It’s been a while since I’ve done a room diary. A lot has changed since my last one, which was when I moved into my current home: I’ve gotten more figures, reorganized shelves and put up some more wall decorations. At this point, I don’t know if it really counts as a room diary anymore, since it spans multiple rooms. Oh well, I’m just gonna keep calling it a room diary. Without further ado, let’s go!
Starting with the windows, I got some custom zebra style blinds installed from a local Korean blind company. These blinds are apparently pretty popular in Korea: there are alternating stripes of blinds (like a zebra), where one stripe is completely blackout, and the other is translucent to allow light to come through while allowing for privacy. They’re two layered such that it loops back on itself via a roller weight on the bottom. When like strips overlap on top of each other, light is able to filter in, while non overlapping results in blackout. I really like the flexibility, since it allows me to embrace the blackouts during the day to prevent too much sunlight and UV from coming through and damaging my figures while allowing some light through in the evening hours when the sun is setting. There’s still a little bit of light that leaks through from the sides, but I think it’s generally okay. Consequently, getting these blinds meant that those old drapes and whatnot could be removed. Good riddance cause they were kinda ugly and very much a fire hazard with how close they were to the baseboard heaters.
Moving towards my television set, I’ve finally gotten all the doors and shelves I needed, since they were out of stock when I first got the BESTA stand and shelves from IKEA. Within the BESTA shelves, I installed 2 sets of the 4 x LED light bars from Cefrank, where the top shelf has 2 light bars on the side, while the other two have 3 each, with one on the top. I have bought several sets before, and they’ve generally been quite reliable having run them for over four years and counting. That said, I did have to get a couple of AC adapters replaced within the last month or so since they started flickering, but at least there were replacement adapters available, and the original LED bars were still functional.
Going a bit closer, the top shelf currently holds the Elf Villager girls from VERTEX. I really like the character designs from this series, and while I don’t have all of them, I do have most of the ones I like! The current ones in the pre-order pipeline are very busty and not really my cup of tea per se. That said, I do have my eye on one of the first girls in the series, Siika, so maybe I’ll grab her at some point in the AmiAmi pre-owned section :). I’ve written about Cecil and Lincia in previous blog posts, so feel free to check those out.
As we move further down, the middle shelf features a subset of FREEing 1/4 scale figures I obtained more recently. Starting from the back we have tiger version Taiga from Toradora. Beside her is the one character I think is the most deserving of a 1/4 scale bunny girl figure from FREEing: Sakurajima Mai from Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai. Below them are Ryobi and Yozakura from the Senran Kagura series. While FREEing typically plays it safe, the Senran Kagura IP tends to allow the ecchi-ness to show through the ability to cast-off their breast coverings, so kudos to that! 😀 Finally, Pekora from Hololive stands on the right side, rocking her debut outfit. Pekora is probably one of the heaviest standing 1/4 scales in my collection so far. Maybe some day I’ll showcase her and the rest of these girls in a more dedicated blog post.
Finally on the bottom shelf, we have another subset of FREEing 1/4 scale bunnies! On the top are Lemon and Eureka, both of which I’ve written about in the past. I also recently bought a Eureka foil postcard from Tsunako-sensei’s booth store. Needless to say, the figure and the postcard really go hand in hand 🙂 Finally, on the bottom is FREEing’s second figure of Rias from the High School DxD series and original character Kuro Bunny by TEDDY-sensei. Those two feature mirrored bases, which really accentuate the true lewd nature of their respective poses. I really don’t have words to describe it, so I added a photo below for reference.
During my most recent Japan trip, I also bought this display box from the Kotobukiya Store in Akihabara. While it was bit pricy (at about 7.8k JPY) and hefty to bring back in my suitcase, it does come with built-in LED lights. Lacus sits inside this box on the very top of the BESTA shelf.
Moving beside the TV unit, I have three of my four IKEA DETOLF cases standing tall. I moved some figures around, so now I have more iM@S shelves. I also have a pretty wild bunny shelf, namely this one with Megumin from KonoSuba and Rebecca from EDENS ZERO. I actually found Megumin unopened on Facebook Marketplace for $200 CAD in early 2024, and I had just gotten Rebecca at the end of 2023. When I brought Megumin home, I thought they could go well together, so after some fiddling around, I managed to get Megumin standing on top of Rebecca, all while resting on top of a faux fur rug I bought from IKEA which conveniently concealed Megumin’s large red base.
Speaking of Facebook Marketplace, I’ve found some pretty good deals on figures. I’ll probably touch upon my figure collecting experience at some point in another post, but scouring through the various figures has really tested my self-restraint only buying a figure that I really want to have in my collection. Hurray for budgets!
Turning around to face the other wall, the once barren walls now have my Nanoleaf Rhythm lights up in the shape of a star or snowflake, depending on how you see it. On both sides of it are two B2-sized tapestries. The one on the left is a bunny illustration by momoco-sensei, while the one on the right is Syroh-sensei’s original character Mia Flatpaddy, both of which I managed to find in a pre-owned shop during my 2023 Japan trip. Below those scrolls are also various plushies I have. The hololive ones I got from the Round 1 trips I made with NekoDiv down to the Seattle area near the end of the 2024, when they were having Round 1 x Hololive collab. The only one I’m missing here is Okayu :'(
Moving to the other side of the door, I finally framed the two Genshin Impact posters I bought from TIMESKIP STUDIO in Anime Revolution 2023. This one here is of Liyue Harbour. Since these posters aren’t standard size (they were 16″ x 27″), the selection of ready-made frames weren’t too great. Ultimately, I ended up biting the bullet and ordered custom frames at Michael’s (an arts-n-crafts store in Canada) when they had a buy 1 get one free sale this past December. This (and the other poster I had) ended up totalling roughly $275 CAD after taxes, which meant each frame was almost $140. That being said, the frame I ended up getting was clean and simple: just way I like it. All things considered, I thought it was decent, given I had no way to source the glass myself and assemble everything together.
In the nook area, I filled the void with the IKEA SKRUVBY cabinet, which holds various snacks, my cups and coffee beans. Sitting on top of it are the coffee grinder, the water boiler, and a scale primarily for my daily pourover of coffee when I work from home. The final DETOLF case stands to the right, and currently houses an abundance of 1/4 scales bunny girl figures, along with a couple of smaller 1/6 and 1/7 scale figures on the top shelf. Among them is Hitoyo-chan, which I’ve written about in the past, along with the NEKOPARA pair of Azuki and Coconut, two of my favourite catgirls from the series.
The top shelves feature two shadow boxes, which I also bought from Michael’s a couple of years back. They house my collection of Nendoroids, which has been growing at a much slower pace than the rest of the collection.
Turning to the display wall, I swapped out the strawberry bunny girl tapestry by Mitsuba Choco-sensei with a large, vertical tapestry of Syroh-sensei’s Mia Flatpaddy, which I bought online from his booth shop mid-last year. I have do have slight regrets from not buying his other original catgirl character Shia Flatpaddy. I do hope that some day, I can find her in second hand shops during another Japan trip.
On the adjacent wall, I put up a cork board to stick the plethora of keychains and enamel pins I’ve bought over the course of the years from conventions and the such. I have lots from Puffifish: they’re really cute! I still have plenty of space to add more; but will keep it relatively steady.
In the guest washroom, the Ina banner I had is now replaced with the other Monstadt Genshin poster. This makes the washroom a bit more normal (for better or for worse).
Moving to my home office, I changed the desk layouts a little bit. Gone is the old small desk that I had borrowed from my parents: instead, I have my large, old wooden IKEA desk from my parents’ place. It doesn’t really have too much on it right now: it’s mainly my random storage desk. This and my standing desk are placed side by side and face the window. In one corner, I have my home server which powers this blog and Pihole, among other things. It consists of my Synology DS920+ and the hand-me-down PC, both of which were at my brother’s apartment before he also moved out. There have been some changes in my home infra since my last computing-related post, so please look forward to that if you’re interested!
On the wall closest to my work laptop, I got a small whiteboard to help me keep things like my weekly work tasks in check, or to do some rough brainstorming on problems. Sometimes, I wish it was slightly bigger to keep my thoughts lying around, but for now it’s gets the job done.
Turning to the shelves, they now hold more figures. I’ve got some 1/4 scales on the top shelf, along with a couple of figures I haven’t taken out yet. The bottom shelf has a bunch of 1/7 and 1/8 scale figures. These are visible during my work video calls, along with the huge Yuki Yuuna banner on my closet door. At this point, I don’t really bat an eye or blur my background: I just embrace it.
Moving to my bedroom, I added two IKEA BILLY bookcases into my room. The top half currently features some figures I got this year (with the exception of Combat Bunny x-10), like Ryza and Shalltear. The bottom half is currently home to my small collection of artbooks I’ve collected over the years, as well as some light novels I’ve been reading, like Liar, Liar, and Gimai Seikatsu.
Because of the new display cases, I did have to move some prints around. They now surround the case itself. I did leave some buffer room around the fire sprinkler for obvious reasons: I definitely don’t need to be setting that off accidentally.
I do have some more room for prints, so I will be on the lookout during this upcoming anime convention season. 😉
Finally, to round it all off, I moved the strawberry bunny from Mitsuba Choco-sensei to the once bare wall. She now greets me when I walk into my bedroom 🙂
Anyways, that’s all I have this time around. I’m pretty happy with how things are right now: I still have enough space for my figures and the upcoming pre-orders, so I won’t need to figure out how to deal with that yet. That being said, worst case I can display some of them at the office, since I still have plenty of desk space to expand 🙂
Until next time!
~Lui
