The Dungeons: my Professor Snape-inspired office
Eight years ago, I moved into my current home. That was when I began putting together my unusual office, a small space filled to bursting with books, curiosities and Professor Snape collectibles. It is also whimsically known as “the dungeons.”
I think of the room as a collage of sorts, a work of art, a sanctuary. I love arranging objects in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and finding ways to cram yet more of them in every nook and cranny. I love jars, and bugs, and memento mori… I love things that belong to a more genteel age: quills, ink wells, hourglasses, Oriental carpets.
Wedding decor-turned home-decor and a tent in a bright green and blue room in this week’s reader photos
Start your week with our collection of interesting articles on the web and photos from our readers. This week: a tent bed and a serendipitous score from a movie theater. In these Clicky Links you’ll find lots of sites to waste a little time on.
Click through, too, to find our links on submitting YOUR stuff to Offbeat Home!
Living in your home after a death
Nine months ago I was sitting at this very laptop, surrounded by every other laptop we had in the flat (all of which were logged into different Facebook accounts), plus address books, and lists of names, and my mobile phone had never seen so much use in its life.
My fiancé had passed away early that morning and we’d just finished letting everyone know.
Make art out of band tees so you can prove you listened to them way back when
I stopped buying band t-shirts at concerts a long time ago because they never fit quite right. Men’s tees are too big and the girl’s “babydoll” sized tees are always too little, even if they claim to be an extra large. But I already have a huge collection of shirts: NEW CRAFT PROJECT!
5 lamps you can handmake to add sculptural surrealism at home
Cheap good lamps are hard to find, am I right? I’ve been on the search for them in big box stores, clearance aisles, antique shops, and thrift stores all over the midwest, and I’m still lighting most of my living room with clamp lights. If you’re in the same boat, I have been scheming schemes. Here are five lamps you can handmake.
How to stop dilly dallying and start decorating: a support group for recovering nomads
While laying awake in bed one night, I realized why I find decorating my house SO FUCKING HARD: I haven’t stayed anywhere long enough to learn how. Since that revelation, I’ve been teaching myself how to decorate, and here are the three points I’ve figured out on how to decorate a home — for someone who’s had the nesting instinct beaten out of them by constant box shuffling.
9 ideas to bring fun and comfort back to the dorms
WHOO! SPRING SEMESTER! Time to party hard and go to class and study a lot and…trudge out of your last lab so tired you want to sleep forever…back home to your 10×10 cinderblock den with communal showers…and constant fire alarms. Okay, living in dormitories can get boring — even frustrating. I’m thinking back on those days and pulling out the cozy ways my roommate and I made our dorm a fun place to relax, even when schedules got tough: after she pulled another all-night at the hotel front desk or when I got done with my soul-crushing, puppy-killing job.
What’s your best trick on reducing the number of consumable plastics your household goes through?
Hey Homies! What do you think about turning some of our advice posts into VIDEO advice posts? We’ll still run text-only posts — so don’t worry if you’re camera-shy or don’t have the tech — but I think it’ll be fun for us to see members of the community once in a while. Here, let’s try it!