Our little apartment

So I have been blogging for many months now, and I figure that we might as well invite you into our home. We are living in north Chicago, about a mile-and-a-half northwest from Wrigley Field (congrats go out to the Cubs for yesterdays victory!). We live in an urban residential area, close to a handful of parks, the river, and a regional library. We rent the top floor of a house (technically, the attic portion). Laundry is in the basement and we have off-street parking out in the alley in the back.

So here is a tour of our place...

So the first thing that you will see in our entryway is a display of our portraits. This exhibit is called "organized chaos".

This exhibit originates from the fact that Livia works as a custom framer. With our house full of dozens of nice frames, Livia no longer has a need for all these cheap frames. But instead of throwing them out, I decided to employ them creatively. Our entryway is ghetto anyway, so now it's a beautiful wall of tackiness. It's great.


And the disco ball...


Notice on the fridge Livia's bumper sticker, which reads "Jesus loves you but I'm his favorite"


Our uninteresting and crowded kitchen. See if you can find a little guy hanging from a noose. His name is Fred and he's a voodoo toothpick holder. He doesn't have any toothpicks in this picture, because at the moment we have no vendettas. We're looking for some though, so stay tuned.


These are our kitchen helpers


And a conglomeration of our trip to Joao Pessoa last year. This is the only cheap frame that escaped the grasp of organized chaos.


Enter the Living room.


Livia actually made the futon pillows. They are reversible (different patterns on each side of the pillows), and they have hidden zippers. That makes it possible for us to remove the covers and wash them periodically. I mention it because I guess hidden zippers are very hard and frustrating to deal with, so props to Livia.


We picked up those two tables and an enormous dresser and mirror over at a salvation army. We stole them all for a mere $85.


Artistic close-up #1


Artistic close-up #2


We don't actually have that lamp plugged in. It's more of an aesthetic contribution to the room.


To the left: That's the Warhol I created from the same picture that Livia is holding.
To the right (background): Livia created the curtains to the living room. There is no door to the room, so when visitors stay with us it's nice for them to have privacy. The curtains are patterned after typical Moroccan ornamentation.


Livia's gabbing with her sister; also showcasing a purse that she made.


A final shot of Livia's popart.


So maybe I will call this the primary tour of our apartment. At the moment the other rooms are a bit cluttered, so I won't venture to post our mess online. The bathroom is getting regrouted, so there is plastic everywhere. Livia's sewing room needs a facelift, and our bedroom has seen more pleasant days.

Anyway, thanks for coming. Come again.

Livia Warhol

A few months ago I was experimenting with photoshop, and began creating a popart piece using a picture of Livia that I took a few years ago after our steel band practice. I'm not the biggest fan of Andy Warhol, but I can appreciate the contribution that the popart genre has provided to contemporary art. Here's a copy of the piece that I made.


I also made a picture of my late great-grandmother. Here is a picture that is floating around the family:

...and the transformation...

I used two different techniques on these pieces, and I think the differences are noticeable. The Grandma May piece is more true to the original Warhol techniques. Photos these days are manipulated digitally instead of with the traditional paints and sponges, etc. I happen to like the technique used for Livia's piece better

A couple of other pieces I made include some work I did as Christmas presents for my siblings Amanda and Andy.

Andy Nufer



BYU logo

Livia and I have been saving our money to be able to print and frame her popart. By saving money, I mean whenever we noticed that we happened to have some money to spare to print it out, we did. That happened a couple of days ago.

So this was actually framed by Livia. The print is actually just a cheap kinkos job, so one day we'll take this apart and get a nice quality print in that frame. For now it will do.

Since Livia works at a custom framing department, she was able to get a frame for a very cheap price. The customer didn't like the frame, or something, so instead of throwing away the frame (valued at several hundred dollars), the framing department sold it to Livia for $5. So last night was our big debut.

It really doesn't fit in our living room, which is furnished in mostly bucolic reds, browns, and green--with a Japanesque flare. But we'll be moving sometime soon, and we'll find a wall to hang this at our next place and build around it.



Livia has also been flexing her creating muscle. The purse that she is sporting as she poses by the picture up there (she was chatting with her sister and didn't want to put the phone down for the photo) was conceptualized, designed, and construct by none other.

She has turned the house into a sewer's paradise. She's currently working on about a dozen quilts, making dance costumes, sewing purses, creating pillows and pillowcases, and teaching regular sewing and craft classes. I'm not even going into the scrapbook endeavors... I think she plans to post some of her work here, so stay tuned.