My new house, or how I live in other people's old things

I simply cannot talk about my new-ish apartment without thinking about this song, and how sarcastically it is sung. Please do listen to it to lift off the hint of self-absorption I can't help but feel whenever I'm somewhat showing off (although, let this be said, I love seeing photos of other people's outfits/houses/lives). I should probably use 'My New House' by The Fall as my theme song if I ever make other posts like these, ha. Here:

Now this is done, let me present you my new living room. The reason for which I'm so proud of how it turned out is that I've been more or less living out of boxes since April, and that finally having a room that's both free of boxes and good-looking is a small feat of its own. Until last week or so, I didn't have any frames or posters on my walls, let alone a place, other than my bed, where I could comfortably lean back, grab a book and a cup of tea, and relax. In the past, I've lived in tiny apartments where it was customary for me to use my bedroom as a living room, dining room, office, and storage area, but now that Jaime and I have found a spot that's both cheap and spacious (a 5 1/2, or 3-bedroom, for - I have no shame - 705$/month), it was getting rather ridiculous not to make the best of it. Now, this is my second apartment in the same sixplex, and we've been living without roommates for over a year, but our place downstairs never felt quite like 'home'. I never had the energy to really make it nice, and when we moved in April, we realised we still had unpacked items from the previous July.

Now, you've probably noticed the naked light bulb, my poor dying azalea, and the leaning bookshelf, but home isn't 'home' without a few imperfections, is it? For the bookshelf, you perhaps remember I talked about my book conundrum a few years ago, and never discussed it again. Last year, Jaime and one of his (ahem, professional carpenter) friends built us a custom hanging bookshelf. However, we had a small accident (i.e., it fell!) when it was temporarily secured to the wall this spring and that, unaware of the temporary quality of this arrangement, I added some heavy art books to it. We're now in the process of designing some legs for it, since no drill owner we know wants to risk fastening it back to the wall. It's still pretty great just like that as it doesn't waste as much space as most commercial shelves. For the rest, well, I've been an incredibly lucky girl. Almost everything in there was either given to us by generous friends and family members or found in the street, in previous apartments and in thrift shops. The only new thing is the Ikea futon, although we only had to buy the mattress (in the as-is section of the store, no less!) and the cover as the base was already in the apartment when we moved in. The "Killdeer" poster was salvaged by my dad, who worked for the NAC in the late sixties, and I rescued the smoking man poster when I was a teenager. It's in pretty bad shape, but I finally framed it after years of having it hanging off precarious chunks of blue gum; it doesn't look like much, but it's one of my most prized possessions. Welcome to my new house :)