Between Guild Wars 2, busy shifts at work, and clumsy attempts at home decoration, I haven’t felt like shooting photos of figures like I was supposed to this past week. So it’s time for another filler post, this time showing off my room from before the move and my room now. Without further ado, prepare for a critical mass of IKEA!
Old Room
My old room was pretty small, and as such, I had to utilize virtually every inch of flat surface on the furniture to display figures. On the bookshelves, television, desk, stereo — every bit of real estate of put to use. Because of the amount of shit I had the and relative small size of the room, the place got very messy very often, but if nothing else, the place was cozy.
I took these photos back in April 2011 thinking I would use them for a filler post of some sort, and now they have finally fulfilled their destiny!
New Room
A year later, I would find myself under a new roof after moving out. My new room is probably three times the size of the old one, and as such, it had to be furnished. Thankfully, there’s an IKEA nearby, and now my places looks like a poorly arranged IKEA showroom.
Right on top of my checklist when I first walked into IKEA were a pair of Detolf display cabinets. Elegant, cheap, and very welcoming of light, it’s not hard to see why these things are popular. My current two display cases aren’t fully occupied, which may surprise some of you, but I have actually got rid of quite a few figures over the past couple of years. Saber Lily, Alvis, Rei, Kirino — all of them got the boot, for one reason or another. On the other hand, I’ve never gotten rid of any of my models because I get pretty attached to them through the building process. Except for the Master Grade Zeta Gundam — there’s a reason it doesn’t get a place in the cabinet. Fuck that thing, argh.
The cabinets are illuminated with Grundtal lights, which I don’t actually recommend. While cheap and easy to set up, they produce a little too much heat for comfort. Having a heat source so close to PVC figures isn’t a terribly smart thing to do, and I wish I had bought the Dioder LED lights. They might be more expensive and more complicated to set up, but the Dioders produce more even lighting while giving off very little heat. With that said, I used the lights a lot for around the first two weeks and haven’t noticed any permanent damage to my figures. Though I’m not going to leave it on overnight like before, I think I’ll keep them around for when I want to show off to guests (or to scare away the women).
I see a lot of “battlestation” threads on /toy/ and /v/, but my desk is actually pretty plain. Asides from Gollum touching himself, itlooks remarkably normal. I used to keep my Petit Nendos lined up underneath the monitor, but they kept on getting knocked around. I should probably get a bigger desk next time I go to IKEA, but I’ve spent enough money there recently furnishing the living room. Maybe I’ll show that off another day!
There’s not much else to say, really. I really like how much space there is in the new room. I like being able to spin around in my chair without bumping into anything, I like not slamming into the wall when I roll over in bed, and I like singing embarrassing Disney songs around the apartment without people thinking I’m crazy. Except for my roommate, but he knew what he was getting into.
So there you have it — my humble abode, my iron fortress, my chip wood dungeon. It’s not always this clean and tidy, but lately I’ve been a bit of a neat freak about the apartment, turning it into an oversized and expensive dress-up doll of sorts, suddenly installing working curtains despite living without them for four months. On that note, I’d like to ask you guys: what are some cheap & effective ways to spice up the room? I’ve come a long way since this, but there’s still work to be done and empty space to be colonized. Hit me with your suggestions while I work on an actual review for next week!
19 replies on “Show & Tell: Chag’s Room, Then & Now”
I have that exact same IKEA dresser! This all looks great though, I think I’m going to pick up a few of those Detolf cabinets. Unfortunately I am very bad at home decor and have no advice for you.
Yep yep, the Detolfs are definitely nice, provided that you don’t over-stuff them. They’re even cheaper in the states, and they really are worth the price of not having to obsessively dust figures all the time.
Actually I thought of something you could do. I got a print from Gen too and found a perfect sized frame for it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/ArtToframes-17-Inch-Picture-Frame-4-Inch/dp/B003HL617U/ It’s pretty cheap and the print looks great behind glass.
Woo, room post! Although I always feel bad after seeing them though since my room is a mess at the moment.
I quite like Dioders myself although we went with some cheap LED light strips Luth found on eBay. I used to rant on about how ugly his wiring looked though so he never put them back in after we moved the detolfs to another room.. I feel bad now.
Good to hear you finally got some curtains, I think I would have went a little nuts without them – I need my privacy! Like the poster above, I’m no good at home decor either but if you wanted some ideas for your walls we bought some cheap picture frames from Ikea and put some nice weeaboo artwork that we picked up at various cons in them. I’m not usually into stuff on walls but they don’t look half bad.
Welll, I DID have curtains, just not WORKING curtains. The ugly rag I had for the first 5 months was stapled to the broken rail. It was meant to be a temporary measure, but I never got around to replacing it until now. The living room was curtain-less the entire time, but the only time that posed a potential problem was when Hamstercorp stayed in it, and he didn’t seem to mind.
I kept my eye out for posters and wall scrolls at the con, but nothing really caught my eye. I would really like some prints of iconic anime landscapes rather than characters, but I get the feeling that I’m one of the few who would like that. But character images just seem so loud and distracting most of them time, especially those magazine posters — the are the worstest!
posters if your into those this, and it kinda gives your room more color, which it really lacks
Yeah, some posters wouldn’t hurt. Not a huge fan of most anime posters, but I’m sure I can pick up a couple nice movie posters if I look for them.
Get a Scarface movie poster, so you can be like a majority of American male college students!
I’m tempted to do that just to be ironic.
God, you are not living up to expectation Chag! I guess you hid all the questionable stuff.
If there is one thing I have even more disdain for than vanilla detolfs is… detolfs with those led dioder strips. I blame the utter lack of cable management people show, what’s the point of fancy led lights if you have all these ugly cables hanging there or haphazardly taped to the detolf. With that said I like the lights that you got more. Besides I doubt the lights are hotter than the harsh melting Texan summers. Ah, then again they are close concentrated heat sources.
You keep calling your detolf the pussy deflector but it all seems so benign, kinda cool actually. I don’t see how anyone can have problems. If anything, I say go, increase the power level of the room!
… that moose is so darn distracting!
GAWD Crumby, what were you expecting? If i had a wall of dragon dildos, I wouldn’t be bugging friends to buy them for me, would I? :p
Yeah, Dioders can be pretty hideous if set up poorly, but my roomate was able to get a REALLY clean setup and it looks amazing. But yeah, not the most practical thing to get at the moment, and bumping around a glass coffin with electric wire doesn’t sound like too much fun.
I really need to put the pussy-deflecting capcities to the test — I mean, the only girl thought it was cool and took pictures of them to show off to her friends, so maybe it isn’t that bad! Clearly it’s time for the next level — BRING ON THE NATIVE FIGURES
Friendship moose is best moose, don’t b hatin’
Ah the Chaq headquarter in detail ^^ Good to have a lot more space now, huh?
These detolfs always take a surprisingly amount of figures, even though Im more of a open shelf fan.
Well with a roommate it’s probably safer to put them behind glass 😀 Cool that you also have the Hygog mech, I love it’s design. On a funny note it was the thing that lead me to the figure collecting hobby.
spice up the room, maybe with green plants, a wallscroll or a dakimakura cover or fancy wallpaper.
I like the plants idea. I’m actually too irresponsible to keep plants alive, but I DID buy an artificial olive tree for no good reason, so I might as well stick it here. As for Dakimakura…lol, I don’t think that’s my thing. Not because it’s too pervy for me or anything, but the sight of a giant half-naked anime girl plastered on the room might be a little too garish for me. :p
Hm. Wow. Maybe it’s the architect in me, but you spent so long talking about your room without even mentioning DAT FLOOR. =d
My bad, I forgot my mention that my floor is…flat? Lol, what does the architect say about my floor?
NEXT, MY POST ON MY FABULOUS WEBSITE DISPLAYING HOW MUCH BETTER MY ROOM IS
It’s in my opinion that you don’t sing loudly enough. Think of all the cross-room duets.
So can I has that spaghetti in the fridge
If it means the revival of the best bondage fairies discussion site on the internet, then yes, by all means, COME AT ME BRO. Also, let’s go karaoke.
Yes, you can have it. Don’t blame me if you get the taco shits.
Damn that cabinet looks nice! Will get one next time when i go to ikea. For spicing up the room, how about adding a small sofa or armchair to the room, it’s kinda hard to explain why, but sometimes when you just feel lazy and don’t wan’t to get on the bed, the sofa works pretty well. Also serves guests well, at least, for me 😀
Wow, we have the Homura Akemi print. very cool.