More Corners

I have very much settled into my new home (as announced here) and am now returning to my Four Corners meme (referenced on that afore-linked page) with photos and musings from my new room. And I use the term 'room' rather than 'bedroom' because for a house-sharer like me the room I occupy is far more than just the room in which I sleep.

Incidentally it only has four corners – technically fewer than my last room – but More Corners had a nice ring to it as a title. It has fewer corners because it lacks built-in wardrobes. That one factor has very much altered the arrangement and look of my room from its last iteration. Having huge built-in robes between 2010 and 2014 allowed me to stash away and forget a lot of stuff. Indeed much of that space was taken with storage boxes I had left back in Melbourne during the time I lived in Canberra. This time however I knew I needed to look over all of that and get rid of a lot.

And I did. Nonetheless I still discovered I had less storage space for hiding things so I had to make decisions on how to put things on display. A lot more of what I own can now be seen.

South East Corner

I took this photo from beyond the door entering my room and facing towards the south-east corner. The closest item (just next to my door) is a twenty-something year old calander from the historic Valhalla Cinema in Westgarth that I recently re-discovered in my files and laminated for display. My family on my mother’s side came from Fairfield so I had a link to this cinema even before I became part of a young-adult nerd culture that would attend 24-hour science fiction movie marathons there.

Many other things seen in my room are familiar from Como Court. One item that is new is the very old free-standing wardrobe in the corner. I will return to the topic of wardrobes later. On it is a suitcase that currently stores other bags. There are also my role-playing books and notes. The plush dragon came from Sean. And there is a picture of Gandalf that I got from Emily.

North East Corner

Now we come to the bulk of my stuff. The iron-frame thingy has now returned to its intended purpose and has some clothes hanging from it. However it still displays some fun things. Toys are still there including a few sonic screwdrivers. There is also space for me to display a coffee table book (currently the wonderfully titillating and kitch Hollywood Nudes In 3D!). On the wall is a photograph of the Earth from space that was given me by Polly & Olav.

Around the corner we come to a very tall set of shelves and my creative use of furniture to display posters. I’m advised that the walls here suffer under the application of any kind of adhesive but I am free to stick posters to my own stuff and only need some of those shelves to be installed. As well as that waterfall poster there are a few other fun things.

The top shelf sports clunky retro robots. The two standing at the ends of that shelf are the transforming Ultra Magnus and Astro-Magnum (aka Shackwave who is obscured in the photo by the shelf frame) while between them are two non-transforming robots (one an alarm clock and the other an imitation of Robby The Robot) given me by Avril and Ian for my Fortieth Birthday. There are other Transformers on those shelves and some of them even hide among the video and audio discs I am still keeping (sometimes only for sentimental value). There are also some games and puzzles on the bottom shelf and that includes an Othello set given me by my Finnish god-parents for my Twenty First birthday.

North West Corner

Now we roll over my bed and look back towards my doorway and into the dining-cum-library area of the house. To the left of the door things are pretty functional what with a card table and clothes basket. That plastic brown stool is the only survivor of a set of four my family had from the 70s and still comes in handy today.

To the right of the door things get more interesting and a lack of storage has made me display all my books. This I have decided is a good thing. Mine is a small collection because books are expensive and I use libraries (or more recently book-swapping schemes). It was even augmented recently because Belinda & Rohan & M-ra organized a huge book voucher (for my Fortieth birthday) that got me a few nice new volumes. My books are separated into five groupings that are matched by some whimsical display items. So (from top to bottom) literature for both adults and children is matched to an ornamental box (somewhat arbitrarily)... non-fiction (a mix of both human and natural history) is guarded by Ebony the Triceratops... science fiction is accompanied by some Star Fleet vessels... fantasy is inhabited by some denizens of Middle Earth... and the reference and display books (many of them concerned with pop culture and music) are matched to a band of Smurf musicians.

South West Corner

My window lets in a lot of air and light if I want it too. My bedside table has useful things on it. And then there is another wardrobe. On it are various files and boxes. Also I display a few images on it. One is an historic landscape from the part of Germany (Thuringia) that my father comes from. The other is my favourite statue from the National Gallery of Victoria (Circe). Also hanging there is my swimming bag.

More A Bedsit Than A Pad

A friend commented of my last room (at Como Court) that it was my 'pad' and I guess it did have a sort of smart modern apartment look to it. Looking back at images of it now it seems a bit minimalist. My preferences seem to have changed in just a few short months and I now prefer the more furnished and busy feel of this room. It evokes the term 'bedsit' for me. I think that is partly the presence of carpet and older fixtures. The two wardrobes in particular define that look. They were left there for my use and apparently the short one is called a gentlemen’s wardrobe in contrast with the tall one which is a lady’s wardrobe. I just keep clothes and odds-and-ends in both somewhat randomly.

The wardrobes do look old and one curious thing is the inclusion of keyholes in them. I have never lived with wardrobes like that. Who locks wardrobes? We are told that things were safer in the olden days and that nobody locked external doors to homes. If so why lock wardrobes? Maybe it was in compensation – a burglar can get into your home but cannot get at your more prized possessions. I think it may also have something to do with the different ways we lived. Bed-sitters and boarding houses were much more common a few generations ago. Rather than secure the house you secure your possessions from the mix of familiars and strangers with whom you co-habit. I guess that makes sense.

As for me I trust my housemate but am suspicious of the cats – I close my door to them. Otherwise I’m rather settled in and feel cozy in this room. I hope to stay here for a while.