For almost as long as I’ve had the scanning electron micrograph (SEM) images, I’ve wanted to get one printed on canvas really big to show off in my house. This dream was somewhat squashed by the reality of just how much it costs to get an image printed on canvas and stretched onto a frame (upwards of 200$ for the size I wanted). And so, for a year and a half, I went micrograph-less. It was a hard time. With only my periodic shower curtain and rhinovirus soap dispenser to show off my true geekiness to all who visited me.
Not surprisingly, it was science that presented me with an alternative. While attending a poster session at a conference a couple weeks ago, Mike and I noticed that one of the posters was printed on vinyl and not paper. Turns out that Kinkos had a promotion on that made printing on vinyl only 6$/square foot. Slowly, the gears in my head started churning. Surely vinyl could be stretched over a frame much the same way canvas is, and was I not currently in possession of staple gun? I then decided that I would get one of my micrographs printed on vinyl and then stretch it myself.
So I took my image, enlarged it to 48″x30″ (4 feet by 2/5 feet) and took it to Kinkos to get printed. I then went to the local art supply store and bought the pieces for a frame in 44 and 26 inch pieces. It was about 70$ for the print (taxes in) and 15$ for the frame. I then brought it home and with a handy dandy tutorial, began to assemble the whole thing. Besides the fact that I had to use the mechanical staple gun again and ran out of staple halfway through, it wasn’t too bad. Turns out stapling pine is a lot easier than MDF with a thick layer of foam, but it still hurt my hands.
It turned out great and you can’t even tell that it is printed on vinyl and not canvas when you look at it. And now I get to sleep with an image of a retina above my head (you can even see the rods and cones).
Making a headboard has been on the to do list since about the time I moved in. I inherited a box spring and fram from my family, but being just a frame, it was really plain. I’d seen lots of cool ones online and figured “it can’t be that hard.” I even borrowed a staple gun from my parents (this was about 4 months ago). So finalllllly I got around to getting the rest of the supplies this weekend and Mike and I set about the creation of our masterpiece. It’s made out of MDF, with thick polyester upholstery foam and dark brown vinyl covering it. The buttons I bought and covered myself. For the project we also bought a drill and I must say, I’ve taken quite the liking to the drill. I can see how men people get very attached to their power tools. Though the mechanical staple gun was not easy to use. In fact, I was unable to use it, so it’s a good thing I had Mike around, because I obviously seem to be lacking the upper body strength to use such a tool.
Unlike most of the instructions I found on the interweb, we didn’t attach it to the wall because the metal frame had holes in it to attach a headboard. So we just drilled corresponding holes and then bolted it together. It’s crazy how much of a difference it makes in the room.
Headboard + Brenda modelling on the bed
Back in November Mike was part of the torch relay for the winter olympics (!!!). He decided that it was enough of a momentous occasion that he bought the torch. Turns out you only pass the flame, not the torch itself. But we had no idea how to display it. The organizers were selling a stand that you could put on a shelf or table or whatever but
- We didn’t like the design
- We had no where to put it
- Even if we liked it and had a place to put it, it is almost guaranteed that our gremlins cats would knock it over
So we knew we wanted to put it on the wall, and we were envisioning some sort of hook or whatever, but we didn’t know what would fill this duty or what such a thing would be sold as (since no one really sells “torch hooks”). This past weekend though, we came across the perfect thing while looking for castors - rubberized hooks for hanging tools in the garage. Not only was the rubberized bit almost the exact same colour as our walls, they were only 0.89$ a hook! Compared to the 50+ dollars that the stand would have cost us. It was super easy to mount (screw hooks into wall) and we only needed two.
We are still sorely lacking furniture in the new place. We have a bed, we have an awesome entertainment stand and we now have a nice large coffee table. We are lacking places to sit though. Right now we have this
Why yes, it is a futon. This poor futon has seen better days. I did not get it new (like most/all of my furniture). I picked it up from someone who lived across the street two apartments ago. It’s comfy to sit on and great for napping because it has two mattresses but it doesn’t fold down. Well, it folds down, it just doesn’t fold back up. So after battling with it extensively during the move we were told point blank that we should find a “real place to sit”. One could point out that the floor is also a “real place to sit” but being a smart ass never helps.
Thus began the search for a proper couch (or sofa as they appeared to be called more often). The problem with couches, like the majority of modern design is that you pay for for clean lines. I think it’s a little funny since you are getting less material in total, but obviously there is a high premium for coming up with the idea.
Mike and I are also burdened with the issue of being short. I’m only about 5′2″ (5′3″ on a good day) and he’s about 5′9″, so it was important to find a couch that wasn’t crazy deep.
We lucked out however and found this
Source
Not the height of modern design, but not too bad and despite the photo with nothing to reference the size, the couch is the right size and most definitely the right price. It’s not actually leather, but bonded leather, which I discovered in my couch quest for knowledge is somewhere between vinyl and “real” leather. They take all the leather scraps made from other furniture and then mash it up and make a new material. Sounds good to me. We also got the matching chair.
Mike has decided that above almost any other piece of furniture or other furnishing, we need a bright green shag rug for the living room. I am all for this idea because it seems like something I would have come up with anyways.
He had something in mind like this (but a bit brighter)
Source
I suggested that we be extra hip and cool and get a Flor rug. For those not in the know, Flor is a company that makes modular carpet tiles in hundreds of colours and textures. So we found a suitable texture in a suitable colour and started the process of ordering it.
Rake Me Over, Lime
That’s when things went a little sour. Turns out that Flor doesn’t really ship to Canada. So not only are Canadians unable to order online, but after Mike called them they needed a day to figure out just how much it was going to cost. So we finally here back and it’s almost double what we had estimated. Turns out that every little fee that could possibly be added on is added on, especially because they don’t have anything set up to reliably ship to Canada.
So unfortunately the rug was not to be. I hold no ill feeling towards Flor though, they’re a great company and I love the fact that if you wear out a tile you can send it back and they’ll recycle it. So I would whole heartedly endorse Flor, as long as you don’t live outside the US.
The first thing Mike and I decided to do with the place was paint it. The condo had been reasonably freshly painted by the people before us, but it was a very generic yellowy off-white. Mike decided that we should have cooler colours so we trekked to the local Canadian Tire to look at colours and paints. Mike picked a nice light grey then we thought it would be pretty cool to have one wall of the bedroom a slightly darker grey.
Not that there was a whole lot of selection at Canadian Tire as far as paint brands go, but we went with CIL Real Life Eggshell. Mostly because it said it was low VOC and that seems to be the big trend. I’d actually never painted with latex paints before because my family house was built in the 80s, when oil paint was used because it just smells so good (and you have got to love the 5 day drying time).
Painting went well. Except that it turns out that “snowfield” and “winternight” (or whatever the darker one was called) are only marginally different. As in the darker colour is exactly the colour of shadows on the first. It makes for a great optical illusion, but not really the punchy contrast we were aiming for.
So Mike and I just got internet in the new place so I will start uploading photos of our design endeavors shortly. For the last couple days we’ve just been trying to unpack boxes and get things sort of sorted. This has proven to be difficult because we are sorely lacking furniture. And I do mean sorely.
I will post some “before” pictures shortly, but basically our challenge is this: Take a completely empty condo and furnish/decorate it with very little money. So far I think we’re doing ok. The only existing furniture we had was a desk, a broken futon and a tiny coffee table. We were lucky enough to receive a hand me down bed and bookcase and now the scrounging the classifieds begins. I’ll elaborate on this more later I suspect.
