Friday, June 01, 2007

The Big Transformation

Pretty Lady is thrilled to report that, due to the recent arrival of some heirlooms from her dear departed aunt, she is tiptoeing into the semblance of living a Grown-Up Lifestyle. She is no longer using plastic storage boxes as furniture in her living room.


In the right-hand side of the frame, we see both the new drop-leaf end table with Queen Anne legs (Pretty Lady had to ask her mother to define a Queen Anne leg, not being a connoiseur of antique furniture) and the Oriental rug from her great-grandmother. Pretty Lady was thrilled by the fact that the colors all came together like that.

(And yes, that is a Flying Pig in the upper left. Pretty Lady is inordinately proud of it.)

To counterbalance and complement the pink and blue florality of the new floor-rug, she hung some new artwork that has a bit of an Edge to it, while picking up some of the major color themes.



The resultant aesthetic, Pretty Lady feels, is cooler, less cluttered, and more cohesive. Compared to the riot of orange, green, gold, red, burgundy, and blue that was there before, of course. The only remaining source of angst is that horrible industrial gray carpet, but one must learn to live with small distractions, until one becomes sufficiently well-off to tell Phil the Neanderthal where to stuff his rent-increase without a lease. Hmph.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was going to comment on your decor, but realised that it might sound snarky, so I'll just congratulate you on your newly acquired furniture and your pleasure at the resulting aesthetic.

Papapete

Anonymous said...

Renting--or buying--a place to live in NY must be a nightmare unto itself.

Just watched one of those "Flip this house" episodes about a guy who had bought an 830 sq. ft. place for less than 100K awhile back, decided to sell it, spent around 20K upgrading, and then had a "realtor" come in and tell him he could now get $630,000 for the place.

It had a $1,700 monthly building maintenance fee before and after his fairly tacky upgrade.

Anything you can to to improve your home enviornment without selling your soul is to be congratulated.

Still, it's scary... very scary, to anybody outside the city.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who decorates with scarves pinned to the wall ;) In our crap-ass ghetto rental, that's what's on the walls--my own silk paintings, and the tacky-ass scarves I've collected from thrift stores becaus the medieval peasant in me can't pass up a square of silk for a nickel.

Very nice. Your couch looks incredibly crash-able.

Anonymous said...

PL - I think your space is cute and I like your furniture. Did you do the art?

There are a few organizational tips I could give you, unless you like that "lived in" look. :D

I also have rent increase and I rent - it's so cheap that I don't put up a fight but they do absolutely no maintenance and there are no amenities.

Anyway, cute space.
-superninja

Pretty Lady said...

Hi, superninja!

Yes, I did the art, or at least the paintings. The pig was done by a Mexican artist whose name I cannot now remember, the (scarcely visible) photos were done by RA Friedman, the puppet is an original performer from Java, and the 'scarf' is cloth of gold brought from India by my brother-in-law. With apologies to Mitzibel.

I'm afraid the 'lived-in' look is not only my preference, but necessary. Could use a few more bookshelves and CD storage units, though.

The couch is not just shabby, but a genuine Shabby Chic, which I did not know was something special until I bumped into their flagship showroom in Soho. I got mine secondhand, of course. The antique decorative runners are concealing the Desecrations of Resident Felines.

Anonymous said...

I realized what I wrote maybe sounded sort of rude, I just didn't want to start offering suggestions if you were not interested.

Anyway, I really like the artwork, particularly the one that looks like plants/thorns(?) with watercolors in the background. It reminds me of Sleeping Beauty for some reason.