Post Stub: Coming Up

This is a post about a post I haven't written yet.

Precocious Daughter is cleaning out her closet and organizing her room in preparation for moving into the dorms.

In ONE MONTH.

But that's a meltdown for another day.

Anyway, she doesn't want her room looking like a disaster area when she leaves, partly because she knows I'm not going to lift a finger to clean it while she's at school, so if she doesn't want to find slime oozing down the walls over Thanksgiving break, she'd better get it in order now. That's called managing expectations.

She's doing it mostly herself, but I'm lending a hand with bagging up trash and donations, and offering a thumbs-up-thumbs-down as to which is which. At one point she pulled out a delightful alpaca figure made of real alpaca.

Softer than something really, really soft.

We both agreed that Al P. Aca is not going anywhere. We also agreed that he should no longer reside in PDaughter's closet but should join the eclectic decor in the living room.

Which made me think.

Occupational hazard.

We've been here in our little fourth-floor apartment for approaching three years. And the decor hasn't changed very much in that time. A few additions, a few minor rearrangements, but otherwise the place looks pretty much as it did when we moved in.

Mind you, it looks awesome. PDaughter and I picked it all out, we bought it, in many cases we assembled it. It is us, and it is home.

But in light of the huge change that is about to occur - namely, that it's about to become much more my home than our home - I'm thinking it's time to switch things up.

That's doesn't mean buying more furniture. There's nothing here that's more than three years old, and I have neither the desire nor the ability to throw out perfectly good stuff and buy different stuff just for the sake of change. It also doesn't mean painting or changing the floors. It's an apartment. I'm going to lose enough of my deposit because the Siamese Kitten has destroyed the weatherstripping on the French doors with her pointy-bits; I don't need to be charged to repaint my whimsical preference for smoky amethyst on the walls.

Still my dream color.

But it's probably time to cycle out some of my tchotchkes and artwork, and let some pieces currently stored away take their place in the spotlight. Change out the books on display. Get a few new accent pieces to update the palette of the place. That kind of thing.

I'd love your help.

So before my next post, I'm going to take pictures of what's currently decorating my apartment and let you vote on which pieces stay and which get retired. I'd also love to see images of or links to items you think should join me. Any kind of inspiration will be welcome.

If you're willing to help, I'd appreciate the assistance.

Pictures coming next post.