this was a wall of the small basement room that i shared with lee (~$300/mo) and then later had to myself (~$600/mo) at the coop in ravenna, where at any given time between 9 to 11 people were living. i was fixated on warped checkered print as a design for a year or two. it was very satisfying to get it out. i made the design on my ipad and then we projected it onto the wall with tony’s projector (i think?) and traced it with pencil onto the wall. it required some really careful and uncomfortable positioning, some tears were shed. it was nice to have housemates to help paint. and there were no catastrophic messes!

the rooms in this house were so tiny, and the basement had a terrible stinky toilet issue that was finally resolved with a airplane tier pump thing to propel the contents away effectively with a roaring woosh. the toilet problem was a popular topic at many many house meetings. i am half tempted to pull up some old house meeting notes but that would be a little too masochistic.

painting on walls is instinctual for me, it’s so hard to resist the urge. we didn’t paint the walls back after we moved out. they said we didn’t have to. they didn’t know that it looked like this. we left the house in much better condition than when we found it though (chaos and wreckage from the frat that was evicted. a kitchen knife stabbed into the wall hidden behind a poster. flies and trash and mysterious goo everywhere).

Oh ya and this was the house whose tree in the front yard rotted away and fell onto my car, totaling it. I spent many hours exchanging emails with a city arborist, looking at online tree maps, and battling with the property manager to pay for the $1000 deductible I had on my car insurance. several months of hassling boiled down to this:

property manager: “that’s not our tree! that is the city’s tree!
city: “that’s not the city’s tree, that is the landlord’s responsibility. trees are supposed to be inspected for rot.”
me: “someone’s paying for this and it’s not me and we can go to small claims court if you want”
property manager: “okay fine here is some money.”

that RAV4 was cute, we did so much together, lots of fond memories, RIP <3