Interior Anti-Design

I was going to make a new year's resolution, not because I think making resolutions is a good idea - I don't see the point really - but because I though it would be a good way to make a blog post. I was going to write about how my resolution should be to stop procrastinating, but it's already the 24th of January and this should have been written on the first, so ... maybe not then.

Instead, I am going to make a resolution to make my apartment look less like I moved in an hour ago. Anyone that has been to my place will understand this. I've been living here over a year (I moved in on January 1st, 2008) and things are in piles around the edge of the room, as I've got no furniture apart from a desk and chair (neither of which I actually bought), and a glass table and two wicker chairs kindly given to me by Julia and Brian.
But this resolution isn't about buying some furniture, because I don't want any more. I don't want to be one of those people - you know the ones - them that own couches. What would I do with a couch? Probably just use it as a shelf and put stuff on it. I've got as many chairs as I've got mugs, which means I have got as many chairs as people I can have round at once.
I want to cover the walls with random stuff and get a load of shelves to put the stuff I've got on. I have been buying a cactus plant here and there, and have built up a little collection to put on my planned shelving unit(s). Mum said it would be okay to leave them outside on the planting table over winter, but I guess she wasn't expecting it to get this cold. Damn snow.
I was quite disappointed when the first one defrosted and went floppy. I haven't really got any good pictures of them pre-freeze, but I was planning on taking some good photos of them, just hadn't gotten around to it...
I like cactuses (yes I know, but "cacti" sounds too "I'm trying to sound clever") because they're unusual, architectural (mathematical?), widely varied, individual, ... weird.
I like weird stuff. I don't like everything matching and Martha-Stewarty. Why can't you get a load of things you like individually and put them in the same room? Because they're not from the same country/vintage/style/colour group? Bollocks.
I've been reading James May's Telegraph column online on and off. He's a motoring journalist and presenter of one of Britain's most popular programs, Top Gear. I like his writing style, and how he manages to be very entertaining while discussing a valid concept, and somehow managing to vaguely relate it to cars. He's honest and realistic and can't be bothered with the big things. Why, when he can write an entire article about putting cheese in a juicer? Anyway, his column from a couple of weeks ago (that I just read) discussed this matter (which I will call Interior Anti-Design). He describes his house as looking like "an upturned box of Lego". He's even got an orange and yellow stair carpet (alternating yellow and orange for each stair).
My sister was visiting my parents a few weeks ago (when this post was started), and they came down to see me one day. Emma has just moved into a new apartment and bought a load of furniture for it. She's doing it all in black and tan - throw cushions and everything. She even bought some matching "art" from Walmart.
I'd hate a place like that. My apartment will be anti-designed in an "eclectic" style, and will look like a clown threw up on it.
I've already gotten started on this project. When I built my computer, I spray painted the case orange. I've got a tissue paper pineapple, and a poster of a random downhiller. I bought a calendar of Escher prints and shoved them in dollar store frames, which I have hung randomly with pushpins on the wall to the left of my desk.
In high school I made mountains of origami - everything from 1000 unit modulars to Jun Meakawa's devil, but that all got thrown out when moving, and all I've got is a box of the half finished stuff, and stuff that I couldn't finish or came out rubbishly.
Emma brought me a kite back from Bali, so I've hung that in the corner. It's royal blue with a red dragon on - I like dragons.

I will keep you updated on this project.