Diary of an adult runaway

Behind Door Number 1...

This apartment has something I've always wanted: a red front door. However, this particular red door was looking a little sad, with scratches that showed its original (oh shit no!) mission brown paint and so I decided it was time to repaint it.

That was several months ago. Yes, I find it's best not to rush into these things ;) Actually, like many things with this apartment, it's taken me a while to work out what to do with it. You see, the door has glass panels, which means that the regular light and the emergency light, right outside my door, give  my hallway and bedroom ugly artificial glow at night. The first night I moved in, I tacked up a sarong I bought in Provence, and it's been there ever since. Which means that I get to sleep at night but the hallway's too dark during the day. And that's partly because of the red--great from the front, not so much from the back.

And then I found a pic of a green door on Pinterest. Perfect! I'd have red for the front, green for the back. Off to the hardware store I went, and found a tester pot of Muppet Green, but the only glossy red I could get was in a liter tin, or something equally as ridiculous when you're talking one side of one door. So I got a pot of something matte instead. Yep, you know it: bad idea. I finally got time last week to go back and this time found a small pot of glossy red.

Huzzah! Away I went! Well, you know, a week later. I'd like to say I was waiting for the hot weather and that's kinda try but mainly a lie. As Ellen says, "Anyways"--here's the front door after I started to touch it up. Just picture it with chips and scrapes, with mission brown showing through. Oh yeah, I think they say you should sand, etc, first, but to hell with that. I just washed it down then started slapping the paint on.

While I toiled away, Kitten wandered in and out:

She stopped to inspect the work:

Then went out to the garden to check out the damage the possum had wrought on the geranium plants:

See all the spiky ends? That's where Possum has chewed off the flowers. But you might also be able to see chunks of garlic--I tossed a heap on the plants the other night and that seems to have warded off Possum for now.

Meanwhile, Redford did what Redford does:

Until the upstairs (guy) neighbor came down and stopped for a chat. Then Redford did this:

I gave the front another coat and here's how it turned out:

I think it still needs a little bit of touching up, but I'm going to wait until it's properly dry--can't tell if the shiny/matte spots are just the way the light's falling or gaps. Oh, and I need to wipe off the bottom :)

And then! When that's done! I'm going to tackle the back. Here's how it looks now:

And here's what I want:

A green door, with shutters where the sarong currently is. And check out that hardware! While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I went online looking for info on changing locks (coz I don't like that my door has a brass number and silver handle) and found a link to a site with THE MOST GORGEOUS stuff! I don't know why, but I've always wanted a front door with a latch, it all feels so colonial New England to me, and this black matte one caught my eye. I don't give a damn if I'm going to have to get it shipped in from the US, I'm going to do that with the shutters, anyway.

Although I do kinda balk at this:

Stunning entry set, and it can be yours for a meager $730--down from $981. Let's just file that under "You must be fucking kidding me!", shall we? :D

What makes me happy

A few months ago a year ago (!!), I saw Gretchen Rubin on the TODAY show talking about The Happiness Project and thought "I should read that"--then promptly forgot to do that until Barbara O'Neal blogged about it. Before I could forget again, I ordered the book and put it to the top of my reading list when it arrived a few days ago.

Before I cracked it open, though, I wrote down a quick off-the-top-of-my-head list of things I do that make me happy. It went like this:

1. Writing
2. Reading
3. Blogging
4. Road trips
5. Having an organized space

The last one jumped out of nowhere and felt a little funny--until I started reading the book that night and one of the author's January "Boost Vitality" tactics is "Toss, restore, organize." She writes "Household disorder was a constant strain on my energy" and I laughed, because I so connected with that. It's not like my apartment was a mess--although I do feel compelled to clean and tidy up before watching "Hoarders," or I start to twitch. But years ago, a homeopath asked me if I felt everything should be in its "place"--it was his way of determining what my homeopathic remedy was. My answer was an emphatic "YES!" (which apparently means my remedy is Calcarea fluoricum).

The problem lately was that I couldn't work out exactly where everything's place should be. And part of that problem was that I had too many things. Things I was holding onto because...well, because. Because they reminded me of good times. Because I'd wear them one day. Because I'd find a place for it somewhere.

Uh-huh. Right.

Then I stumbled upon the "40 Bags in 40 Days" idea. I didn't think I had 40 bags worth, but I wrote down a list of areas that I needed to go through: kitchen drawers, bathroom shelves--every single place that I may have shoved anything. Because I'ma tell you, after 5 years of living in a tiny Paris apartment, I was world class at jamming crap into closets. World. Class. I ended up cleaning out 26 bags--and then a month later, I threw away 3 wheelie bins more and hauled the chaise longue that I loved but that just didn't fit out onto the sidewalk. I called the council to come pick it up--they said they'd be by a few days later but it got hauled off by a local that afternoon. Now someone else is making it fit.

And then I started doing some serious organizing. Getting everything into its "place." I've still got a ways to go--I'll need more bookshelves and a wardrobe and some shoe holder thingies kinda like this here:

Actually, exactly like this, because most of my furniture is Ikea's Hemnes range. I love how the white lacquer brings a little more light into my ground-floor apartment.

Slowly, I'm finding where things should go. For some reason, it took me ages to be happy with my kitchen (mainly because the large windows made everything seem sparse). And now I am:

This area specifically gave me trouble, maybe because it's where I make candles and need to be able to free it up quickly. And yes, that is an absinthe fountain doubling as a Jelly Belly holder.

I've still got a long way to go with my hallway (see Hemnes items above) but I've made a start:

Magnetic whiteboard from Typo, girl in snow photo from Etsy, Los Angeles from the Griffith Observatory taken by me on a glorious July night in 2008, Duane Reade bag right there so I don't forget when I go to the supermarket--and also because I love the design, just as I love NYC. In my ideal world, the whiteboard would be right by my desk, but there's not enough wall space there, so I put it where I'd see it often and therefore have to pay attention to my various plans :)

And one last thing I do, which might even be a Fly Lady thing, is make sure the kitchen is clean and tidy before going to bed each night. Strange as it sounds (or might that be "pathetic as it sounds"?), I get a buzz from walking into a sparkling kitchen every morning. In fact, I get a buzz from all the little organizational things. Which I guess is why Gretchen Rubin listed organizing as a vitality booster :)

What makes you happy?

I think I need...

one of these:

And one of these:

One each of the pendant and telephone, please:

And one of these fabulous plants for my living room (anyone know what it is?):

Thanks to Keris (*shakesfist*), I also must have one each of these:

Come on! Pink buggy! Who doesn't need one of those?

I'm about a week away from getting my hands on Keris's new book, with its beautiful bling cover:

But until then, and thanks to Amazon UK's excellent deal (spend £25 on selected items and UPS express shipping is free to AU/NZ), I now have this:

Oh my, Redford in the 70s, I don't believe it will ever get any better than that! I'm going to need to curl up in this NYC atrium to do this book justice:

But what I'm supremely happy with:

You're welcome :)

I was obsessively pouring over casually browsing home decorating sites and found what appears to be one kick-ass cupcake, which I'll try once my oven is back in working order. In the meantime, how about you all make them and send me some? And really, who am I to question Bobby Flay, but I think that, while the mango frosting sounds like a deliciously unusual addition, I want to go with something more Christmas in July-ish. How about candy cane? Hmm...

From Style At Home magazine, Bobby Flay's Gingerbread cupcakes:

Cupcakes

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 (2-inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
• Cooking spray
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup finely packed dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons molasses

Caramelized Mango Buttercream

• 2 cups (4 sticks) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, slightly softened but still cool, cut into small pieces
• 3 ripe mangos, coarsely chopped
• 6 large egg yolks
• Cooking spray
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup finely diced candied ginger, for garnish

Directions
1. To make the cupcakes, combine the granulated sugar, fresh ginger, and 3/4 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the sugar has melted and the mixture thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let infuse for 30 minutes. Then strain the ginger syrup before using.

2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners and spray the liners with cooking spray.

3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves into a medium bowl.

4. Whisk the melted butter, oil, brown sugar, eggs, and molasses together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients and stir until the batter is smooth.

5. Fill each paper liner with 1⁄3 cup of the batter, to come about 1/4 -inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the tops liberally with the ginger syrup. Let sit in the pan for 5 minutes before removing. Let cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

6. To make the frosting, heat the 2 tablespoons butter in large saute pan over high heat. Add the mangos and cook until caramelized and soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and process until smooth. Pass the mixture through a medium-mesh strainer into a bowl. Discard the solids.

7. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on high speed until creamy and pale yellow, about 5 minutes.

8. Spray a heatproof measuring cup with cooking spray. Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil over medium-high heat. Cook without stirring until the syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, 238° to 242°F on a candy thermometer. Immediately pour it into the measuring cup to halt the cooking.

9. Add a small amount of the syrup to the beaten egg yolks, turn the mixer on to high speed, and beat for about 5 seconds. Continue stopping the mixer, adding syrup, and beating in the same manner until all of the syrup is incorporated. Beat the mixture until it is completely cool.

10. Add the remaining 2 cups butter, a few pieces at a time, beating until incorporated before adding the next pieces. When all of the butter has been blended in, add the vanilla and the mango puree and beat until combined.

11. Frost the top of each cupcake liberally with the buttercream, and garnish with the candied ginger.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Small/cool + not-so-small/extremely cool

Ever since living in a 375-foot apartment, I've been hooked on Apartment Therapy's annual Small/Cool contest, garnering ideas on how to best trick out my place. Even though now I'm living in an apartment with a living room that's almost the same size of my place in Paris, I still love pouring over entries--and I still get jealous, because how is it that even the smalled apartments in the US seem to have decent kitchens, while I had a bar fridge and one of those toaster oven things with hotplates on top? (OTOH, I had a balcony with the best view of the city you'd ever get. Seriously.)

Here are a few of my faves from this year's entries:

What a stunning view!

A completely different view but once again I love it~plus there's something about the light that reminds me of my friend Lisa's place in NYC.

This place in Sausalito ranks right up there on the awesomeness scales, and reminds me of a houseboat--which reminded me that I had photos I hadn't shared of my last night in Paris, when Pamela and her husband invited Sophie, Jenny and I to dine on a converted barge on the Seine, near the Bois de Boulogne.

We arrived at the boat on a gloriously balmy late-spring evening and were greeted by a colorful entry way:

I instantly fell in love with the interior, which was a lot bigger than I'd pictured:

Books books books :)

At the opposite end of the top floor was a big office area:

And in between was a good sized kitchen:

We ate dinner out on the deck, of course:

The biggest surprise was the workshop, below where we'd been eating and the opposite end of the bedrooms:

Of course, the best part was spending those precious few final hours with my Paris soul sisters, Sophie and Jenny (and Pamela, whose photo I can't believe I didn't take that night):

What a perfect night it was. Thank you :)

Nommy stuff + house p0rn!

It's that time of the year, when the days are getting shorter and I want to curl up. Which means the slow cooker gets a solid workout, because I know better than to expect I'll want to cook when I come home--I just want something I can heat up quickly.

Which is a long way of saying, it's turkey chili time! And because I love you (yes, especially *you*), here's my recipe. Trust me, this is the easiest thing to make--about 10 minutes prep time.

Ingredients:

1lb/500g turkey mince
1 large tin of diced tomatoes
1 jar of enchilada sauce
1 large tin of red/kidney beans
1 large tin of white/navy beans
1 tin of sweet corn kernels
1 red onion, diced
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, diced
as much garlic as you like
sage, cumin, any other spices you like

Steps:

1. Brown the turkey in olive oil; add herbs.
2. Take the lids off all the tins and dump the contents into a slow cooker set to medium.
3. Add the onion, pepper, garlic and spices to the slow cooker.
4. Add the browned turkey and juices.
5. Stir everything up and let simmer for about 6 hours.
6. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

I'm happy to announce that, after far too long equivocating, I've commenced the Great Bedroom Spruce-up with the purchase of a chest of drawers. I had my eye on a lovely white lacquer piece from Ikea, but the white version disappeared from the site, so I'd resigned myself to buying the pine and painting it white. Really, what a farce--you could visit me in 3 years and it'd still be pine. What joy erupted then, when I went to Aisle 26 and there sat the white in all its shiny lacquered glory! Brother Kurt and I put it together yesterday and it looks fantastic. Plus all that storage actually physically makes me breathe a little easier.

Once I get the whole tableau established, I'll post a pic but in the meantime, here's Libellule Kitten reclining in front of the New England-style banded basket I also picked up from Ikea:

And in honor of me starting to get my shit together, I'm posting a few "I want that look" shots from my pathetically huge collection:

Love the symmetry, the baskets and the oversized mirror.

I absolutely adore the colors here, and if I had a landing-strip area similar (instead of one long hallway) then I would shamelessly copy every single aspect of this.

Now this is a toilet I'd like to hang out in--and I can see from the cushion at the bottom right that I'm not the only one!

Great idea ~ a deconstructed corkboard.

Lucky cat.

Sweet cottage living.

 

Chilly day...

...and lots of writing to do, so it's just as well I have firewood. I also have this on the way:

I'm so geekishly thrilled, because I've always wanted a featherbed! And when it gets here, I'll be dressing it up with this:

Once I light the fire, I'm going to pop this into the DVD:

Yes! Yes, that's right--I'm one of those freaks. I also have one of those crackling Yule log DVDs. But I'll bet you already knew that.

So, yeah, going to light a fire, write...and wish I were here:

I want the whole building! That's right: the whooooooooooooooole thing. But you can come & visit :)

OMG! Must have!

I'm hyperventilating here because I just checked out Apartment Therapy (for some people its food blogs, for others cute animals, for me it's all that + design) and found this:

3-D dragonfly wallpaper. Must. Have! I don't care that Kody would do his best to rip the wings off, must fucking have! The question would then be where to put it, and the answer might just be the swish inner-city pad that could be mine if I were in the mood to drop a cool AU$2 mil (Brisbane never looked this swish when I was born there!):

My favorite part of the house: an open-air shower!!:

This will be the bedroom in my country house. Either that, or I'm going to have to get a river house, too, because I think this would be the perfect bedroom for a river house. Or how about a lake house? Hmm, yes, most definitely must have a lake house!:

But here, party people, is the pièce de la résistance, a.k.a. my ranch house. A Frank Lloyd Wright piece of perfection in California's Central Valley (snap it up here!):

Another FLW house, the Millard House, was also recently put up for sale in Pasadena. Oh, how I need it! (US$7.5 million and it'd be all mine!) All those doors. I think this is the kind of house that music was designed to flow from and people were meant to yell to each other from the different levels. Of course, I would decorate it totally anachronistically (do you think FLW liked pink and tile blue? Oh well, I'm sure I could get away with aniseed green and red) but at least there would be plenty of craftsman-era dragonflies and I'd breed dragonflies in the pond:

Okay, off to buy my LOTO tix so I can afford all these residences. I think the Universe might need some help with this one. P.S. Did anyone see if Stewart handed Cramer his ass on the Daily Show? I haven't watched last night's episode yet. Can't believe Cramer had the stupidity to open his mouth again. Perhaps his CNBC bosses didn't like him playing the humble card last week?

I'd like to be here now

This is a resort in Mexico. Looks like the perfect spot for hanging out. Or how about this:

 

I want to lie on this roof and drink lavender margaritas and occasionally cast my eye on THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE!! Sweeeeeet.

Lastly, not as dramatic, but what a lovely work area:

Love the pink, blue and white and the promise of fresh air in summer and a heater for winter. Very nice nook.