House Crashing: Shock & Eww

When I was lately flipping through old albums with a friend (ah, college reminiscing…) I was seriously shocked and majorly grossed out by my grade school, dorm and first-apartment decor (not to mention my taste in clothing). And I am fairly sure it’ll have you folks reeling too. Especially since most people think I am the especially neat folds-my-underwear type (fyi, I ball ’em up like everyone else). Ok, are you ready? This is my bedroom in 8th grade:

Granted you will have to look past my high-waisted airbrushed winking jeans (yes the other cheek featured an eye that was open), tie-dyed shirt and scrunchie. I have no defense. Except that I was born and raised in New Jersey and I got those jeans custom made “down the shore” and thought they were all artsy and cool. Yeah, I might severely regret posting this picture on the internet, huh? But let us stop hysterically laughing and look at the background for a moment. Growing up I consistently hoped to be an artist so I guess it is no surprise that I painted clouds on my closet doors and rejected crisp white trim for something a little more unexpected.

It should also be noted that I did all these Hands-on projects when my mom was working late so she’d come home to find my masterpieces (she was fairly good at feigning pride instead of horror, I’d give her a C+). So we can tell from the painted trim and closet doors that I’d grow up to enjoy paint (check). But what does the beanbag in the corner and the stuffed animal hammock mean? Well I have floor pillows in the sunroom and a big hammock in the woods behind our house so perhaps there is a loose correlation. And we are not even going to go into the seal poster. Not Seal the singer, an actual baby seal. Perhaps that evolved into my enjoy of white ceramic animals? Hmm.

And then there is my freshman dorm room at FIT in NYC (holla). I am especially proud of my New York art school resume but I cannot say the same thing about my room. Sheesh.

If you look beyond the Slim Shady poster (again, I have no defense) and the fact that I apparently used to write on photos (hence the “room #1” label in pen above my bed), you will see a few interesting items like my denim bedding (yup I sewed a blanket with a bunch of old pairs of jeans that I saved up for years) and my fish shower curtain that I hung on the wall (I thought it was mural-like at the time, and I in fact think if it went wall to wall it would have been remarkable… for a dorm room). I also created a faux-crown molding effect all around the room with those free postcards you find next to bathrooms in NYC bars. I am a total weirdo, huh? Perhaps it was foreshadowing for this artistic crown molding creation years later…

But at least I was starting to repurpose things (something that certainly still makes me giddy)- and it is a trend that continued in my quite first solo apartment in Brooklyn (can you believe at 20 I was living alone in Brooklyn?):

Can you tell what happened to my beloved denim blanket? Well, when I upgraded to a bona fide duvet I turned it into pillows (see them stacked under my curbside-find chair?). And see that weird little pink lumbar pillow on the chair? I made that from an old pink satin sleep camisole. It was in fact fairly cool up close but quite strange none the less. This is when I truly began to embrace home-related projects and I made those hanging hearts in the window with wax paper that I colored with red and pink crayons and baked in the oven for a stained-glass effect on the low-cost (and I am still pinching pennies nearly ten years later, some things never change). Of course there is the weirdly dark still life that I painted for wall art (how Adams Family of me). Although I have certainly lightened up over the years, I am still making art all the time (from the stuff in our shop to the “Artsy Ideas” category on our How-To page). Perhaps there are a few patterns after all.

So what is the verdict? Are you folks appropriately shocked and skeeved? Are you still stuck on the airbrushed jeans? Yeah, me too. Did you think my dorm room would be all preppy and whitewashed and clean? I bet you did. How about what your rooms looked like back in the day… notice any patterns or trends that are still popping up today in your home? Did anyone else have that baby seal poster? Do tell.