A blue + brown bedroom.

The good news is that it doesn’t look as though Hurricane Gustav is headed our way, so our provisional plans for hurricane weathering and/or evacuation (along with all the associated chaos) have been put on hold. I’m sure it will rain a lot, but that’s hardly out of the ordinary down here.

The bad news is that we found out first cockroach IN the apartment last night. I looked up from the couch and was pretty sure that I saw something black scuttle across the carpet, but Josh poked around a little and couldn’t find anything. Fifteen minutes later, the dog was busy with something in the same vicinity. It seems that she found the cockroach and somehow flipped it on it’s back before deciding that it wasn’t edible. [Note: the dog’s entire expenses and her presence in the household have now been completely vindicated.] Given the cockroach’s incapacitated state, we were able to easily trap it under a cup and send it flying to the great outdoors. Before this seems too humane, contemplate the mess it would make to squish a 2.5 inch bug on your carpet. Ugh. I am deeply hoping that it was a Lone Ranger and not the type that travels in packs. Cockroaches can’t bite, can they?

In other news, I “finished” one room in the apartment this week: the bedroom. The bathroom is not far off and the dining room is in decent shape, but I’m still missing some art in the living room and kitchen. Some of this has been held up by my freaking Paypal account, which was unnecessarily suspended a few weeks back and which I have not yet been able to restart due to failing a couple of the proof-of-identity checks since I just moved and didn’t update my phone number, address, etc. in time. Sigh. I started a new one but am still fixing all the Etsy-related details, which means that I haven’t opened up my shop yet. Well, that and my general boycott of the computer. Nothing makes me feel like I am at work like sitting in front of the computer. Must try to disassociate the two.

Enough rambling, though…how about some photos of the bedroom? It’s not particularly well-lit (there is only one small window) so I opened up the back door for these shots, which make it seem brighter than it is. I am proud to say that I assembled the West Elm bed frame all by myself, but unfortunately it is a little lower quality than I had hoped. The dresser is my prized craigslist find, and the night stands were originally purchased at a flea market in Uniontown, WA (doesn’t “I found these at a flea market” have a nice ring to it?). Unfortunately, the bedroom is not particularly wide and I can’t fit a nightstand on both sides of our enormous bed. I was not very happy when I figured this out. As a result, one is temporarily standing next to the dresser and I am looking for a standing lamp to go on the right side of the bed, since the left side has to have a white noise/cooling fan right next to husband’s head.

All that to say, this furniture arrangement is the best I can do for now but I am hoping to move a few things around when we move to a bigger place someday. I’m still pretty happy with the way it is now, though — don’t navy blue and brown make a nice combination?

Looking through the hallway door.

The Beans, modeling next to our new bed frame.

My little art display.

Encaustic painting on the right by Amy Ruppel; gocco on left by Yoo-ii.

The blue painting on the right is one I brought back from Azerbaijan, and the Mark Kozalek screenprinted poster is by The Small Stakes. The wall hanging above the bed is a piece of stretched Marimekko fabric.

Yes, we have a lot of perfume and cologne.

The view from our cement patio.

This is boring…I’d better check my (empty) bowl one more time to make sure the cockroaches haven’t stolen my food.