Do you have a junk drawer? Believe it or not, we didn't until last week. Our house is extremely storage-challenged. Instead, our bar was littered with crap and there was a large bamboo bowl to contain messes. It wasn't pretty. Then I had the brainwave to using a good-lines-but-crappy-veneer bedside table as a living room piece. It's the happy home to recipe binders, Laptop Lunches bento boxes (review forthcoming!), and...junk!
I also love having fruit at child height for easy snacking. It's made a huge difference to us! And, if you're curious, here's what the drawer looks like inside:
Can you believe this was all out in the open until now??
We have a fairly pathetic stereo set-up - a vintage Pioneer Receiver, a modern Sony turntable, and...gasp...a Discman. Yes. A Discman. Our speakers are nice looking and were apparently used as studio monitors for the Montreal Olympic Games. In 1976. Yes. We are clearly behind the times. Even funnier is that both my husband and I are musicians.
The real issue at hand currently is that Emmett likes to push the buttons on everything. The other day I heard a strange sound and realized it was the turntable needle scraping along the plattern. Awesome. This is more than a phase as it has been going on for almost a year!
We are desperately trying to think of ways to protect our basic but functional system (or the new one which will come at some point). Some sort of cabinet is what we are leaning towards, preferably a lockable one!
Another thought was to take a teak credenza and (egad!) drill holes in the base or back for cables. Obviously we'd get something a bit cheaper than this one:
OK. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a connoisseur when it comes to the different sounds of stereos and speakers. But my day job is as a classical musician, so music is certainly important to me.
As you can see here, our current set up is less than perfect - a vintage amp (that has some issues), a Sony turntable and a Discman. Yes, a Discman. Tragic but true.
So here are my picks (based solely on looks!!) for our dream replacement:
I don't know what unit this is, but it's quite cool. However, even funnier are the eHow instructions on "How do I put Music in a Retro Stereo". This awesome Ehow contains gems such as:
"Insert a tape into the tape deck, then switch the stereo to "Tape." Press "Play" and the audio from the tape is put into the stereo system, playing through the connected speakers."
Awesome. There are also instructions on how to use a CD player.
And now I'd like to add some beauty to your day. Here are a few of my favourite pieces of music. I hope you enjoy them.
This song is "An die Musik" by Schubert. The rough translation is "To Music" and is basically an ode to how music is a constant companion through life.
And here is a piece for my instrument, the viola. I love the passion and longing in this piece.
This is a cool music video from I Furiosi, which is a group in Toronto who pushes the boundaries of 'typical' classical performance stereotypes. Check it out!
This is the moment I've been terrified of - letting you actually see larger portions of my house!
Today is the day, though, and I'm feeling quite chuffed because I've finally finished decorating my mantlepiece. Rachel's Mom (garage saler extraordinaire) had a garage sale on the weekend and she was getting rid of a lot of milk glass. I thought it would look nice against my grey walls and I think it works, don't you?
I'm also happy with the stacked wood in the fireplace. It works as a great kid-proofing!
The colour on the walls is Sherwin Williams Gauntlet Grey.
The magazine rack is still only primed because I haven't decided what colour to paint it (orange? pink? What you do you think?).
And here are some more shots:
And here's a before shot when we looked at the house. Obviously, this isn't our furniture or decor! The whole place was painted that beige and the guy in the pic is our realtor.
