Today’s post is going to be as stale as the gingerbread structure that I’m still working on. Ed says he enjoys my vintage posts, and I value his opinion. Except when it comes to the Avid BB7 brake calipers, which are garbage. Silly Briton is silly.

Anyway, this throwback post was written during my original Victoria days, back when I was certifiably poor, and a trip to Starbucks was considered a splurge. My then-roommate, Danica, taught me to embrace kitsch. If you don’t have the funds for tasteful décor, go big and go ugly. We had velvet paintings, an Astroturf rug and matching Astroturf topped coffee table with halved doll heads glued to the sides, a clawfoot bathtub, and a sink decorated with a hula skirt, a gold elephant clock with light-up flowers, and so on.

When Danica moved out, I took over her bedroom, which was actually a den and therefore had no closet, I found myself needing a dresser for my unmentionables. Why’d I taken over this room, then? It was large, had a fireplace, and a private balcony which was illuminated by a red lightbulb. It was my own little red light district, overlooking a tree decorated with baby doll parts.