The stone wall came first

The stone came first. It is real tile, set in cement over the plaster, which is how a wall is finished in a region where houses go up in cinder blocks. Everything else followed it over seven years: the black ceiling, the copper cage lamps, and the wood that lines the corner.

Nothing on sale fitted that corner, and nothing had room for the collection that was already standing on an old cabinet. So the desk and the display cabinet were drawn as one piece and built to measure, for about twelve hundred dollars. That came to less than a premium furniture shop wanted for something that did not fit the space anyway.

Saint Seiya figures in gold armour stand behind the lit glass. The collection is more than twenty years old and it has stopped growing, because the line does not end. A second row of small figures runs along the top of the cabinet against the stone, and books, a framed print and a red model car fill the shelf below. A Hylian shield and a Master Sword hang on the dark wall by the window, both bought about fourteen years ago; the sword came with a wooden mount, and it took two drilled holes.

The screen on the desk is a curved Alienware on an arm, and the shelf in front of it is there to hide where the cables enter. Under it a Corsair Xeneon Edge lies flat across the desk and reads the machine out. The computer sits in the alcove to the left, three weeks old when the photo was taken and about two and a half thousand dollars of it. A work laptop runs to a dock out of sight, because that stretch of desk stays clear. The small mouse pad in front of the mouse has since gone.

Behind the chair the room turns into a lounge. The sofa makes an L and faces another wall with a television and consoles on it, so the back of the desk gets looked at as often as the front, and it was cabled with that in mind. Every light in the room is on in this photo. Most evenings only some of them are.