HGTV Warms My Heart

I have a slight interest in (and by "slight interest in" I mean "complete and total obsession with") HGTV and their plethora of home improvement shows, and now that Jim and I finally have cable, whenever he's not here I turn the channel on, sit back, and watch hours upon hours of people redoing their drab houses/rooms/yards into magnificent, color-strewn works of art.

HGTV = Heavenly Gleeful TV programming

Sometimes I try to recreate the "After" scenarios, but given that I have neither money nor creative skills above doodling stick figures and stapling my hands to various surfaces, it never ends very well. Given that I'm tired of accidental self-mutilations, and the shower curtain I attempted to string up as a pseudo bedroom door looks like I strangled someone and hung their misshapen body up against the wall, I've stopped attempting to decorate and just lose myself instead with the on-screen masters as they do their work.

Sometimes I think about how fabulous it would be if I sent in some kind of submission, and had one of the three dozen show teams dispatched to the apartment, armed with paint, pillows, and swatches of fabric, ready to tackle the apartment and turn it from "bachelor pad chic" to "amazing beach themed palace." After all, most of the shows are just people sending in pictures/videos of their sad little spaces, or having their friends and family send submissions in for them.

At this point, the bulk of our 'decor' comes from Ross' discount horrorporium (have you ever attempted going in there on a weekend day? Good god) and Big Lots! which appeals to my very basic Jew senses (I will admit that upon stepping into the store, I immediately go into nearly-epileptic fits of glee.) Both are great for decorating on a (severely) limited budget, but there's something about digging through piles of broken, jumbled crap just to find the one damn shoe rack that doesn't look like it endured a nuclear bomb blast, that makes it kind of depressing after awhile. Not that I'll stop going, because I love me a good sale (and when confronted with nearly an entire store of items priced at $1.99 or less, I just can't control myself) but it would be nice to have total access to expensive, pretty things.

Given the state of the merchandise in Ross stores, this probably occurs every morning

Granted, there have been a few things I've finagled that seem at least somewhat ocularly-pleasing, including these fake plant things that I'm obsessed with, even if they look
like they were struck by lightening at some point:

You can kind of see the plastic plant in this terrible picture taken from my Blackberry; so much for the fancy, expensive phone taking good pictures. Anyway, I also bought some matching candles to go along with the... plant and I'm hoping that "I'm broke and can't buy any other accessories" translates into "clean modern chic" here. A girl can dream, at least.

I'm hoping that once we get a better grasp on our financial situation we can go crazy and decorate the shit out of the place. Only a few more years for that to happen!