Study and Living Room Redecoration!

(fanfare plays)

THE FUTON HAS ARRIVED!

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the post that I had been waiting for on Craigslist - the exact futon frame I had been salivating over at Jordan's Furniture for $500. For $40. Amen. Chris (bless his willingness to help me on my flights of fancy) and I jumped in the car and went to pick it up. I then ordered a mattress and cover (because the mattress was ugly but cheap) for $180 on Overstock.com. I was so glad to find someone who totally understood why I didn't want their futon mattress - yech. $227 and some sweat equity later, we have a totally sweet, totally comfy and useful futon in our guest room. I'm typing from it right now!

In order to do this, we had to take apart the desk that my father built me a few years ago. Normally I would be loathe to do harm to anything that my father built out of respect for his craft, but in this instance I felt okay knowing that eventually we would be using the desk again somewhere. This desk was very special; it had no drawers. Our previous roommate, Michael, mentioned something to me once about my needing a desk that was just a plank of wood over two bookshelves so that I wouldn't fill the drawers with junk. I pitched the idea to my Dad and he agreed to try it out. The desk is big, it's difficult to put together and take apart, but it has served me well over the years. Again, I was sad to pasture it for awhile, but I knew that it would be reincarnated before long.

But then - then! We took it apart and to what did our wondering eyes did appear but two finished, lovely bookshelves. (We had both thought that the tops of the bookshelves were unfinished). Our living room had been crying out for some bookshelf space so we popped those downstairs and now have a much more complete looking set down there. Desk, thou livest once more...Desktop, we'll see you again someday...someday. The addition of a Flamingo Anthurium (plant and pot, Home Depot, $25 on gift card - thanks Mom!) helps tie the room together and soften the brightness of the color in that room. I have plans to split one of my pothos plants upstairs to put on top of the other bookshelf, but a candle will do for now. We keep commenting to each other that the house is looking so much less like a frat house and so much more like a home for adult humans. And we even have space for guests! All this for $227 feels like a job well done.

You'll also note we have some art up now - I saw two watercolor pieces by Scituate (formerly Melrose!) artist Carol Carney up in the frame store downtown while we were getting our mirror framed. I fell in love. We have a painting of the Zakim bridge between two of our living room windows (painted by the guy who sells his art on Newbury Street...literally ON the street...clearly not a big investment) and Carol's paintings fit in perfectly with our Boston theme. The one issue though was that the two prints that would be perfect for our space were over $400 apiece. NOT in our budget. Finally, I found Carol on the internet and e-mailed her about my interest. Not only was she willing to negotiate, she even delivered the prints to my house on her way to visit her grandkids! I had the prints professionally framed and the total investment was just over $250. The two prints we have are The Waterfront and Twilight at Quincy Market.