Apartment Tour :: Roxy's Room to Grow

After T and I got back from Target I convinced him to help me clean for pictures. What a sweet guy he is (yes, I'm totally buttering him up for more). We dusted and vacuumed and prepped for my contest entry photo session. Hopefully P is coming down so we can hang out next weekend...and also so he can help me put up a huge NYC print I got from Ikea. I fell in love with it because I can see my work building in the photo. Silly, I know. I want to take before pictures just in case the canvas doesn't work out.

Ikea's awesome Premiär Flatiron print,
soon to be living on my wall.

One thing I have noticed is that it's hard to keep things that have outlived their usefulness. For example, my old bedding set is now sitting in a couple of bags under my pub table. I'm not ready to part with it yet but I don't really have room to store it here. I suppose I could take it to Julio but even that seems wasteful. The set might end up getting donated. I also have a dog bed, most recently home to doggy visitor Mooshi but now propped up against the far side of my bed as well as two pathetically under-used laptop bags.

"I have clutter!" I moaned. "The ONE thing I've tried so desperately to avoid." T smirked and assured me I was fine. He'd seen way worse, including the way I used to live in Connecticut. I suppose it is true that the more space you have the easier it is to fill it up.

After my drama attack was over T and I shared faux romantic lunch. He excused himself ("don't wanna be in the way of your photography session") and I started snapping. It was very hard to get good angles because my apartment is long and sort of narrow. After about an hour I was pleased enough.

I think I take decent enough photos, but I want to know how the heck professional photographers get such soft lighting on their pictures. All the interior design books have an almost glowy quality to them. I feel like I should be more of a Photoshop photo filter expert than I am. Alas, even after fiddling with my exposure and white balance my pictures still retain the hardness of, well, a photo. Hopefully my photos will be softened a bit if they make up to the Apartment Therapy site.

Even so, contest or no contest, I've come quite a long way since I moved in. I'm quite proud -- I spent almost a month on my sofabed and I've gone through 3 TV stands but otherwise it's been good. It's not my first solo living space but it's probably the most adult one. Up until now my little railroad at 3 Cottage St in Norwalk was my favorite place but I think this place has replaced it as coolest pad.

I can only submit 5 photos for the contest but I made a slideshow of my favorite shots:


I need to take some additional kitchen photos and maybe a couple more bathroom shots but that more or less is the whole tour. It's not big, but it's modern and it's mine. Besides quiet neighbors, you can't really ask for much more.