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

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]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

She didn't look at him yet, she looked at his hand that was offering the pink bean bag. Then her lashes lifted and she tried to meet his eyes, even as she reached for the cut-out.

"Thanks, Cal. I've always wanted one."

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal glanced over at Amber as she took it, but his eyes didn't stay long, shifting toward her work as he leaned a little on the desk, cradling his chin in his palm. "Mine's already got three of them. Yours is pretty colorful..."

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber glanced over at his, then hers, and raised a brow, feeling embarrassed.

"I... got carried away with color it seems."

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal grinned a little., shifting his attention back toward Amber a little. It wasn't direct. Not at first, but he did lift his eyes toward her again as he spoke.

"It suits you, though," he offered.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

She smiled. A little. "Maybe. It reminds me of my bedroom back home, in our trailer." One in which she'll never see again because it went BOOM. Thankfully a lot of her personal belongings were salvageable. Most after a good scrubbing.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Your room here's pretty bright, too," Cal pointed out, feeling like it sounded lame, but it was talking to her, attempting to hold just a normal conversation in hopes that she'd agree that everything normal still.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Well. No. Everything was not normal. But if that is they way he wanted to play, she could too.

"I know."

...

"I have something for you," she nearly whispered. "A gift."

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Really?" Cal looked at Amber with evident surprise, blinking a little, although it seemed as though he was fairly pleased to hear it, too, especially since a small grin quickly filled in the surprise. "What for? My birthday's not until January."

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

The surprise was sweet, so was the grin. She returned the latter. "January, uh? I'll have to write that down. It's just a little something I bought for you." And it meant a lot to her and if he laughed or refused it, Amber would feel rotten.

"I just don't have it with me now." She wasn't sure if he was going to talk to her or not so wasn't going to test his mood by offering a gift.

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"You gonna bring it to the performance tonight?" Cal grinned a little more, his other hand joining the first under his chin. He couldn't help it; if there was anything to make him believe that Amber really didn't hate him or was awkward, it was something like that. He didn't deserve it, of course, but he wouldn't complain, not at all.

And it helped that he was pretty sure that Amber was too straightforward and not vindictive enough to mean something awful when she said 'gift.'

Re: Build Dioramas [8/8]

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

"If you'd like," she replied, her cheeks tinged pink. "It's nothing special so don't get your hopes up, thinking I've spent like a trillion dollars on it or something. I'm a frugal woman, you know," she teased lightheartedly, feeling better being around him with every minute that passed.

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.