Christmas Decoration Dogs Fabric Doll
It can be tough to feel like you have a real home in New York City. Even though I didn't move every two to three years like most people I know, I still lived in rentals that other people owned. But not just rentals — fully furnished sublets. For years, I lived in apartments that were furnished, from beds and couches, right down to forks and knives. I never once painted a rental. I didn't understand the concept of adding value to property that you could be thrown out of and that could be rented at a higher price to the next tenants because you made it look nicer.
There was one stretch when I lived in an apartment that wasn't already furnished. A friend gave me her old bed, and I made a coffee table out of one I found on the street. (This was before bed bug terror plagued the city.) I made a top for the table by painting it, scattering playing cards on it and shellacking the top over. That's as homey as I got. Then I had to move. I gave everything away and landed in yet another fully furnished sublet in Chelsea for what was supposed to be one year, but turned into seven.
Finally, when I was waiting to hear if I would be able to stay in Chelsea for yet another year, a friend convinced me I should think about buying. For those twenty years, I lived very cheaply and had savings, and it was a buyer's market. Two months later, I was buying an apartment in Downtown Brooklyn. After seven years of convenient living in a neighborhood that I couldn't actually afford — it was a fifteen minute door to door commute to work — I found myself in Brooklyn in a neighborhood with which I was not at all familiar. All my favorite haunts were in Manhattan, and I was alone.I felt displaced and homesick in my new apartment. I needed someone to share it with.
One of the few must have requirements I had while apartment hunting was a dog-friendly building. So, I decided to adopt a five and a half pound long-haired chihuahua. The shelter had named her Natasha, but I knew in my heart she had a more formal name, which I gave her officially. I named her Tsarina Natasha Fetchlana Poochkin, which came with a back story — she was canine Russian royalty who fled, seeking "pawlitical asylum" in Brooklyn.
Courtesy of Allison Castillo
Thanks to my years of my sublet living, I didn't own any furniture. I soon realized this was an opportunity to furnish the apartment as befit my new companion. And that's exactly what I did. I had never owned a REAL bed, and she would expect nothing less. She needed an ornate headboard and a giant mattress she would have to be lifted up onto, like a crown on a pillow. I bought a bed I had been coveting from Anthropologie, based on a piece found in a French flea market. Perfect. Piece by piece, I selected furniture that was fit for a tiny (furry) queen. From flatware with bees on the handles to a table to put it on from Etsy, I searched the internet exhaustively for deals. Really nice deals. Though just a 650-square-foot box, I thought of the apartment as having "rooms." The kitchen, the dining room, the music room, the living room, the morning salon, her lady's chambers. I developed a personal style I called "Chic-huahua."
The kitchen was done in a country feel, to remind her of weekends when she was whisked away from her busy life in Moscow to her Dacha. I put in chopping block counter tops, white cabinets with bright yellow ceramic pulls and knobs, and decoupage plates I got on sale at John Derian. For her moments in contemplation spent overlooking the sea during her long journey to freedom, my couch was upholstered in a cream fabric with dark blue sea creatures floating across it. For the first time in my life, I had an apartment that I loved and that reflected what I imagined was our shared esthetic.
Four years later, we're very happy together. We live in the lap (dog) of luxury. She has a miniature palace, and I have someone to talk to when I came home from work, to watch TV with on my couch, to explore the neighborhood with and to talk to my neighbors about. The combination of both those things has truly transformed my apartment into a home. One in which we reside happily, except for the occasional accident on the new floors. I guess plumbing was different in Russia.
Allison Castillo
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Christmas Decoration Dogs Fabric Doll
Source: https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/kids-pets/a4054/apartment-dog-decorating/