Living On Your Own, Friday, 8/8, Period 1

[tyler_gone]

The home ec classroom looked more like an art class today, with home decorating catalogs strewn about and a stash of shoeboxes on one table with felt, paper, fake flowers, wallpaper and carpet samples, scissors, paint, modeling clay and other moddable supplies in abundance.

"Morning," Tyler said, once the students were mostly assembled. He had a large travel mug of coffee in one hand. "Today is our class on decorating, or, how to make whatever dump you're holed up in feel a little less like a dump."

He hesitated before talking again. "You don't have to do any of this. You are not your Pottery Barn rug or your clever coffee table shaped like a yin-yang. Stuff gets oppressive ... you do not want a life defined by stuff."

"But," he added, a smile dancing somewhere around his eyes, "I've been told I'm an extremist on this. And on the theory some of you might someday want more than a futon and a coffee maker, you're going to spend class today constructing and decorating dioramas of rooms in your future home. It can be a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen if that's where your mind goes. Here are some handouts on low-cost decorating for you to get some ideas."

He gestured to the table of supplies. "There's building stuff and some catalogs for more ideas over there. Go to it. I'm around if you need help."

Comments

Sign In [8/8]

[tyler_gone]

If I say decoratively, will I get pretty icons?

Re: Sign In [8/8]

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin Darklighter

Re: Sign In [8/8]

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

Michael Guerin

General Class Stuff [8/8]

[tyler_gone]

Listen to the lecture, pass notes, take notes, or get offended on the behalf of your clever coffee table.

Re: General Class Stuff [8/8]

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin hadn't ever given much thought to decorating his living space before beyond the traditional pieces of furniture and maybe a plant or two.

He paid attention just to see what he could decorate with and not get teased for.

Re: General Class Stuff [8/8]

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

Michael half-listened, though his room wasn't likely to ever be "decorated" per se.

Re: General Class Stuff [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Amber loved decorating. Her room at the dorms was testimony of the fact. Bright mix-matched colors, her own paintings on the walls, flowers...

She took notes though, listening carefully.

Re: General Class Stuff [8/8]

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

Alice was taking notes. She had no coffee tables to be offended on the behalf of, really.

Build Dioramas [8/8]

[tyler_gone]

All artsy-like!

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin set to work on creating his diorama. Well, he set to work on deciding which room he wanted to create before anything. He eventually decided on a living room.

With clumsy fingers, he constructed a too big couch that ended up getting the end lopped off of so it would fit. He put a few green things around the area to represent plants.

Each wall got splashed with different colors and...he mixed them for fun. Why not, right?

The carpeting was done in multicolor patches and he drew very tiny X-Wings in the corner of each wall.

It looked...loud but he kinda liked.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

Michael started putting together a bedroom. With basic furniture and posters.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[iseewhatyoumean.livejournal.com]

Cassandra forewent the coffee maker and constructed a nice empty room that contained a futon.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber happily made her bedroom. Purples and pinks and greens and yellows... well, there was color everywhere. She also had a tv and a dresser with a light-up mirror setting on it.

The carpet looked a little shaggy but whatever, it still worked. And her bed was a big fluffy purple thing. Uh. Amber might have gotten carried away.

She added flowers and what looked like a puppy on the bed. She'd always wanted one.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he'd see her later at the performance, but she would be a lot busier than he was and Cal, feeling a bit better now that there had been some distance between them and the Event, didn't want to go all day without attempting to establish some idea of where they were if he had the chance. After finishing a bit of his own diorama, which was pretty simple, he picked it up and moved over to where Amber was working, and held out a small glossy cut-out from a magazine.

"I saved a bean bag for you," he offered.

It was a pink one, anyway.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Anemone skipped the coffee maker, since people always said she wasn't allowed any. For very good reason.

She filled up her diorama with plants and a few oversize pieces of fluffy furniture. She'd had enough of sterile white rooms to last a lifetime.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[first-guardian.livejournal.com]

For some reason, Ichigo decided on making a kitchen. It was as any kitchen should be, containing the necessary appliances; a microwave, an stove, an oven, fridge and a coffee maker. There were cupboards and the kitchen table and a few chairs around it. Whether or not the whole thing was economic was something else, but Ichigo seemed to enjoy making the little buttons on everything.

The decorations were another matter and Ichigo just picked two main colours which weren't too loud and stuck with those. There most definitely weren't any posters anywhere and that was the way he liked it.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine might suck at art, but dreaming about her big house with the swimming pool, sauna, walk-in freezers and full-basement playroom for the kids? She'd been doing that since before she could do more than look at the pictures in her mom's Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

She set to work using several different shoeboxes to create the beginnings of a split-level ranch. With deep-pile carpeting in the family room and a real brick oven in the kitchen. Well, a cardboard brick oven with a tiny construction-paper apple pie showing through the cut-out window.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal was from the seventies and so felt absolutely no hesitation in littering his diorama bedroom with a ton of cheap, inexpensive, but oh-so-comfy beanbags and pillows, and he gave the room some color with some hanging bead curtains on the wall.

Be glad that, even though he was from the seventies, he felt absolutely no desire to go for any day glo lights and black velvet posters.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

Alice was slicing up playing cards and pasting them onto the walls.

Perhaps she should draw in some flamingos. Flamingos gave everything a bit of a flair.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[likethegun]

Sam wasn't the most artistic guy around, so some of the objects in his diorama were oddly shaped, and blandly colored. But he knew the basics of how he wanted things to look, with lots of open space and plenty of room for defensive measures.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo's diorama was . . . a box. With a very large area set aside for tiny art supplies and a tiny cardboard easel, a bed in the opposite corner, and a tiny kitchenette.

But the view she created outside of the windows was spectacular.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[heromaniac]

Momoko frowned and looked over at her classmates, all busy making dia-whosises. Design her dream room inside of a shoebox? Hmm. She painted the walls in a soft pink and, while waiting for them to dry, flipped through catalogues for furniture ideas.

Talk to Tyler (& Meg if someone brings her by) [8/8]

[tyler_gone]

He's around to be bothered.

Re: Talk to Tyler (& Meg if someone brings her by) [8/8]

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

Alice stopped at Tyler's desk, giving him a strangely curious look.

"You don't have to share your name," she said. "Either of them. Is that why you keep one secret?"

She had meant to ask him (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomtownies/3011847.html?thread=128459271#t128459271) in a far more rational manner if that child on the beach was him. But that was before she'd started hallucinating (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhighdorms/1443334.html?thread=118193670#t118193670) again. Fires and flames and perhaps there'd been no beach, no child at all. Only Alice, prattling to herself and making a sandcastle with invisible hands.

Back to the asylum, Alice. Unstable, just as the doctor had said. Delicate condition. But I don't want to go among mad people.

OOC [8/8]

[tyler_gone]

Class idea shamelessly stolen from carbontelepath.