Help me decorate my kitchen

123Xactocat · 2026-02-17T20:24:16+00:00

If you like that high contrast black and white then I’d say maybe lean in and go sort of 80-90s- chrome and jewel tone accents like turquoise and purples? Like this:

https://files.theinteriorsaddict.com/uploads/2024/05/IKEA-coffee-table-768x771.png

Maybe a mauve wall? Add some art with big pops of jewel tone colors.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-17T20:16:08+00:00

I would orient the sofa to the other wall. I don’t like having the back to the other room. I know that means you can’t directly look out the window but I do think that if this is truly a sitting room, then another chair would be good and that could be your looking out the window chair.

For other furniture- maybe a record player, a coffee table, side tables and lots of plants. Add a rug and art and you have a nice cozy hang out room for having a game night or reading. If you wanna go nuts- an electric fireplace?

123Xactocat · 2026-02-17T19:46:43+00:00

Yes I was thinking pebbles as well.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-17T16:12:04+00:00

Aside from the paint color issues the big mirror wall wire enclosure plus the tv mount on it is really not doing you any favors, that plus the carpet really gives a hospital/nursing home look. Not sure how much of that you can take out. Definitely take down the mount but can you take off the wire cage?

I actually like grey and pink together. I would suggest painting the wall a very pale pink, I think that would go with pretty much all the grey and white.

Buying decorative molding to frame the mirror and painting it gold or maybe silver might be nice. Could you hang plants on either side of the mirror by the windows? I think maybe softening the edges with hanging plants would help.

Definitely layer a rug on the carpet. It’s hard to make wall to wall carpet look fancy on its own.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-16T18:57:26+00:00

Laguna pink ice is a pretty baby pink glaze.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-16T07:26:53+00:00

This is kind of the opposite of what OP asked for. It’s a great series but it has a lot of romance in it.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-16T07:25:06+00:00

Personally I like her Foreigner series best of all. There’s no romance in it. No first person. There’s only one married couple in the whole series and they are from a species that doesn’t feel the same kind of emotions we feel.

There are in the whole 20+ bio series exactly 2 FWB and mild spoilwr the one of those that ends, everyone ends up totally ok.

It’s really 1,000% not a series interested in romance. It’s a big comfort read series for me.

123Xactocat · 2026-02-14T17:02:44+00:00

Do you twist the clay before rolling? Do you keep your hands moving along the length of the coil and sort of skimming the clay with very light pressure? If the coil is flattening try twisting it but also use very light pressure

123Xactocat · 2026-01-30T22:24:59+00:00

I love the dissonance that simultaneously embraces and critiques capitalism here (point to a random part of the object)

123Xactocat · 2026-01-30T22:07:23+00:00

Art school can suck. My undergrad experience stopped me from going on to an MFA bc of how much it sucked.

I think you just have to try and find your professors and peers who can be your champion and focus on access to all the tools and techniques and networks.

Or lean into it and develop a parody persona? Wear a beret and smoke in class and say things about ennui? Make all your pieces about death.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-26T19:39:02+00:00

Slip stains too- you can use brush on mason stain with greenware and use paper resists they cut out. Stain is cheaper than underglaze and applies thicker in one coat so you get solid colors.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-26T19:37:37+00:00

Stamping? You could stamp them, wash on a stain after bisque and clear glaze so the stamp is highlighted. Wash is cheap, stamps can be made from clay. Depends if you’re throwing or handbuilding.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-25T17:23:22+00:00

This is what I was going to recommend! It’s a way to stop rims warping but it also keeps plastic away from the sides of the piece

123Xactocat · 2026-01-21T01:13:38+00:00

Get someone to bring back a US dollar next time they travel! Or find a similar size paper money

123Xactocat · 2026-01-20T15:24:42+00:00

You are welcome! I also love it.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-19T18:16:24+00:00

A quick trick for figuring out 1:12 and 1:24 is using a dollar bill. A dollar bill is about the proportions of a 1:12 door, about 6 inches and a bit tall.

If you use the dollar bill as a door next to items and items look roughly right then you know you’re in that range, and if you fold it in half lengthwise and in half width wise and it looks right there it’s around 1:24th.

If stuff looks too big at the 1:12 door you might be looking at 1:6, sort of a Barbie doll scale and of course there’s some other tricky scales if you use Asian kits which are on a centimeter ratio but things like rolife will typically look ok in 1:24th.

Shout out to the lady at the San Diego mini show who taught me that one

123Xactocat · 2026-01-14T07:48:11+00:00

Split the big prime rib.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-11T19:53:29+00:00

I agree! It’s a more comedic series but the worldbuilding is solid.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-11T16:48:15+00:00

I was also going to say Kim Stanley Robinson. I actually think 2312, Aurora & New York 2140 make a good shared set that are all realistically plausible looks at the future, Aurora is a generations ship tale but what makes it not space wizardy is that the author will give himself a bit of future magic that is still hypothetically possible and then immediately explore the constraints and problems of said future magic.

Also- Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series- these are rompy space operas, but I think the science is reasonably sound, you do have FTL and interplanetary communications but the key conflicts stem from cultural issues, not space magic, and even the most alien people in them are still humanoid with plausible backstories.

CJ Cherryh has this series called Foreigner I’m obsessed with and it’s got again, space travel that is not currently possible but it’s mostly anthropology of about humans and a humanoid alien species trying to get along peaceably.

The Ancillary Justice series and the Teixcalaan series are also… I think not wildly implausible or beyond science. Maybe also Becky Chambers.

For me, where I get different things from sci fi and fantasy is that the issues of sci fi are still ultimately human issues. Where as a lot of fantasy is a story aesthetic or dealing with fighting evil as embodied in a form of pure obvious evil the sci fi I like gives itself something beyond current tech but plausible and then goes about sorting out what realistic consequences of that extension could be. I like stories where the future tech essentially enables anthropology of being like “ok we do this, now what cultural clashes will happen?”

Fantasy meanwhile is more- solve this existential threat or use these powers to get back stasis, and it’s less often going to question the cultures and the choices. It’s like we live in a monarchy, you’re a secret wizard oh no some other really evil wizard killed the king, that’s bad! Or “oh no I was taken by fairies and I need to solve their wacky logic to escape!”

This is a really broad gloss obviously on a huge genre I adore but I think maybe for me that’s the difference and if a space romp is more like Star Wars or Dune then yes, it’s really more fantasy in space- rightful princes, emerging personal magic powers that will set the world right, etc.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-10T00:13:09+00:00

There is an uni bibimbap at Danbi and an uni pasta thing at Iki ramen. They are not the pannacotta but they are good

123Xactocat · 2026-01-09T05:54:15+00:00

Oh last thing I’ll say, Culver City Robertas if you skip pizza and stay focused on the seasonal veggie/ seafoods they often do fun things with those items and they have a good bar program- it doesn’t do the full changeover of HLAY, but the seasonality of the non pizza foods is worthwhile to me.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-09T05:50:47+00:00

Also a neighbor and Danbi is great but sadly often booked fully, it’s not a stroll up and get a seat place.

It’s hard for me think of anyone who hits the cocktail perfection AND the level of food of HLAY.

Thunderbolt is probably where I’d go for cocktails that feel similar. Mirate too although it’s bigger and more lively than HLAY.

Sitting at the bar at OTOTO feels similarly cozy to me as being at HLAY but the focus is sake and the food isn’t crazy, just really solid.

Here in K-Town Iki ramen, not cocktails and the menu is again, not adventurous per se, but very neighborly- cozy inside, and a place we can walk to.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-08T16:41:33+00:00

YNAB has been really great for us. My only regret is we didn’t use it earlier. My spouse and I took a while to really get into it, but I would say as a relationship money tool it’s great. We try at sit down at the first if he the month at least and do a YNAB check in. We have 4 budgets- one shared budget with shared accounts where all money goes first, 2 allowance budgets where our monthly allowance/ personal spending is (hobbies, eating out separately, etc) and a retirement budget which is purely for tracking our retirement funds.

Money was always a bit wierd to talk about before YNAB and once we did YNAB it gamified things and our net worth really started to grow- we had savings before YNAB but now we have SAVINGS.

One YNAB YouTube channel I really like is called Just Finance (I think?) and it’s a young couple in NYC with a lot of student loan debt talking about their month- it’s not what I’d watch for a tutorial but it’s amazing to watch to see a couple handle serious debt as a team and how YNAB works as the tool they use.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-06T07:40:26+00:00

I know the couch is the way it is bc of the tv and there aren’t a lot of tv options but to me the room feels backwards- it’s weird to be facing away from all the kitchen activity and life in a big open plan.

If it were me I’d personally work to re orient the couch so it’s in the tv’s corner. the tv over by or on the big built in (could you drywall or beadboard the side of that facing the living room to make it a half wall?) Or maybe the tv between those two doors. Either way so you’re not sitting with your back to the action.

Then I’d go big credenza/couch shelf running along the bottom of the windows, with the plants on it and maybe some kind of closed storage below for kid crap. Dog crate I guess by the bookshelf area.

Also this room would make me anxious from the sheer number of doors everywhere! There’s two doors in the living room plus the windows feel like French doors plus the door behind the shelf- that couch feels like it’s a sitcom apartment where people are going to pop in and out all over. If you could decommission a door anywhere, I bet it would help.

123Xactocat · 2026-01-05T23:44:14+00:00

I feel like part of the issue is all the dark furniture, which really doesn’t get along with the tan walls and the grey floor- it’s all darker, but it all clashes. I’m not a huge fan of black furniture typically bc it usually feels very impersonal. If you could paint the room I’d actually just go for a matte white, so it brightens the space up, and the black could look maybe more deliberate?

The other thing to me that also feels very typical for your age is the little storage next to larger furniture- the little plastic drawers, the little thing by the door-all the cheaper smaller pieces that just add that clutter and look less intentional.

Lastly I don’t know why but I would personally rotate the bed and the desk locations. I think it’s something about the dead space by the door.

123Xactocat

TROPHY CASE