Life Obscura

On most days, I love my kitchen. Sure, it’s maybe not the best for cooking a huge dinner, but as it’s usually just Matt and I, the need for a Thanksgiving-style meal is few and far between. With a completely horizontal set-up, gas stove, and stainless steel backsplash, the kitchen fits well in our modern loft, and has plenty of room for my everyday cooking and baking needs.

However… there’s a bit of a problem with fruit flies.

Now, there are several factors that feed into this problem, including no screens on the windows paired with no AC in the apartment. Also, our apartment building is really into a small trash footprint, so we have a little food scraps bin on the counter that feeds into a building-wide compost bin in the basement. Add this to the oven, dishwasher, and garbage disposal all being in a nice, steamy row in the middle of the countertops, and fruit flies seem to love it here.

While it’s not the end of the world (it’s not like we have ants, or wasps, or roaches) I just hate fruit flies. They drive me crazy, and they make me feel like no matter what I do, somehow my house is dirty. So I’ve been waging battle on them for the past few months, and now that I’ve finally seen a significant decrease, I’m sharing my attack plans with you!

One of my favorite things in life is finding a fantastic storage item. Those of you who are like me, who are happiest when all things have a designated place (and that place is categorized and maybe even color-coded), probably understand what I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t… just imagine that I’m Monica from ‘Friends’.

When we moved into this loft, I knew I was going to struggle with storage, what with the lack of closets and cabinet space. While we do own a few bookshelves, I personally prefer unsightly items (like cleaning supplies, spare lightbulbs, etc.) to be out of sight, and our shelving is pretty exposed.

Enter these fantastic cubes from IKEA! They’re called TRONES, and they’ve been the perfect solution for my organizational needs around the apartment. One “pack” gives you three squares that can join together horizontally, vertically, or stand on their own pretty much anywhere you want them. With a slim profile (about 7 inches) they can add tons of storage to small rooms like entryways, half baths, or even closets, without making the space seem smaller.

Ah, movies. Who doesn’t love movies? I am definitely an avid movie fan, which has led to a more than modest movie collection in my home. I’m not sure quite when it started, but in college I definitely was the person to go to if you wanted to borrow a movie in the dorms.

Since then my movie collection has grown exponentially, as I can’t resist checking out movie shelves in stores, or finding the latest Bluray deals on Amazon. I buy movies I’ve seen and love, movies that I’ve heard of and need to watch, or even movies that I’ve never heard of but have interesting descriptions. (Or movies that have Chris Evans in them. Come on, we all have that one actor, admit it.)

However, the last time we moved house, I realized that the collection had gotten a bit cumbersome. It took two suitcases, two plastic bins, and at least two more boxes to move my entire collection (which also at the time included a substantial amount of boxed TV shows). DVDs and Blurays may be smaller than VHS tapes, but the sheer amount I have was just too much to move.

As I’ve recently found myself with extra hours of free time on my hands, I’ve begun to tackle the numerous home projects that I read about in magazines, see on Pinterest, or have generally added to my to-do list but haven’t gotten around to. While many are largely organizational, behind-the-scenes projects, the big project I just finished (and am pretty damn proud of) is our new gallery wall.

Now, you’ve probably seen gallery walls somewhere by this point, as they seem to be a trend in home decor at the moment. And if you have one, awesome! I’m loving mine, so I hope you’re getting the same enjoyment out of yours. But if you don’t have one yet, here’s a little “how to” guide for putting together a gallery wall in your own home.