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wannab-urs · 1 year ago

Note

For the sleepover

Do me a favor

My baby boy, Dieter

Congratulations again babe! I love you!

Thank you bb I love you and I'm really excited about this fic

For the Record

Pairing: Record Shop Owner!Dieter x f!Reader

Summary: You go to a record store looking for something specific and end up on a date with the owner.

Warnings/Content: Dieter Bravo being Dieter Bravo, excessive name dropping of bands I like, grungy Dieter wearing Doc Martens and covered in tattoos, reader going to a strangers house like an idiot, kissing, fingering, oral f!receiving, unprotected piv (this is not real life. Don’t be dumb), one tiny little ass slap, praise, creampie, no use of Y/N, WC: ~2900

Notes: Bravo Records is based on Grimey’s in Nashville, TN which you should absolutely visit if you get the chance. Unfortunately it isn’t owned by Dieter Bravo. Thank you @theywhowriteandknowthings for the beta read and the encouragement <;3

Dieter Bravo Masterlist | Main Masterlist | AO3 | Kofi

You’re on the hunt for a Replacements' album, Tim, specifically. Ironically, you’re replacing it in your collection, having lost it to your ex boyfriend. Note to self: never combine your record collection with anyone ever again.

This morning you’d googled “record shops near me” and scrolled past Walmart and Target, no thank you, and settled on Bravo Records. The blurb advertised it as a “Laid-back music shop specializing in vintage, pressed recordings, CDs & cassette tapes,” and mentioned a bookstore in the basement and a consignment shop out back.

Pulling into the gravel parking lot, you take in the building. There are murals depicting perfect recreations of album covers on the brick walls of the store. If you couldn’t see the brushstrokes when you got up close, you’d think they were somehow printed on. The bright yellow of Metallica’s 72 Seasons, the hands reaching for the sky on Boygenius’ The Record, both newer releases. But there’s also The Clash’s London Calling and The Stooges’ Fun House.

Whoever owns this place has taste. You step into the shop, eyes immediately drawn to the oddly curved ceiling and the exposed brick walls, covered in posters and random paintings. There are 6 sets of shelves running almost the entire length of the store up to a small clearing in the back. There’s a surprisingly large stage beyond that, someone playing the guitar and reciting poetry, a smattering of people leaned against the shelves, listening.

“Welcome to Bravo’s,” a deep but cheery voice rings in your ear. You let out a small yelp and turn sharply to face the source. “Oh! Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just downstairs and heard the door… I’m Dieter, by the way.”

You take in the man now standing in front of you. He’s wearing a very faded Nirvana shirt stretched within an inch of its life across his broad chest and shoulders. It probably used to be black, but now it’s a bit gray, and there are holes in the seams of the collar. His wide legged pants are black and flowy, you almost mistake them for a skirt until he leans against the counter and crosses his legs. His Docs are scuffed, clearly worn in, maybe vintage. You trail your eyes back up his body, noting the various tattoos on his hands and arms, all black ink and thick linework. You settle back on his face and find his eyebrows arched over deep brown eyes, plush lips in a pout. His beard is scruffy, patchy, and his hair looks like he just rolled out of bed.

“Find anything you like?” He smirks at you and you suddenly realize you just silently checked him out for a good 10 seconds. Your cheeks heat and you clear your throat.

“Um… I’m looking for Tim? The album I mean, not the guy, I don’t even know a Tim. By the Replacements? Do you know it?” You sound like an idiot oh god.

He barely restrains a chuckle, mirth dancing in his eyes, “Yeah, I know it. I only have a first pressing in the original sleeve… is that okay?” He crosses his arms over his chest and holy shit. His biceps are huge. You bite your lip and nod.

“Yes! Er… um. How much is it?” You wince. There’s no way it’s gonna fit in your pitifully small budget.

Dieter tilts his head to the side and scrunches his eyebrows up, two lines forming between them. He brings a hand to his unruly hair and tugs. So that’s why he looks like he just got thoroughly fucked. He perks his head up suddenly, almost like he heard your thoughts.

“Do you wanna go out with me?”

“What?”

“Oh! I mean go out for coffee with me and you can have the record.”

“I can’t just take it for free, Dieter!”

“Of course you can. I’m the owner. It’s my record. Do you not want to go out with me?” His face scrunches up again and fuck. He’s really cute.

“Of course I want to go out with you,” you splutter, shocking yourself.

“It’s settled then. Let’s go!” He turns and walks out the door and you scramble to keep up with him.

“Now? Don’t you have to run the shop?”

“Nah, Chrissy can handle it,” he waves his hand like it’s no big deal and heads for the street. “It’s just right down the road.”

–-

Coffee with Dieter is amazing. He orders a sweet monstrosity, frozen, topped with whipped cream and 3 kinds of syrup. You try to order your favorite drink, but he insists you get the same thing as him.

“Just trust me!” You’ve literally just met the man, but you think you do trust him. There’s just something about him. He learns your name when you give it to the barista and you apologize profusely for being too flustered to properly introduce yourself.

He just laughs and guides you to a pair of armchairs in the corner, kicking off his boots to reveal mismatched socks – one a dark purple tall sock with embroidered grapes on it, the other an ankle sock with a print of Starry Night on it – and settles cross legged into the chair. You tell him you like his socks.

He asks you about what you do for work, where you’re from, what your favorite movies are, an endlessly easy and flowing conversation, peppering in his own answers and arguing with you when you tell him that Judd Apatow movie about making a movie during covid was awful. He asks you what your holy grail album is, the one you’d kill to have in your collection. You don’t even have to think about it.

“The Velvet Underground and Nico, original pressing, with the sticker still on it. I’ll never be able to afford it though. I’ve never even seen one in real life.”

“Do you want to?” He looks at you with a shit eating grin and a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“What? Want to see one in real life? I mean… yeah?”

“Let’s go then!” He jumps up, pulling his boots back on and heading for the door. You’re again hustling to keep up with him. You follow him out onto the sidewalk.

“Dieter! Go where?”

“To my house!” You grab his arm and pull him to a stop.

“Why are we going to your house?” You’re exasperated.

“To show you the record. You wanted to see it right?”

“You do not have it. Dieter, there’s no way… One of them just sold for 25k.”

“I do have it. My dad bought it when it came out and now it’s mine.” He takes off walking again, grabbing your hand and pulling you along with him.

“Is this some sort of ploy to get me to go home with you? You could have just asked.”

“I know! I mean… fuck. I’m being serious. I have the record upstairs.” He suddenly comes to a stop in front of an apartment building. “If you want, you can wait here and I’ll bring it down. Just promise not to rob me, yeah?” You huff out a frustrated breath.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll come in with you.”

His face lights up and he threads his fingers through yours again. It feels nice, holding his hand. He pulls you up the stairs with him and unlocks his door, and you step into his living room. His apartment was clearly supposed to be one of those industrial chic, modern type spaces, but he clearly didn’t care for that style. There are paintings and posters covering every square inch of wall space. “I take it you decorated the shop then?”

“Yep! I do all the murals too.” Fuck, he can paint too? The concrete floor is covered with rugs of all different shapes, sizes, and textures. There’s a blue couch and some clearly thrifted armchairs off to the left. The right side of the room is absolutely dominated by his record collection. There’s a shelf running the length of the room, standing taller than you and absolutely stuffed with records. On the floor around it are milk crates filled with even more records.

“Jesus Christ, Dieter, how many records do you have?” You wander over to a crate and start flipping through, finding that he’s organized them by genre. This one is folk punk you notice as you flip through albums by AJJ, Violent Femmes, The Mountain Goats, and more.

“I genuinely have no idea. I stopped counting back when I was a teenager.” He goes to the shelf, and you decide it must be more organized than it looks because he quickly pulls two albums out and presents them to you. One is the album you asked about in the shop. The other one…

“Holy shit.” You stare up at him from your crouched position. “Holy fucking shit Dieter you actually have it.”

“I fuckin’ told you! Do you wanna listen to it?”

“Do I want to listen to it? Are you actually kidding me? Of course I do!!” He grins at you and walks over to his record player beside the couch. He slides the record out of the sleeve gently and places it on the turntable before dropping the needle. You join him on the couch as the first notes of “Sunday Morning” drift into the room.

“Dieter?” He hums and smiles at you again. “I could kiss you right now. Fuck. Can I kiss you right now?” He looks shocked for a second before taking your face in his hands and pressing his lips to yours. You kiss him back hard, licking into his mouth. He drags you into his lap, your knees settling on the outsides of his thighs.

You bury your hands in his wild curls and gently tug on them. He groans into your mouth and trails his hands down your body, pulls you even tighter against him. You can feel him getting hard under you, his soft pants doing little to conceal his arousal. You’re not much better off as his lips leave yours and trail down your jaw, your throat, his teeth catching skin as he goes. When “I’m Waiting for the Man,” starts to play, Dieter brings his hands back to your face and pulls you away from him, staring deep into your eyes.

“Do you wanna have sex with me?”

You stare at him, shocked for a moment, and then you laugh so hard you fall sideways off his lap. “You know what, Dieter? Yes. I’d like to have sex with you.”

“Cool,” he breathes out, turning and settling his body over yours. He presses another kiss to your lips and you tug on his shirt. He pulls back long enough to strip it off and you take yours off too. He lays sloppy, open mouthed kisses on your throat and chest, mumbling praises into your skin as he works your jeans and panties down your thighs. You kick them off as he makes his way down to your core. You’re wetter than you’ve ever been in your entire life. He’s so fucking gorgeous. All golden skin beautifully covered in black ink.

“I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Dieter whispers into the space between your thighs. Your hands fly to his hair as he licks a stripe from your entrance to your clit, immediately closing his lips around it and sucking lightly. Your head falls back and a moan rips from your throat.

He presses a thick finger into you and it’s fucking bliss. He feels so good already. He curls his finger upwards, swirling his tongue in circles around your clit at the same time. Your hands drop to his shoulders as he adds another finger and starts thrusting them into you, curling on every upstroke into your g-spot.

“Fuck! Dieter… feels so good. Don’t stop.”

“Shhh baby, I can’t hear the song.”

You dig your nails into his shoulders, laughing and on the verge of coming at the same time. He slips his tongue down to join his fingers at your entrance and buries his nose against your clit and you’re gone. The shaking of your body from laughing at him quickly gives over to shuddering as your core tightens around his fingers. You cry out, pure euphoria washing over your whole body.

“That’s it baby. Fuck, you’re squeezing my fingers so tight. Look so pretty coming for me.” Dieter talks you through it until the haze of your orgasm fades. “Here or the bed?”

“Here. Get in me. Now.” You grab at his hair, pulling his face back up to yours. You kiss your own slick off his lips hungrily as he clumsily shoves his pants down far enough for his cock to spring out. He slides it through your folds a few times before notching it at your entrance.

You grab his hips and pull him into you, throwing your head back and arching your hips up into him. “Impatient.” He grumbles it into your neck, but thrusts himself into the hilt, clearly as desperate as you. He barely gives you a chance to adjust before he’s drawing back and thrusting into you again. His breath leaves him in a low growl that has a new gush of slick coating his cock.

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him back into you every time he pulls out. His thrusts are shallow from this angle, but he’s slamming into you so hard it doesn’t matter. You slot your lips together, not really kissing, just breathing each other in.

“Dieter, I’m gonna come again,” you can feel your walls tightening around him, drawing him deeper into you. He shifts his angle slightly so that his pelvis grinds against your clit every time his hips meet yours. Your nails dig into the meat of his shoulders, dragging down to his lower back as your whole body tightens and spasms around him.

For a moment, as you catch your breath, you think your hearing must have gone out. Dieter is buried to the hilt inside you, torso pressed flush to yours, but you don’t hear the music anymore. “Want me to flip it to the B side?” Oh. He just fucked you for the entire A side of the track and he’s still not done.

“Yeah sure,” you huff a laugh into his hair. He lifts up, presses a kiss to your lips and pulls out of you with a groan. Your cunt flutters around nothing, missing the feeling of him inside you already. You get a good look at his cock now – thick, uncut, drooling precum and covered in your release. He’s so pretty.

He flips the record to the B side and then pushes his pants down the rest of the way, leaving them in a black puddle on the floor. He grabs your hips and flips you over onto your stomach. “Thought I’d get a look at your B side too,” Dieter says and you can hear the smirk in his voice.

“I think I hate you,” you mumble into the cushions. He just laughs and settles one knee on the couch, his other foot planted on the floor. He taps your ass cheek lightly.

“Up on your knees, pretty girl.” You shift to comply and he settles his hands on your hips, helping you up and burying his cock in you again in one smooth motion.

“Fuck!” Your arms buckle and you drop to your elbows as he rails you. The new angle is so good it almost hurts. He uses his grip on your hips to pull you into every thrust, punching the breath out of you and turning your brain to mush. You couldn’t tell him what song is playing right now if your life depended on it. All you hear is your own strangled moans and the praises he’s crying out into the air.

“So fucking beautiful. You’re so tight and wet, fuck. I’m gonna come baby. Can I come in your pretty pussy? Please?” You nearly come again at that. The thought of being full of him.

“Yes! Yes! Dieter. Come in me. Need it. Please!” He buries himself inside you and stays there and you can actually feel his cock jump inside you, hot spurts of cum filling you up. He curls himself over your back and you both collapse into the couch.

He rolls onto his side, pulling you with him and tucking your back to his chest. He doesn’t pull out of you, just tangles your legs together and wraps his arms around you. You both just lay there in a daze, listening to the rest of the album. When “European Son” fades out and the record starts clicking, Dieter finally slips his softened cock from you. He stands up and puts the record back in its sleeve, filing it back on the shelf.

“If I go to the bathroom, will you still be here when I get back, or are you gonna steal my record and break my heart?”

“Of course I’m gonna steal it,” you smile at him, still stretched out on the couch and not really planning on moving any time soon. He rolls his eyes, laughing at you and disappearing into the hallway.

Maybe combining record collections isn’t completely off the table. If it’s with the right person.

#gins1500sleepover #Dieter Bravo #Dieter Bravo fics #Dieter Bravo fanfiction #Dieter Bravo x reader #Dieter Bravo x you #The Bubble #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro fics #pedro pascal character fanfiction #dieter bravo x f!reader

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antimony-medusa · 2 years ago

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OSMP Denizens Sleeping Habits

Ranboo: She has carefully set up a four-poster bed with purple (has to be purple) hangings, and little gold chains. She sleeps in a lovely set of lacy pajamas with an eye mask and hand-cream gloves. About half of the time one of her bed posts falls on the bed while she’s asleep and she comes awake in a furious panic.

TommyInnit: He’s very convinced that it’s a nice nest and will proclaim this loudly, but like, it’s mostly a lot of sticks covered in moss. He stuffs shed feathers in the cracks, and curls up in a quilt he stole from Phil, and snores very loudly.

Niki Nihachu: She has a kelp bed that she carefully moors herself in, so after a nice hot snack (Jack’s got her in the hot drink trend), and taking care that her pet crabs and axolotls are safe, she ties herself in place and drifts off to sleep.

Tubbo: Passes out in random locations.

Philza: Has a very nice nest up high with a careful mattress-and-quilt base to it (the quilt is from his wife), and artfully woven sides, and he can lean over the side and spy on everyone if he needs to.

Jack Manifold: He drinks a hot drink and puts on his thermal pajams (he does not have the ones with a butt flap and if Tommy said so he was lying, these are made of asbestos and they’re very dignified), and he curls up in a shallow lava bath and he sleeps with his mouth open, drooling.

Sneegsnag: He has bored a hole in a tree, it is very sweet and cute and cottagecore inside-- acorn table, leaf bed, water drop dispenser, sugar dispenser. He goes on a sugar-high craze about once a week and wrecks it cause he’s moving too fast and has to bore a new hold and rebuild. The tree is becoming structurally unstable.

Smajor: It’s just a single bed, but it’s set right up underneath a skylight so the stars can see him. He has space-patterned sheets, and sleeps with a tape of ocean noise, and a hot water bottle, cause he’s cold.

Badlinu: He has a New and Modern nest of his own design, which is mostly a crate of 2 by 4s set up around a walmart single mattres and comforter (he does not have sheets on the bed). You have to climb up the side and worm between the boards and the ceiling and then fall onto the bed. He insists he sleeps soundly in this.

CaptainSparklez: King-sized bed, high thread-count egyptian linen, aromatherapy setup, white noise machine, yoga before bed, turning off his phone an hour before bed and reading a paper book, 10:30 bedtime. Or that’s what he’s supposed to do. Half the time he falls into bed at 3am because he’s been playing COD too late and sleeps on top of the covers.

Technoblade: He has a warren and if someone (tommy) manages to work their way into it they’ll find a very ordinary ikea-furnished bedroom in a logical place for a bedroom. He does not sleep there, he has a very secret futon with carrot-printed sheets and a gold-ore-printed duvet, that is in a classified location. No one (no one) gets to know where that is.

Fundy: Logically, you should not be able to get to his bed with the amount of stolen items there are crammed into his bedroom. It should not work. He manages it anyway, and he sleeps curled around and inside the most valuable thing he possesses currently, which is Captain Sparklez’s netherite armour. The captain thinks he misplaced it, but no. Fundy is cuddling it while he sleeps.

Shubble: She didn’t know what bedrooms were supposed to look like so she googled “cute bedrooms” and recreated the top hit. Wilbur and Jack both helped build it, sniping at each other the whole time. It’s adorable and has many cushions on the bed.

Beau Beautie_: Has decided that she doesn’t want to sleep in a nest, so she has a bedroom that is a careful imitation of Shubble’s Pinterest-Inspired room, including the huge collection of pillows. Most of the time she has to use the pillows to make a little nest so she can stay asleep, but she’s determined to ignore that.

Wilbur Soot: Has a little nest set up in a dark room. Big soundproof curtains on the windows drape over the woven sides of the nest, and sometimes he gets them tangled up with the quilt. He has a switch charging port set up for when he gets nightmares, which happens fairly frequently.

Jschlatt/Fragrance Man/Man: Drinks a fifth of whiskey, sleeps in his vestments on the couch. Like he has a bed but it’s used to store laundry and a cat. He doesn’t sleep super well, but he wakes up still drunk, so he’s not hungover.

James Marriot: Didn’t want to take the time to build a bed, is secretly sleeping in Schlatt’s bed when he’s not looking. He doesn’t sleep super well either, and somehow he does wake up with a hangover despite not having drunk the night before.

Charlie Slimecicile: Bucket.

#OSMP denizens #osmp

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whatiwore · 7 years ago

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Room to Grow in a Colorful Boy’s Bedroom

We’re on a roll updating the farmhouse and today I’m so excited to post photos of Felix’s room! While most of my decorating preferences lean towards neutrals, I just love color in kids’ rooms. I incorporated many of the items from Felix’s bright nursery (first here and updated here) from our old house but went bold with colorful walls, ceiling and door. Come on in and lemme show you around!

PAINT

Is it sacrilegious to use paint chips from one company and have them matched elsewhere? If so I’m going to decorating hell because that’s exactly what I did in this room. The pale blue walls are ‘Poolside’ from Benjamin Moore, but filled at Lowe’s using Valspar Signature in a matte finish. Ditto goes for the ceiling (China Blue) and darker walls (Blueberry). I’ve used a couple of brands of paint in the past month and I think the middle range paints are very comparable. But if you want the Cadillac of paint, Aura from Benjamin Moore is really superior (I used it on his door in Yosimite Blue and a satin finish) and the coverage and final look are incredible. It’s pricey and I only bought a quart, but it was worth it.

NOTE: I've edited these photos to reflect the paint colors I see in real life, but all screens will display them differently. I absolutely recommend taking home paint swatches before committing to a full gallon!

BED

As you can see, we’ve upgraded to a full sized bed, but we’ve actually had it for a while now. Adam did a ton of research and based on his findings, we bought a Casper mattress (not sponsored, but you can get $75 off if you use my promo code). We also have a foam mattress in our room and I think Felix’s is better. In fact, both parents regularly zonk out in there when we put him to bed and because it doesn’t have springs, it’s easier to Houdini out once he’s off in dreamland.

Behind it, check out that amazing Jenny Lind headboard. Errr... footboard! I bought it last weekend at this amazing garage sale for... $4.50. The real headboard was falling apart so I asked if I could just take this end. I cleaned it and then painted it using Valspar Signature in Lovely Love Song with a satin finish. I SHOULD HAVE PRIMED IT because it took about five coats. I wanted to apply them thinly as to not get brush strokes (which are still kinda there) but I also came away from it thinking... I found this, I updated this, this is not a factory finish, and I’m ok with that.

The sheets and quilt are what inspired the painting pallet at the start of this project. Big thanks to my mom who generously bought them for us! We chose the Pillowfort whale watching sheets, a navy bed skirt and a two toned navy quilt (it photographs more colbalt, but it’s a true navy IRL). Again, not sponsored but the quality of the quilt (which has been through the wash three times already) is really lovely and it would be great in an adult’s room too. The two other navy shams were from our linen closet. The rainbow pillow was from our previous nursery, the yellow one came with the Monte rocker and the teddy bear was a gift.

DESK

We found this little wooden desk in the garage and it was made by the original owner of the house! I brought it back to life with a coat of butcher’s block wax and I think it’s perfect for a child’s room! It serves the dual purpose of being a bedside table as well. The lamp was either a garage or Goodwill find that’s been in the nursery all along. I covered the shade for Bea Bea’s nursery (which, sorry, I never got good photos of!) in the wide yellow stripe. The ABC print was also in her nursery and I updated it with a little washi tape. I also updated the chair. You might remember it from my Instastories a while back. I found a set of four and at the time we were considering furnishing the old house as an Air BnB rental. These were going to be the dining room chairs. Now that we’re set to close on that house, I had them here for a project. I spray painted it a bright yellow, which took about 4-5 coats to get in all of the nooks and cranies. I’m glad I did though! It’s a nice pop next to the wooden desk. The map print trashcan is a second hand vintage find from years ago.

THE ROCKER

Babies love being rocked to sleep and I have nursed both of my kids hundreds of times in this rocking chair. I bought it before I had a million other things to spend money on, and truth be told, it’s pricey. I justified it by thinking it would be a nice addition to any room in the house eventually and I think that’s still true. It’s on sale at Land of Nod if you’re so inclined to check it out. I designed and made the rainbow quilt and the yellow and white blanket was a gift to my mom when she was pregnant with me. The little fox was also a gift (side note! I saw our little fox again this morning! I have such a huge crush on him!!!!)

CURTAINS

We’ve got mega wide (128″) windows, so it took four panels to span across. We bought navy and white striped blackout curtains (also Pillowfort from Target). The curtain rod was repurposed from our living room and I painted it the same dark blue as the back wall - it practically disappears!

TOYS

You don’t see a lot of toys here... because they’ve all been in storage for a couple of months. It’s amazing how little kids need and how much they can imagine on their own. In addition to “my giraffey friend” (baby shower gift), the fire truck (from Nana, found at a garage sale) and some wooden stacking and bead toys (similar), we have blocks and trains in the family room. Eventually we’ll rotate in some of his old toys, but less is more with that one for us.

BOOKCASE

The bookcase was made by my dad and Adam before Felix was born. It’s filled with his books and stuffed animals that we’ve received as gifts. Honestly it’s usually a sort of mass collection of books and not well organized, so I just took everything out, stacked books into rainbow colors and placed them back in that way. I’m calling it clean/semi-styled. I promise you it will not look like this a week from now, but hey! if he’s grabbing books and “reading” them I’m not complaining!

The vintage pull down school map is something I’ve wanted in a kid's room for a long time and I had seen it at an antique store a while back. After we painted the walls, I kept thinking about the map and luckily it was still available!! One thing I’ve realized is that if you see a second hand piece you love, get it then and there! Etsy also has some of these beauties if you don’t want to treasure hunt forever to find one! The colors on ours happen to match perfectly and it was a complete accident! I originally had it over the dresser/changing table, but both kids (especially Bea) played with it and while it’s not an old antique, it’s too nice to potential get poop on. Ha! It also matches the width of the book shelf better, and I love how it just pops off the wall!

DECORATIONS

I haven’t done much in the way of putting stuff on the walls besides the map and the kitty prints over the bed. Those are also from Felix’s nursery. I used bright poster board and cat treats to get these shots of our Raymond and Gizmo and are printed on canvas. We also kept the rainbow balloon Adam and I bought on our last solo vacation before kids and we still love it!

I’m so in love with this room! It’s absolutely possible to make an update incorporating sentimental nursery items with practical pieces that will grow into boyhood. Thanks to my parents helping us out, I only bought paint, the vintage map and the new headboard specifically for this space! Everything else was brought along from the nursery or repurposed from elsewhere in the house!

GET THE LOOK

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#Felix #Home #Farmhouse #Decorating #Colorful Child's Bedroom #Target #Pillowfort #Blueberry #China Blue #Poolside #Yosemite Blue

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thearistocratsblog · 3 years ago

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John Fare you well Presently I am researching my thesis and badly require information on `John Fahey' the American sculptor/performer who died knowingly as a fan of his work, as I understand it to be: and all this is hearsay: together with an Italian cybernetic sculptor, Fahey built a computer-controlled machine that performed amputations. Fahey was the patient — the computer functioned in a completely random way. The performances were advertised and tickets sold at £5 a throw. These performances take place in England. In total there were 6 amputations on Fahey by the machine. The final one being his head. Do you have any information about these performances (they took place two years ago, the death of John Fahey was mid-November 1970), John Fahey, his life and/or his work? Failing this could you please let me know of anyone whom you think may have ? Failing that could you please print my request in your magazine asking for any known material on Fahey to be sent to me at the address given ? I do hope you may be able to help. GRAHAM BROWN 4 Cricketers Terrace Leeds I2

Tim Craig writes : The Editor of Studio International has been kind enough to call my attention to a letter lately received from Mr Graham Brown of 4 Cricketers Terrace, Leeds I2. Mr Brown in his letter seeks information touching the life, work, and performances of 'John Fahey, the American sculptor/performer who … together with an Italian cybernetic sculptor, built a computer-controlled machine that performed amputations upon Fahey himself.' Questionless, Mr Brown has confused John Fahey, an American guitarist of surpassing technical skill, with the only person who could represent the real target of his interest: John Fare, Art's Gingerbread Man or, if you like, the Stepin Fetchit of self-slaughter. (Strange to say, each of Fahey's long-playing records has included the word death in its title.)

John Charles Fare was born in 1936 in Toronto, Ontario. These exciting facts were always made available to members of his audience, for whose benefit Fare's birth certificate was always displayed under glass at the entrance to each of the theatres where, over the years, he conducted his 'appearances'. Portions of this document have been blatantly deleted, a circumstance which, in fight of Fare's own highly edited state, I find very suggestive. It is more than simple tidiness, I think. As a theatre programme, it seems quite perfect. It says: 'I went fishing once, but tonight I cannot do an that.'

Fare attended Forest Hill Collegiate in Toronto, and in 1959 came to London, where for a time he remained as an imperfect student at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Disappointed, he left London for Copenhagen. Owing to his financial independence, a condition from which he was never perfectly relieved, he was free to spawn novelties, including the first of his 'appearances'. The notable events of his tirocinium are perhaps less well known than they ought to be. Nor are facts concerning this or any other period of Fare's career as generously imparted as one might be led to expect by an organization calling itself the John Fare Vital Information Bureau, West 56 Street, New York. A vital telephone call which I put through to them early this morning yielded nothing beyond the swirly gobblings of a certain 'Jenkins' who, possibly owing to the distance, resembled a ventriloquist in a Waring Blender, and an unidentified preadamite whose continual laughter sounded like pieces of iron thrown in a bathtub. As publicity agents, they are just one step ahead of the Tarbaby.

I have nevertheless been told by others that Fare's earliest 'appearance' gestures consisted in the public removal of his clothing, accompanied at times by such trimmings as the pressing of 'his bare arse' against the street-level windows of particularly genteel restaurants. These high deeds nearly always led to his arrest and/or hospitalization, if only because it never, apparently, occurred to him to avoid consequences, however predictable or unpleasant. One might almost fancy that in these stunts, however amusing or informal, it is not impossible to discern a tinge of masochism as well as the slightly feminine tendencies to discard things and extort medical attention. (Any woman, for example, will throw away an arrowhead collection, and a survey conducted in 1968 indicated that in Harley Street 91 per cent of the customers are women.)

After a brief spell in the bughouse, Fare was again arrested when, early one morning, a frightfully Danish police constable found it impossible to ignore Fare's curious treatment of a parked motorcar. Fare had in fact already spent several hours fastening random objects to the vehicle in question with epoxy resin. These included: golf balls, milk bottles, brooms, unopened tins of food, one dead cat, his own clothes, old gramophone records, dozens of biros, and over a hundred forks and spoons. While Fare sat quietly in the local stationhouse, the police officer waited patiently for the owner of the car to arrive so that it could be explained that a known lunatic had unfortunately made him the target of vandalism, but had been apprehended and would be charged as soon as the victimized motorist would be good enough to sign a formal charge. However, when the owner did turn up after hour or so, he appeared not to notice anything. When pressed by the astonished officer, he suddenly declared that he thought that there was something different and appeared to be highly entertained. He immediately arranged Fare's release and introduced himself: Golni Czervath, who was a cybernetic inventor, electronics wizard, and an accomplished musician. Together they began, almost at once, to develop a robotic operating table, consisting of two robots (each with two flexible hands), attached to the table, beneath which was located a power source and an ingeniously controlled programming system. Assisted by the painter Gilbert Andoff, they worked out a series of programmed 'appearances', which, if nothing else, ensured a very settled career for Fare and an end to the sort of trifling which had so far coloured his life and which parents so often find vexing. The series of amputations thus planned was still, of course, a kind of strip show; yet the difference between it and Fare's earlier disrobings is the difference between sculpture and election posters.

The first operation, a lobotomy, was presented in June, 1964, in Copenhagen. The time and day 8.30pm, Friday – never varied in subsequent appearances. His mind thus abridged, Fare was more or less proof against any doubts concerning his vastation which he might otherwise have entertained. By the time I was last invited to attend one of Fare's appearances – at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto,17 September 1968 – Fare was short one thumb, two fingers, eight toes, one eye, both testicles, and several random patches of skin. Each of these scraps had been replaced by a bizarre metal or plastic facsimile, so that when he entered the gallery – a man who, in purely fleshly terms, was so small and faint that, thus refurnished, he seemed to beggar the customary initial enquiry in the game Twenty Questions – several memories were coaxed forward all at once: brass monkeys in winter, 'A Rebours'. the whittling of Dr Moreau, the final condition of Bonny Parker, Nathanael West's curtailed heroes, a bird cage in Bradbury, 'Captain Carpenter', 'Johnny, I Hardly Knew You'. and in the instance of the thumb, an eloquent rejoinder to Nazi bad taste in the field of interior decoration.

That night in Toronto, his entire right hand, previously unmolested, was scheduled to run out of luck. The gallery was hung with Andoff's huge, faintly Transylvanian murals. Andoff and Czervath assembled the operating table and its adjuncts in front of the audience, putting the whole thing together 'from scratch'. Fare stood perfectly still in one spot, smiling vacantly while lazy blonde spotlights grazed slowly about the ceiling, as if in response to reports of leftover Messerschmitts, harmless in their old age, ever so ample to catch. At length, Fare lay him (sic-RH) down upon the assembled table, and his two assistants strapped a number of tiny microphones up and down his flesh, so that the highly amplified sound of his pulse, breathing, and mutilation, could be laid on at will. At first, before the robots began the actual surgery, it sounded like whale music. Andoff and Czervath stepped into another room, and, as the four hands of the robots began all at once to move very energetically above the weird table and its stylized cargo, I was reminded for a moment of a xylophone recital I and a girl named Nellie had gone to about ten years earlier on the planet Neptune. Her last name was something like Fisher, only it wasn't Fisher.

One metal hand gave Fare an injection, paused, and began in concert with the other three to perform exactly as one imagines a competent surgeon and an assistant would. Alarmingly coloured lights began now to emanate from the robots themselves as they continued the job. Plague shades flooded the room, lurid crash pigments, a filthy Dallas crimson, shabby leper mud, a kind of frayed porky one, and a truly horrifying yellow that Winsor & Newton knew nothing about. The absurdly amplified noise of the bone-saw resembled huge panting elephant death yells played backward on too many tape recorders. People blacked out here and there, a few more during the sutures.

The operation over, one metal claw abruptly raised the hand and wagged it about horribly for a few seconds, as one would a found purse everyone had been searching for in a large field. It then placed the hand in a jar of alchohol, which Andoff, reappearing with the houselights, carefully labelled and placed on a table next to the birth certificate. 'What larks!' a pretty girl of about seventeen said. Fare was wheeled into another room and three days later travelled by rail to New York. 'Dying is an art like everything else.' Since the evening I have described, Fare has made six appearances in various cities. Much of his audience has from the very start consisted of a hard core of mainly professional, mainly middle-aged people waiting patiently for the masterstroke. The date of that event has always been kept very secret.

They'll applaud until their tickets tear up the ushers.

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juditmiltz · 6 years ago

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The best of: TRD editors share their picks for the top stories of 2018

The Real Deal’s top stories of 2018

The Real Deal’s coverage reached all corners of the real estate industry in 2018.

From the Opportunity Zones craze and residential brokerage’s existential crisis, to a developer who’s become the poster boy for gentrification in Chicago and even the mid-term elections, TRD reporters and editors didn’t skip a beat.

Here’s a look at some of the top stories we reported in 2018, as selected by TRD’s team of editors.

Stuart Elliott, Editor-in-chief | Kushner unfiltered, Rough cut

The Real Deal’s reporters and editors kept quite busy in 2018. Each month we produced in the ballpark of 1,000 online posts and 200 magazine pages across our four cities. Amidst that mountain of copy, there was a lot that stood out when it came to finger-on-pulse, follow-the-money financial journalism. It’s hard to choose, but I will say this: “Rough Cut,” our investigative piece on how money from the murky global diamond trade has helped shape the New York skyline, was a deep-dive that made me particularly proud with its breadth and scope.

Meanwhile, our no-holds-barred interview with Charlie Kushner was our most read piece of the year. And for good reason – nobody else had gotten that kind of access to Kushner, at a time when his son Jared in the White House and his 666 Fifth Avenue property were the subject of intense scrutiny. The interview starts with Kushner posing a fairly direct question to Will Parker and Konrad Putzier, and gets more confrontational from there.

Jill Noonan, Senior content director | The death of the brokerage

Picking a favorite is never easy, but our May magazine cover story headlined “The death of the brokerage” was definitely toward the top of my 2018 list. Not only did senior reporter E.B. Solomont do a superb job in reporting it, but she also managed to capture a hugely important moment in time for New York City’s residential brokerage community. The story, which was largely pegged to the collapse of Town Residential, detailed the perfect storm of financial challenges that have intensified for residential brokerages in the last year or two. And while these firms are still collectively transacting billions of dollars a year in business, the challenges laid out in the piece — from new technology pressures to competition from venture-backed firms to difficulties in retaining top agents — are clearly not going away anytime soon. We’ll have to stay tuned to see how it turns out in 2019 and beyond!

Damian Ghigliotty, Managing issue editor | When the glass ceiling won’t break

“When the glass ceiling won’t break” remains a very important and timely story that follows our January 2017 cover story “Real estate’s diversity problem.” Everything about this feature highlights The Real Deal’s ability to raise the bar when it comes to in-depth industry coverage. Kathryn Brenzel’s reporting for this story was incredibly detailed and uncompromising, and the collaborative effort among her, the research team and the magazine editors made the final outcome that much more impactful. We looked at gender diversity (and the lack thereof) at dozens of real estate firms, spoke to dozens of people about what has and hasn’t changed in recent years, and our photo shoot brought several industry executives from different sectors to our New York office on the same day — which was a feat unto itself.

James Kleimann, Managing web editor | The agent luxury rental landlords can’t live without

When Brookfield’s amenity-filled luxury rental tower the Eugene opened for leasing, many of us couldn’t fathom why any New Yorker would pay upwards of $10,000 a month to live above the Lincoln Tunnel. Reporters Will Parker and Konrad Putzier started with the obvious question: How did the hundreds of renters find their way to the windy, badlands of Manhattan? And who were they? Parker and Putzier struck up a few conversations with people at the building, who were all too happy to share how the tale: a Flushing-based broker we had never heard of was filling the Eugene and other pricey rental towers from JDS, Extell, Durst, etc. with hundreds — maybe thousands — of “fuerdai,” Chinese students who receive $50,000 monthly allowances from their loaded parents. It’s a fantastic real estate story, and it’s my favorite TRD yarn of 2018! There are colorful anecdotes (one student at the Eugene had $1 million in cash stuffed inside his piano), insights into how agent Sunanne Zhu finds clients (a 5,000-member WeChat group), and a thorough breakdown of what it means for these developers (considering the state of the luxury market, it’s a gift from the heavens; but because rich students chase concessions and the latest amenities each year, things can quickly turn south). Give it a read if you haven’t yet!

Danielle Balbi, Deputy web editor | The anatomy of construction corruption

It’s the $45.3 billion backbone of New York’s real estate world: the construction industry. And in “The anatomy of construction corruption,” reporter Kathryn Brenzel illustrated how, for decades, graft has creeped its way through a network of middle men — from dry wall installers to building suppliers — into developers’ bottom lines. The story serves as a perfect primer to what makes construction sites so vulnerable to scandals like overbilling schemes and bribery, which have become so commonplace that firms just see this as the cost of doing business. And Brenzel’s reporting brings to light an industry-wide inertia that allows such corruption to continually flourish.

Will Parker, Special projects editor | At star-studded 443 Greenwich, condos are smaller than advertised

For New Yorkers of ordinary means, slick brokers with a penchant for embellishment are not an occasional misfortune, but an expectation. And even for the wealthy in this city there is no magic line of privilege whereafter it is no longer normal. Senior reporter E.B. Solomont wrote this year about how Manhattan condominium buyers are consistently forking out seven- and eight-figure sums for luxury homes that are much smaller than advertised, in some cases up to 20 percent smaller than the stated square footage. Nowhere is this trend more evident than at 443 Greenwich Street, a West Village conversion that has been successfully marketed as a must-own for celebrities, including actors Meg Ryan and Jennifer Lawrence.

Brokers maintain that a square footage fib of up to 10 percent is “not-material” and insist that what is square footage and what is not is largely subjective (state regulators, meanwhile, allow developers to measure it however they want, including the use of non-usable space). Over the last two decades, buyers have fought back by suing, and some brokers, in turn, have adjusted to that reality, but mostly just by ceasing to advertise square footage at all in order to avoid getting sued.

More recently, a group of residential agents has assembled to get serious about standardizing square footage in the industry, so that numbers match reality. “Tape measures exist for a reason,” broker Leonard Steinberg told Solomont. “We didn’t build buildings with spandex. There’s a gross square footage to every structure in New York City and they can be measured — and they should be.”

Hiten Samtani, Editor-at-large | Rough cut

Origin stories always make for juicy reads, and this one dug (no pun intended) into the gemstone-filled past of some of New York’s most important developers. In an exhaustively reported narrative that took the reader from Sierra Leone to Antwerp and to the corridors of money and power in Manhattan, Konrad Putzier was able to detail the nexus between the diamond and real estate industries, and even explain how the two professions are so similar. There are rich anecdotes throughout, but the piece is also anchored by original research on the extent that former diamond traders have shaped the city’s skyline.

My favorite bit from the story shows the similarity between the trades: The diamond game is all about acquisition of the rough, the financing of the purchase, deciding how to cut the diamond, and then refining and marketing it to achieve maximum value. Sound familiar?

“In the mind,” said Yitzchak Tessler, a former diamond trader and now condo developer, “it’s not such a big jump.”

Heidi Patalano, Special issues editor | The indestructible tenant

As the special issues editor, I treasure the work I get to do with staffers in LA and Miami on their print editions. But this year, one of the pieces I was most fascinated by was written our frequent freelancer C.J. Hughes, who covered the proliferation of dollar stores for our retail issue. Discounters like Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Five Below are increasingly referred to as “teflon tenants” and its easy to see why, since they can compete with Amazon on pricing for basic household items. One broker said dollar stores were “e-commerce immune.” We’ve all heard so much about the need for “experiential tenants” in retail spaces, but I found the tale of this thriving segment of traditional retail to be a telling example of Darwinian survival.

Alexi Friedman, National editor | Will real estate developers seize on ‘Opportunity Zones’ tax incentive?

I’ve got two words for you: Opportunity Zones. Everyone is talking about the federal program that provides tax incentives for investors to focus developments in distressed areas. It’s the real estate industry’s newest, shiniest toy. Even Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci wants in. But not many knew about it in early summer — including this editor — when Keith Larsen laid out its possibilities and perils. His story, “Will real estate developers seize on ‘Opportunity Zones’ tax incentive?” homed in on Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, a designated zone ripe for redevelopment. Other TRD reporters have followed with excellent stories of their own in all four of our markets, including Erin Hudson’s video primer: “Everything you always wanted to know about Opportunity Zones.” But the questions Keith’s reporting raised: will investors pour money into Opportunity Zone areas apart from existing projects, why are some upscale neighborhoods in designated zones, and will the program benefit the region or just be a gift to wealthy developers, continue to be debated today.

Brian Baxter, Tri-state editor | Search and destroy: How CoStar became a $15B juggernaut

When presented with the opportunity to join the editorial team at The Real Deal in late 2018, I set about doing my due diligence on the place. The bylines of a handful of reporters, some on different continents, for the magazine’s October cover story examining the CoStar Group’s rapid rise demonstrated to me that TRD is committed to insightful coverage that informs its audience by peeling back the layers on a sometimes opaque market. The incredible amount of hard work that goes into such a feature story — from reporters, researchers, editors, designers and countless others — is not something to take lightly in today’s media world, where in-depth projects at the daily and monthly level can often fall by the wayside amid the ever-present competition for clicks and readers. That’s not the case at TRD, and as a relative newbie to the real estate beat, I hope to uphold that standard.

Ina Cordle, South Florida managing editor | Florida governor’s race: DeSantis defeats Gillum

It was a night to remember: In one of the most closely watched races in the country, former Rep. Ron DeSantis won the tight race for governor of Florida, defeating Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Katherine Kallergis and I were each watching the election results during the night. Katherine had written profiles of the candidates for our magazine, including on deep-pocketed real estate investors Jeff Greene and Philip Levine, and had pulled together all the campaign contributions from the real estate industry. When Gillum conceded and gave an emotional speech about 11 p.m., we knew it was time to post the election results. As DeSantis’ gave his victory speech, Katherine quickly finished writing the story, and I edited it. It posted at 11:44 p.m.

Katherine Kallergis, South Florida associate web editor | Rough Cut

I don’t think I can pick just one (“When the glass ceiling won’t break,” “Kushner unfiltered,” and “The death of the brokerage” are a few of my top TRD reads this year), but senior reporter Konrad Putzier’s magazine story on how the diamond trade has influenced New York City’s real estate market was one of my favorites. It’s an in-depth look at the parallels between both industries and a number of developers “previous lives,” which are often forgotten about or hidden but end up explaining so much. The story, which includes money laundering, cartels, secret backers, had all the elements of a great TRD feature with strong research and historical context.

John O’Brien, Chicago managing editor | As developers cash in on Logan Square, one property owner has become the face of gentrification

TRD’s first year in Chicago has been filled with a number of memorable stories for me and the staff here, everything from serious politics (Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s real estate legacy as he heads for the exit) to just plain fun (a swimsuit calendar featuring male resi brokers, Michael Jordan’s mansion sale airball). But the most memorable for me was Alex Nitkin’s look at developer Mark Fishman, who has grown to become the face of gentrification in the Logan Square neighborhood. Fishman owns a number of properties in the area, where rents and home prices alike have been growing significantly. Many outlets have written about him and his properties and the protests surrounding them, but no one sought to go beyond the vilification of Fishman until Alex did. What he found was other developers and investors who’ve raised rents as much or more than Fishman. I talked to a number of respected journalists here about the story, and they all said it was the first truly fair portrayal of Fishman and what’s happening in Logan Square. That fairness and journalistic integrity are among the qualities we hope to keep bringing to Chicago in our second year here.

Alexei Barrionuevo, Los Angeles managing editor | Who is Tejon Ranch? A NY-backed firm plots massive communities in California

Natalie Hoberman dug into the backers and backstory of Tejon Ranch, the company trying to develop massive master planned communities about 60 minutes outside of Los Angeles. The developments — one of which the county board of supervisors has approved since Natalie’s story — could shape an otherwise untouched slice of California. The two-decade struggle to get them approved has come to symbolize the tension between the need to alleviate L.A.’s housing shortage and the fears over creating new urban sprawl.

Natalie detailed how Tejon Ranch is backed by Wall Street money, including a scion of the Tisch Family. And she traced the fascinating history of the company back to the Chandler family and the end of the Mexican-American War, when California’s first Superintendent of Indian Affairs established a military outpost meant to supervise the Indian tribes on the land.

It’s worth checking out. It’s an example of the kind of story-behind-the story that we plan to do more of in 2019.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/2018/12/31/top-real-estate-stories-2018/ via IFTTT

#The Real Deal Miami

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anneedmonds · 6 years ago

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Christmas Gift Guide 2018: For Him

I’m writing this post on the train to Paddington. My MacBook Pro, which is too big to fit on the pull-down table, is wedged sideways on my lap so that I’m having to type around a corner. My iPhone, which lasts approximately three minutes before running out of battery unless it’s plugged into a power point, is jammed between my thighs.

So not the most comfortable of positions – the creative juices are somewhat stilted – but in a way, it’s fitting. Because I find men’s gift guides quite arduous to write. It’s easy to pull one together if you include things like electric shavers and socks and novelty beer selections, but if you actually want to collate some interesting items then it’s a long slog. Riddled with patches of self-doubt. (Would he really want an ornate magnifying glass disguised as a gecko?)

I hope that the present ideas here act as a sort of spring board to further ideas – if he doesn’t need an ornate magnifying glass, then what about an ornate vintage drinks trolley? If he doesn’t like vintage, but the magnifying glass would appeal, then how about one of those and a huge, framed map, perhaps of his birth city or a far-flung country he travelled through on his gap year?

Magnifying glass too archaic? How about night goggles? You catch my drift. One idea leads to the next. At any rate, I’ve left the nose-hair trimmers out and skipped on the aftershave/shower gel sets; you need only click onto the home pages of any big beauty retailer to find dozens of those…

(links marked * are affiliate links, for more info see disclaimer below post)

…although the men’s gift guide wouldn’t be complete without a Tom Ford fragrance, just because they always look (and smell) so ridiculously sexy. Who wouldn’t want one? Tom Ford’s Ombre Leather is £114 here*. Throw in the coolest handkerchiefs on the block and you have a thoughtful little package – the ones above are £15 from Chase & Wonder. To top it all off? The best-looking hair tamer. Johnny’s Chop Shop pomade has a strong hold and cool sheen – it’s £7 at Boots*.

Lot 2, let’s do it – the first item is the Makita laser measure. OK, so who wouldn’t want one of these? If you’ve ever measured anything longer than your arm span with a tape measure then you’ll know how awkward it is; if you’ve renovated a house and measured for carpets, wallpaper, plug socket positions, bed sizes, wardrobe sizes, window sizes and various ceiling heights then a digital measure that’s accurate and requires no measuring partner (“HAVE YOU GOT YOUR END OF THE TAPE RIGHT IN THE CORNER THOUGH? PULL IT TAUT! FFS!”) seems like a no-brainer. Why don’t we all have one? The Makita model looks the part and is £55 at Amazon*.

I’ve exhausted myself getting all excited over the laser measure so here’s some incredibly hot hot sauce (£6.99 here*) and some Musgo shave cream with all of the style credentials, £22 at Amara*.

The last item in the picture above also gets me a little over-excited; it’s a security camera that connects to your smart devices so that you can check what’s going on at home/downstairs/in the cellar. Creepy horror movie scenarios a go-go with that one. £139 at Amazon here*.

Lot 3. Another random ensemble but bear with. This skull poster is actually huge, but here it looks smaller than the welly. You have to take these flatlays with a pinch of salt; I get carried away and my sense of proportion goes out of the window. Take a look at the skull picture online here*; if you fancy investing in something arty yet relatively safe, it’s £168.

Mr AMR declares (and has done for years) that Muck boots are the comfiest wellies in the world. I have to hand it to him; they are very soft and padded and a lot more pleasant to wear than nearly every other brand I’ve tried. I think I may jump ship… From £68 at Amazon here*.

Lastly on this little square of gifting delight, we have a watch winder. A whatty winder, you might ask? Well, it’s for people who have more than one watch and need the one they’re not wearing to stay wound and therefore keep time. Luxury problems and all that. To be fair, I rarely wear my watch now because it stops if you take it off and don’t wear it for more than a day and setting the time is a pain in the arse, now that I can just look at my iPhone every eight seconds instead, so I do see how a watch winder could be a handy old thing. This one is posh – the Perpetua Walnut Winder – and costs £425 here*.

Talking of posh, the lamp pictured above is one of my favourite lamp designs of all time. Classic, curvy-yet-masculine, the Kaiser Lamp by Fritz Hansen is a thing of utter beauty. If he’s into his interiors and you want something special that he’ll keep forever then check it out – it’s £590 here* and comes in lots of different colours.

Stylish book award 2018 goes to the brilliant photography tome called, simply, The Swimming Pool. Find it for £22.75 here*. He could read this whilst perched on his burnt orange footstool, which I want for myself (I’m hoping that Mr AMR reads this to guffaw at my men’s gift choices and then sees that I want the footstool – ditto the laser measure) – it’s from Soho home and is £396 at Liberty here*.

I’d also have the monkey candlesticks, if anyone was offering – they would look brilliant in my dining room! £90 from Liberty* again.

You know what every man needs? A letter opener that’s also an ornate crocodile objet. £45 here*. The book Writers and their Cats also scores style points – it’s very retro – and is a great stocking filler, if his stocking is absolutely flat. And square. The book costs £11.34 here*.

The Tom Ford beard comb has become a bit of a classic, mainly because it’s the cheapest thing you can buy from Tom Ford that has Tom Ford written on it. I think a lipstick even costs more than this comb. Snap it up, it’s a veritable bargain! £30 at John Lewis here*.

Now. Let’s get practical with an excellent coffee machine; I’ve been researching them and this one from Smeg (I will never be at peace with that brand name) comes highly rated time and time again. It’s £259 here*. The Michael Caine print is from amazing online print shop Surface View. They have a huge image inventory and can print onto canvas, wood, wall murals and even onto window blinds. Have a browse – a large black and white photograph, printed and framed, never fails to make a striking present.

Oh, the Rose Shaving Cream from Taylor of Bond Street. I had been buying this for my Dad for his Christmas present for the past few years; he loved it and said that the smell and texture were amazing. He was a stickler for a proper shaving ritual, like his own Dad before him. I wouldn’t have included this if I’d thought it through properly as it has made me a bit sad on the train, but it’s a great little present and I hope that a Dad somewhere gets it on Christmas day and enjoys it as much as mine did. This tub of pure shaving luxury is £10.95 here*.

Again, my sense of proportion has escaped me – the trainer care kit pictured above isn’t a miniature at all, click the link to see it in all its glory! It has loads of special sneaker-cleaning tools and unguents in it. I just chuck my trainers in the washing machine in a pillow case, which is free, but if he likes a bit of a ritual, like car-cleaning (give me strength!) then you can find this kit for £50 here*.

Lot…er…5? GIANT PUG HEAD! Not really, it’s my flatlay trickery again – this is a pen pot. I love the brand that makes all of these vases and jugs and egg cups – you can find the Pug Pen Pot here* for £20 but there are loads of other animals. And you didn’t think I’d get through a post without slipping some bees into the mix? I think that these pyjama bottoms look very pricey and (sort of) royal. An eccentric prince might wear them whilst breakfasting. They are a pleasing £28 at John Lewis*.

I know I said I’d avoid toiletry sets but this one from Liberty, with an amazing Scamp & Dude bag to hold it all in, is excellent. The product prices add up to way more than the price of the set, too – it’s £65 at Liberty here*.

Aha, the ornate gecko magnifying glass. What man cave/office/study/billiards room/library would be complete without one? You can find this L’Objet piece at Liberty here*. What else in this line-up? A very smart coffee press, £55 here* and, for those who like their jewellery chunky, a silver Gucci letter ring. That’s £350 here*. If he has a shortish name, like Norm or Tom or Bob, he could have multiple letter rings and spell his entire name.

And finally (thanks for hanging about until the end, my train-squashed body really appreciates it) some good-looking bits for the discerning wine-drinker/music-listener/egg-eater. The Porter Corkscrew in brass is £48 but will last a lifetime (find it here*); the Sony WH-1000XM3 Noise Cancelling Headphones are epic – not as noise-cancelling as a pair of slow-rebound foam earplugs (see here) but pretty effective. They are £329.99 here*.

Last but not least, the thing on every wishlist up and down the country this year – all the men want one! – an octopus egg cup. I like this for its utter absurdity – it belongs on one of those really long dining tables that you see in stately homes that are open to the public. Where they have to use a loudspeaker to talk to one another at dinner. If that’s you/him, then you can get your egg cup online here* for £16. It’ll be the most luxurious dippy egg he’s ever eaten. Perhaps whilst wearing bee pyjamas.

The post Christmas Gift Guide 2018: For Him appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Christmas Gift Guide 2018: For Him was first posted on November 26, 2018 at 7:51 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at [email protected] Christmas Gift Guide 2018: For Him published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

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morganmwritesthings · 7 years ago

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Happy Monday, everyone. We’re having such Monday weather over here (drizzly, damp, and gray…ewwwww). Maybe my post will brighten the day a little.

This is a look at how a DIY fan styles their desk. It’s important to create a space where you can feel inspired. Going with the pink/gold/black chic look (I know it’s probably not that unique, but as long as you love it, that’s the important part), I created a place where I’d feel inspired in writing, designing, and holiday creations. And if you hold tight, I’ll even explain the ugly boxes in the corner.

First, a general look at the whole thing:

I decided, in second grade, that I wanted a HUGE desk. I regret that decision now, but I’m trying to make it work to my advantage by decorating it with quotes.

I cheated. I printed them out. But I think there are some pretty cool foil quote sheets that you can buy, so I might look into those later. Since I started getting into the bullet journal thing, the “filling out the calendar” thing kind of went down the pits. But I love a good calendar, so maybe I’ll just do monthly bullet journal spreads from now on.

Remember my Halloween pencil holders? Well, they have been swapped out for my regular mason jars as well as some Thanksgiving ones. I like my Charlie Brown cup, but if I had one complaint it’s that you can only see so much of the scene at once. When you design a scene around a cup you can’t see the whole thing.

The jar on the right also says “give thanks” in gold but sadly, it’s a little hard to read. Le sigh.

A way to make HUGE desks work for you is to use storage space, so long as it’s not cluttered. I love to make cards, so my stamp collections and cardmaking stuff goes here. Stationery goes in the big box, and the top box is home to my letters, numbers, and sentiment stamps.

Now about those ugly boxes you saw in the other corner…yeah, I’m waiting on new ones for Christmas. Shoeboxes are a good temporary storage space, but they just don’t have the same aesthetic value. They store my holiday and design collections.

Ducks! I’m trying to collect rubber ducks, and this desk is home to my small-ish collection. Each duck represents something in my life like an interest, former job, or even a favorite color. Others are gifts that I like to think represent something. I don’t really have a great place for these, so they live on the top shelf, watching me do things.

This is a glass-blown cat that I got on a high school tour many years ago. The students were participating in summer classes and a glassblowing student gave me this little figure. An ear and his tail have both fallen off after ten years of sitting around and probably laying around in my spare decorations box at some point. I recently named him Binx (after the Hocus Pocus character, of course). I have several figurines, but I don’t like to clutter my living space. All decorations I don’t use live in a box in my closet.

Drawers are good things. Recently I was on a “must not have anything out ever!” kick, so I tried to store them away in a closet drawer. Honestly though, craft stuff is much easier stored in a desk. So here is where my artsy embellishments live…basically anything that isn’t stamps. Washi tape, ribbon, paint, paintbrushes, and even some extra office supplies.

Sorry about the flash. I don’t live in a cabin in the woods, I swear.

Bottom left drawer. This one is much deeper and is perfect for storing paper. Folders hold various types of prints. Issues of Cardmaking live here, too. When one issue comes in, another gets tossed to avoid clutter. I usually end up scanning my favorite ideas into the computer so I don’t have 50 magazines to look through when I need an idea. I also keep my ink here until I get a box for it. I also keep my gel pens here (no room for them in the other drawer) and a mug for washing paintbrushes.

Bottom right drawer: the box holds my creative journals (coloring books, notebooks, scrapbooks etc) and the rest are personal journals. I have my bullet journal, questions-a-day journal, and yearbook where I write down everything that happened in the past year. The rest are old journals which are keepsakes now. Look at how thick that black composition book is…

Top tips for #deskgoals *Stick with a color scheme. Who cares if it’s cliche, odd, or anything else? Pick a scheme that speaks to you. *Clutter clutters creativity. You may be tempted to fill the shelves on a huge desk like mine, but don’t. Freeing space gives you more space to think and create. “Minimal” is my new middle name. And keep your drawers neat, too. Not only will they look nicer, but stuff won’t be spilling out of them every time you open one (or falling back into the desk and jamming it…yeah, I’ve been there). *Less clutter also balances out your space. If you don’t have a lot of posters/decorations/whatever up, don’t make your desk look busy. *Use nice boxes that fit with your scheme. If you don’t have them yet, buy them when you can. *If you have a choice, don’t get a gigantic desk. It makes the room look smaller and the extra wall space leaves you more room to decorate. Look at mine…do you really want a desk that almost reaches the ceiling???

What tips do you guys live by?

How to go from desk to #deskgoals! Happy Monday, everyone. We're having such Monday weather over here (drizzly, damp, and gray...ewwwww). Maybe my post will brighten the day a little.