just paint it, you weenie

a tale of two hutches

hutch before (left) and after (right)

*Bee Movie voice* Ya like matrimony?

My betrothed and I are getting hitched in October, and I keep getting Reddit notifications alerting me to posts like these:

“please help me”

I had no idea there were so many ways to analyze your wedding day. What if the guests forget to sit down? What if the chicken sucks? Whose weird boyfriend gets the plus-one mark of approval? Is it cool that this dress hoists my armpit fat into the limelight?

It’s a relief, actually, to see all the ways Redditors deconstruct what is supposed to be the happiest day of a person’s life. I don’t know that this reflects well on me, but it makes me feel a certain snotty sense of superiority that my fiance and I are not hung up on these things. We have funneled that energy into our shared single-minded commitment to partying with our friends in the backwoods of Missouri, where we’re hosting our wedding. There will be armpit fat. The chicken might suck. It will be wonderful.

Anyway! I painted our hutch

One of my favorite features of our weird apartment is a built-in china hutch in our entryway. It’s got hinges, which tells me that someone sadly removed the attached doors at some point. But it’s been a cozy home for my growing glassware collection since we moved in.

This is the first rental apartment that I’ve felt comfortable painting. Our last apartment was surveilled by our eerily present landlord, who lived upstairs and had a lot of opinions. Before that, in my first solo apartment, I hadn’t honed my personal interior design taste well enough to even consider painting.

But my downstairs neighbor, a fabulous Russian expat named Yuri, painted the hell out of his place. He’s still there, going on 15 years in the same unit, and he’s managed to personalize every inch of the place with zero regard for its status as a rental. He rents the apartment, but it belongs to him. One day, popping down to his apartment for a scone, I noticed that he’d painted the kitchen floors. Just painted the tile, like it was nothing. What a concept for me, a 30-year-old woman still worried about being sent to the principal’s office. I must’ve raised my eyebrows, signaling my trepidation. He shrugged. “Who cares?”

He’s right! Who cares? You paint your rental, one of two things happens. One, you leave the paint and move out, and the landlord keeps your security deposit. Two, you paint it back before you move out, and your landlord probably still finds a way to keep your security deposit.

Do I recommend throwing all caution to the window and painting your kitchen floor? Maybe not. But painting is an immediate way to brighten up your rental and make it feel like yours. If you’re feeling like a weenie, you can start small, with something like a hutch or a doorway. Now, every day, I get to see my robin’s-egg hutch smiling at me from our entryway. Feels more like mine this way. Feels like I own something.

Also, get Purdy White Dove paint rollers. Thank me later.

anyway, here’s YEAH, BABY, YEAH, our regularly-scheduled roundup of little treats:

Here’s what I love this week:

1. Brown MUJI click pens: I’ve been curious about brown pens since this product highlight in The Strategist, and now I’ll never go back. MUJI’s Smooth Gel Ink 0.5mm Ballpoint is simply The Lord’s Pen. Perfectly satisfying click. Perfect ink flow, not too spidery. Just tremendous.

2. UNIQLO Airism Leggings: I am so, so picky about my running garb, and unfortunately these leggings are quite good. No crotch gaping. No drifting below the waist at the two-mile mark. And they have pockets, a surprisingly rare feature in clothing meant to cater to long-distance runners hauling crap that includes but is not limited to chapstick, Airpods, fruit snacks, house keys, giant cell phone, giant asthma inhaler. I’m building mileage for an upcoming half right now, and I need pants that haul, baby

3. Richard E. Grant’s Instagram presence: Who gave this 67-year-old man permission to be so joyful? How has he not been weighed down by the sorrows of the world? None of my business! I love watching this tall, skinny licorice whip of a man going on a jog in the English countryside. I love it!!!

and I love YOU

paint your hutch,

Lil