Some shit

Yayyyy our gorgeous Turquoise over-dyed Turkish kilim rug came today! I texted my boyfriend who was at work when it came: “it is magnificent.” It’s such beautiful quality and just makes the room feel REAL, and LIVED IN. I can’t describe what a difference in coziness a great rug makes in a room. It makes it feel just so….real. Like a real bedroom that real people have, not children like us. It makes it so WARM and inviting. I LOVE the room with it!

My boyfriend relaxing in the bedroom over the new rug.

It’s the first rug I’ve ever owned. Like this is my first rug as a human being. I lived at home, then I lived in dorms, then my first place ever had carpet (the horror– I try not to remember it), and then we moved into this place with its parquet floors, which we have lived in for 9 months– 8 months of which we had nothing on the floors but a cow’s hide from Ikea. Then, our neighbors upstairs were giving away a FREE RUG (SUPER fugly, but free), so we took that for our dining room. So this is the first rug I’ve ever bought and I eyed it for literally 19 months before finally going for it. It’s kind of a joke how inexpensive the rugs on RUGS USA are. Like who is the joke on? Is the joke on me? I’m confused, but I love you Rugs USA.

Total game changer and goes a LONG. WAY. But we still have a gagillion things until this room is ‘done.’  It’s still far too boring and neutral for my liking. It needs depth. Layering. I need more art for the walls. The nightstands need things. Possibly different lamps. Probably something entirely different for the foot of the bed– like poufs, or something tufted, I DON’T KNOW, but it’s still too much of the same thing. That is– white, brown, green, grey. I need some pattern in there, something peach or raspberry or purple, some things that make it feel less spartan. Different pillows, some curtains. Blah blah.

But who ever doesn’t get rugs? Like where the fuck have I been living? Carrying about my business like an idiot, with nothing but parquet floors. Like a savage. It’s uncivilized really. To live on rug-less parquet floors. Rugs are IT. Rugs are everything. Also the parquet is clearly like, so much better than carpet, but I’m going to need some hard woods pretty soon here. The parquet pretty much makes me want to kill myself every day. So thank god I have something to cover them up now.

THEN, I went and ordered this giant photograph of a scuba diver that I spent no less than 49 hours at the computer debating. I mean I did a TON of research to find a photograph I thought was super cool– I’m totally obsessed with the under water world as it pertains to photography. I think photographs of the creepy ass creatures down there, like octopuses and weird fish and sharks, and scuba divers are just cool as shit. Something about it really appeals to my particular eye. The colors of all the various blues, the bubbles, the eerie way everything looks submersed in water… I just think badass photos of scuba divers have this super creepy alien-esque vibe to them, with their black rubber suits and their weird eye goggle masks and all the equipment. Something about it feels disturbing..unsettling.

And, I’ve been OBSESSED with the notion of one, giant, huge, statement-making photograph (or piece of art) in a room for forever. It’s just an interiors thing that totally speaks to me. For some, it’s so not their style. For me, it’s the epitome of me. I just like BOLD, crazy, whack shit. That’s why I love “The Antonio Treatment” on HGTV because Antonio Ballatore is this totally insane interior designer who does AWESOMELY out of the box shit for his clients– so he’ll build like an aquarium in the middle of their living room, or like, find a sculpture of a giant sea horse and work it into their bedroom and it looks amazing. REALLY loud,  crazy, bold stuff but it looks sick how he does it. So I just like loud art on a massive scale.

These are a bunch of examples of exactly what I’m talking about– images that I’ve been saving for years that show rooms in houses that have one HUGE photograph blown up or one big piece of art. Some how, it looks effortless and natural and awesome in all of these places.

This is in a museum and is very famous but like, I would LOVE this in my living room at this exact scale. Fucking technicolor Mao? That’s the kind of thing you walk into a room and go “SICK.”

Pop art Jackie O in a dressing room against busy wall paper? yes.

Love this black and white photo of what looks like the queen? Or this chick’s grandmother? Or a Shriver? haha not sure.

The Novogratz’s (9 by Design) have a giant piece of art in just about every room in their house. I love this photograph of a vulnerable looking Lolita type, who’s a dead ringer for model Barbara Palvin, in that amazing yellow dress, and it kind of looks like a blend of an oil painting and a photograph.

The photo was taken by interiors blogger Jen Ramos, when she went to their house in New York for a private blogger event, so it’s like a personal iphone photo from a blogger of the amazing Novogratz home. This is another giant piece of art in their home, that’s directly to the right of the girl in the yellow dress:

And ANOTHER large eye-catcher, a blown up photo of one of their kids:

See, the Novogratz’s don’t give a shit- they just go for it with out-there wall art. And I love it.

Famous octupus triptych that’s made its rounds on the internet:

So on Art.com, I spent hoursssssssss playing around with different large, water-related photos that would make an insane statement. The cool thing about the site is that you can actually “frame” the photo, and scale it, and see what it looks like in different ‘living rooms.’ They have like 8 or so room set-ups with paint and furniture, and you drag the painting into it to see how it can look. So like, I looked through FOUR BILLION photos to find the ones I personally liked, then framed them based on like 40 frame options, and then dropped them into certain rooms. So it’s not like “order your shark print here!” It was my creation, not a pat option. I played around with some crazy shark photos:

Two different great white options:

And a super extra-terrestrial esque scuba one, that I really really liked and debated down to the wire:

Buttt, we ultimately settled on “Fish on Reef” because I liked the visual interest of the spots on the giant Grouper fish, the little pops of neon yellow from the diver’s flippers and the little fish, and the electric  lavender color of the grouper.

Of course when it came I was like, Alina what the fuck have you done. I still can’t tell if it’s fantastic and just needs the right scenery, or if it’s totally tacky and awful.

BUT, here is what I am thinking. I think the reason it looks awesome in the “test photos” is because since it’s such a bold, loud, colorful piece, it needs to be balanced out with sleek, straight, masculine, white lines. Those square club chairs are the perfect accompanying pieces to the photo. I’d envisioned it also in a really sleek dining room- with a long white table, white chairs, that photo, a great flower arrangement, and some natural accents. Obviously it looks like SHIT in that photo up above because our dining room overall looks like shit because it’s thrown together with free pieces from unknown neighbors and $35 dollar Ikea and Home Depot accents. Like what is this dining room. It’s an abomination to my visual senses. The red and blue rug? It’s there for two reasons: (1) it was better than JUST the Parquet, staring back up at me  in their conceited way– “we’re all you’ve got, just a whole bunch of PARQUET SQUARES, STARING AT YOU IN OUR HORRIBLE GLOSSY AMBER WOOD COLOR, NAKED.” Naked Parquet– horrific. And 2.) it was free.

But the red/blue/yellow primary colors of the rug + the black of the chalkboard wall and pink colored chalk– it’s really NOT doing it for us anymore. So this is what I imagine though—- imagine if we TOTALLY lightened up the room. Like THESE dining rooms:

(Camille Styles’ gorgeous dining room)

So we get like a white or cream or grey rug, paint over the chalkboard wall BACK to a white, swap our wicker dining chairs for white ones– and then hung the picture behind the dining table. THAT IS MY VISION. And when I envision it like that, I think the piece will be a really cool background to a white/neutral dining room. My friend who is an interior designer/genius is going to come over and give me some thoughts. I texted her tonight “I got an insane photograph of a scuba diver and a grouper. Can’t tell if it’s awesome or tacky. I am troubled.”

I mean right now with the parquet and the rest of our dollar-store dining room of course it’s awful, but I PICTURE it in a white room with sleek lines and I can see it. And all that room would take is a coat of paint, a different rug, and selling our current chairs to get new ones. Easy. I’m going to see what she says. I have 30 days to return it so I’m going to give it a chance to show its potential without all of the strikes against it right now, that aren’t its fault (mainly– the parquet and the chalkboard and the wicker).

that’s all for now! I got some really cute new shoes and I was going to post about them in this post since it’s entitled “some shit”, but………….I’m now too lazy to continue so I’ll make it a separate post tomorrow.