.10) I will work on this over time. There hasn’t any mail build up since the move.
- Look into what you would need to creat a Landing Strip
-(11.14.10) Oh what a challenge. The apartment is really set up with room to create a space to go through mail & pay bills. From my experience in the last apartment I know mail will become a eye sore so something is going to have to be done. I have looked at all kinds of magazine and mail racks on line, but none of them fit into what we are trying to do with the apartment. We want the apartment to look put together instead of like the home of two college grads with no possesions.
- Cancel any unused subscriptions
-(11.14.10) Not Applicable at this time
- Run your hands over every wall in your apartment (week #02)
-(11.14.10) This exercise was interesting. I didn’t find that any of the walls are ice cold, so that was good. However, I do plan to put up a window treatment to help keep the cold out this winter.
HEART
HEAD
- Cook two meals at home this week
-(11.14.10) this so didn’t happen. To be honest, I am not really sure what I ate this week. Actually, nothing in this area happened this week.
- Design and invitation for your housewarming
- Look into earth friendly cleanning products (Week #01)
>****Updates from previou weeks: 01
WEEK #02: CLEARING THE PATH
BONES
-
Fix one thing in your appartment yourself
(11/07) Today I installed the Pur water filter and I put up spice rack in our tiny pantry.
-
Clean your kitchen from top to bottom and throw away old food
(11/07) This was easy since my Roomie cleaned the kitchen on Friday. I did go through the food and threw out a few things. One thing I found was moldy cheese dip. My Roomie was responsible for moving the food over from the old apartment and he left some of the stuff on the counters for a few days and then put it away. You would have thouht that he would throw the cheese away, but he didn’t. Other than that this action went well.
-
Buy a water filter and use it
-(10/31) We already have Brita, by I may consider getting one for the faucet.
-(11/07) Purchased and installed filter on faucet.
BREATH
-
Run your hands over every wall in your apartment
I didn’t get a chance to do this, so I will carry it into week #03.
-
Clear space for an Outbox (a space to put things that you no longer need in a space)
-(10/31) I am using a bix moving box in the corner of my dining room
-
Clear one surface and use the Outbox
I cleaned out a box in my room. I love the outbox.
HEART
HEAD
-
Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home. (Reader’s do you have a recommendations?)
I made a Taco Salad recipe. It wasn’t a new recipe, but it was what I had the ingrediants for.
-
Choose the date for your house warming.
My party will be in the end of January.
***NOTES***
-
Really cleaning different area make you pay attention to things that I would normally overlook for days, months or even years.
-
Shopping this week has been fun and a little overwheling at the same time. It has been a joy to know that I want to decorate and I can spend whatever I want within my budget. (I will post the final budget when I am finish. So far I have spent just under $300)
-
I have two ladies helping me, so they came to see the apartment last week. They are so excited, because they love this decorating stuff.
>This weekend was very busy and all I wanted to do was finish moving my stuff in. I danced at a festival on Friday and Satruday evening. Sunday I slept in.
- Apartment Therapy: Week 1 has to be re-done because I didn’t have the time to unpack and start. Now I am completely unpack and everything needs to find a home. I did get flowers. 3 beautiful pink roses for $5 at Wal-Mart.
- Financial Peace University: I am still facilitating the class on Saturday and the women are coming along. In last weeks class I found that a couple of them like hearing the information, but haven’t started applying the principles to their lives.
- Camera: I broke my camera and since I have some money left in my moving fund I went to Wal-Mart to replace it. When I got there I was going to get the $99 model. The lady told me she was all out so I had her give me the $119 model. Of course, I know that was not the smartest thing I had ever done. This morning I called a camera repair place and they said it would be about $90 to replace the screen, so I decided to pay my friend eBay a visit. I found the same model camera for $44 and some change after shipping. I will be returning the $119 camera to Wal-Mart tomorrow.
- Alimight Debt: On Thursday, CNN aired a Black in America Segment titled “Almighty Debt”. I was fortunate enough to see a pre-screening earlier in the week at a local church. What I saw in the video and what I heard in the discussion to follow tells me that the Africa-American community is falling further and further behind do to a lack of knowledge. I plan on reaching out to the church that showed the video to see if they would like to be the host of Financial Peace University in the spring. Currently Financial Peace University is being hosted at 42 locations in my city, but only a handful are in the black community. I have already sent an invite to the church members to visit one of my exisiting classes for free, but there is a huge focus on the cost of the membership. I feel $100 is a small price to pay to get the information necessary to build a solid financial foundation. This of course is for those people who are not going to take the time out to go online and figure everything for themselves.
- Car Accident: After leaving the car dealership where I took my car to get the belts adjusted I realized that I didn’t have my badge on. I look over to my passenger seat to see if it is there…next thing I know I have rear ended a Toyota truck. There was not damage to the truck, but the hitch of the truck damaged my front bumper. I am not getting it fixed right now because this it the 3rd time something like this has happened since July. Luckily, none have been reported to the insurance company. I have got to clear my mind, I have no idea why I am so distracted.
>As I stated before, I have a few pieces of furniture I already own.
The couch, oversize chair, dresser and bed (mattress included) came from furniture row. In late June 2007 I had just started a new job in a new city and I NEEDED to have all this stuff so I set out to get it all durning 4th of July sales. All these pieces cost about $3380, but it was no problem because I was approved for the Furniture Row store card by HSBC. (You can see on my progress bars to the left it was 2nd debt in the snowball).
The dining room table was a great find on
Craigslist.com . I only paid $65 cash for it from a lady who had just decided to follow
Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps. She was selling everything and moving in with her daughter.
It is amazing how our perspective on things change over time. Writting this post has caused me to think back on my first furniture shopping experience. I remember the feelings that went with getting the furniture into my home as soon as possible. There was not time to be wasted. I had finished school and sacrificed enough therefore I deserved to have it all right then and there. Putting in on credit was not a problem, because it meant that I got what I wanted when I wanted it.
Now I am very excited about investing this money into my apartment and I would dream of putting it on a credit card. My perspective has changed and I have become more patient. This time when I get what I want it will truely be mine.
>Max (says to think of your home as a body. It has BONES (walls, floors, ceilings & fixtures), a HEART (expressed emotionally through the homes style), a HEAD (the purpose of the home, expressed in its design) and it needs to BREATH (expressed in the way the home is arranged and the flow).
Each week there is homework in each category. I will update this post periodically throughout the week.
***************************************
WEEK #01: CREATING YOUR OWN VISION
BONES:
- Make a complete list of repairs and solutions.
Cleaning and unpacking has given me the opportunity to find so many things that the complex can/should address. Lesson learned to always go through a new apartment in detail when filling out the new resident form.
-A window doesn’t stay open
-Master bath shower knob and faucet need to be recaulked and soap holder was dirty (more like filthy) on the bottom
-Master bath toilet dispenser is coming loose
-Master bath counter top is stained & drawers had hair in them from previous resident
-Master closet door has hole from door stop
-Kitchen vent is moldy…they should check and clean all vents
-Carpet was so saturated with powder that our vaccum was 1/3 full from 1 pass through
-Refrigerator interior is cracked in multiple places and ice holder has hole in it.
- Vacuum and mop the floors
Today (10/31) I vacuumed the floor in the living and dining room. The vacuum gets full of carpet fresh from the previous residents, so when I finished I cleaned the canister. I completely forgot to do my room. Next week my room will be vacuumed for sure.
BREATH:
- Remove one item from your apartment and put it outside
Because of the move so many things have been removed from the apartment. (10/31) I thought this would be enough, but it probably defeats the purpose of the exercise. As I went through my week I really thought about some of the things that I keep around. I have an oversized oil painting of my mom in her nurses uniform that my dad had made many, many years ago. It has been following me everywhere I move but I haven’t taken it out of the box. My mom hasn’t even practiced nursing in 15 years. Why am I so attached to it? When I do down to my car in just a few minutes I will be throwing it away. Admitting this has already brought a sense of peace to me. Additionaly, I have 3 stuffed animals(Fival, Cheer Bear Care Bear, 2003 Snowflake Bear from Wal-Mart) that have come along for the ride of life. They do not sit on my bed or a chair where everyone can see them. Most of the time they are tucked away on the top shelf of my closet. Not really sure why I haven’t gotten rid of them, I imagine I was holding on to some sentimental value of something. They will be going to the Outbox…not quite ready to make the plunge on these.
HEART:
- Buy fresh flowers
HEAD:
- Sit for ten minutes in a part of your home that you never sit in.
(10/31) It was nice to sit back and do nothing for ten minutes. I really just want to close my eyes and go to sleep. Instead, I brainstormed ideas of how I would like my living room decorated.
- Look into earth-friendly cleaning products.
I didn’t get a chance to do this, so I will add it to my week two homework
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM THE WEEK
- Roomie and I went window shopping today (10/31) and it was alot of fun. We looked at end/coffee tables, wall decor, lamps, plants, everything. To help my friend, the decorator (Name: Isa), better understand our style we took pictures. We didn’t look at price tags, we just snapped away. The how idea is to get what we like within budget. I was disappointed to find the same things in Bed, Bath & Beyond that I had already seen in Ross and other closeout type stores. I guess this is just confirmation that it really doesn’t matter how much you pay an item.
- I am really anxious and what everything to be done at once, but we will be focusing on the living area first. I think it will cost the most money, since furniture has to be purchased.
- OUTBOX UPDATE:
Added – 5 VHS Movies, stuffed animals, badge holder, Moto-Q Sprint Cell Phone
Removed – Nothing
Trashed – Old oil painting
Gave Away – bunch of sorority stuff and a IT band foam roller.
Purchased: Fake flower for the bedroom.
>Max (the author of Apartment Therapy: The eight-step home cure) is more than an author; he actually goes to peoples homes and helps them…kind of like a “design therapist”. To start off the process he normally interviews the homeowner(s). Since he is not coming to my house I will just pretend you are the interviewer.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
List your favorite in each category:
- Actress: Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock
- Actor: Shemar Moore
- Artist:
- Writer:
- Music: Reggaeton, R&B, Hip-Hop
- Restaurant: Cosi (I like resturants that bring the outdoors inside for decorations)
- Automobile:
- Television show: Grey’s Anatomy
- Clothing (designer or store): Express
How would you describe your style (3 words)? Comfortable, Simple, modern
PERSONAL HISTORY
- Where have you lived? I have lived many places because I grew up in a military family. To maintain my anonymity I will list only the regions. Southeast Asia, Midwest (very small town), South (small city), Rocky Mountain area.
- Where were you born? Northeast, United States
- Where you grew up? Most of my time was in the Midwest
- As an adult: I have lived in a major Mid-Atlantic city and the Midwest
Whom would you consider a role model? My friend, CMS
What three adjectives describe the qualities that you admire in this person? Peaceful, motivating, adventurous, giving
APARTMENT
- What is the problem with your apartment (3 words): lacks character, not inviting, boring
- If your apartment could speak, what would it say is the problem? My apartment would tell me that it needs some TLC. There isn’t anything major to fix, just put some time into personalizing the space.
- What one thing would you like to do or do more of in your apartment? I would like to have people over more often.
- Eight weeks from now, when this project is done, if friends come to visit, how would you like them to describe your home (3 words)? I would like them to say that it is cozy, inviting and fun.
What do you think this says about my style?
