How Does Your Garden Grow?

While we don't have a patio or yard, I like the idea of having plants, but knew they had to be small otherwise they would overwhelm our apartment and take up valuable window space. On one windowsill, we have D.'s bonsai and my bamboo, but I wanted more and thought about how great it would be to have fresh herbs, so I decided to dedicate the kitchen windowsill to that. Today, D. and I went to a nursery where my mother, the gardening expert, met us to help us pick the appropriate seeds, pots, etc. We went back to my parents' to use their soil, fertilizer, and hose, and I learned all about seed planting (never thought I'd say that...)


My mother got the first batch of basil!



We decided to get some extra pot-bottoms, so on our way home stopped by the original nursery again. The owner was obnoxious about using our credit card for such a small purchase (though I had spent all my cash at her nursery a few hours before), so we left. We stopped at another nursery on our way home, where they had these beautiful hidden grounds, old Greek men sitting around the plants smoking, and a ton of really charming garden decorations. I asked if one vintage-y tin watering can - decorated with twine - was for sale or for decoration, and one young man said, "decoration, but you can have it for a dollar - I don't think it works" (though it does, just awkwardly). When he was ringing me up - with no problem using a credit card - he said "you can just take the can for free." He then undercharged us for the pot bottoms, and we walked to our car. A minute later, he ran outside with a small painted vintage terra cotta watering can and said "this one works a lot better - you can just have it for a dollar." I handed him $1.06 (the exact amount of cash I had left - figuring for tax), and he washed it out in the fountain for us. He was maybe the nicest man I had ever met.

I digress...

So I set up my little garden behind my sink, with my two lovely watering cans, and I'll hope that my parsley, rosemary, and (not sage or thyme) spearmint actually grows and my basil keeps going.

Home Girl

My mother, blogger and reviewer extraordinaire, La Bibliofille, received an early review copy of Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block (read her review here). Just published this week, Home Girl mostly focuses on the West Harlem neighborhood to which author and former foreign correspondent Judith Matloff moves, but I particularly enjoyed her take on New York real estate, her eclectic hired hands, and home renovation projects.



I appreciated Matloff's straightforward journalistic writing and character descriptions. It was difficult for me to empathize with her sometimes sharp take on her family, her life choices, and, most startlingly, 9/11. After finishing this book (in one day - I had a difficult time putting it down), I really enjoyed visiting Matloff's website and viewing photos of her family and neighbors, and catching a glimpse into her home. The work came recommended and I pass that recommendation along, especially for anyone looking for a fresh 'abode'-type book.

Curtain Call

We spent two weekends ago in an epic curtain battle with our bedroom bay window. It involved several trips to two different Targets, and literally hours staring at the window trying to figure out a cheap and pretty solution for our bedroom. I absolutely hated the blinds in our bedroom and bathroom (and am not 100% crazy about them in the den/LR/kitchen, but D. likes them so for now they're fine - we mostly keep them open anyway). We easily solved our bland bathroom (below) problem with Simply Shabby Chic (cheap!) rod and balloon curtain.

Before (though freshly painted and stripped of previous owners' textured wallpaper):


And after, with our curtain and some cheap Montmartre posters I bought while traveling with my friend and loyal reader A. years ago :)



The bedroom was a little tougher. After buying too many curtain rods and too few fabric panels, we ended up splitting one long curtain rod for the side windows, then using a small matching one for the middle. We bought about six sheer floor-length panels which let in great light but give in privacy. D. worked hard getting the old blinds out and lining up the split rods (using picture-hanging wire!) for our solution.

Before:



During (we got a nice surprise when taking out the old blinds - a fun reminder of the lavender bedroom we purchased from the old owners! D. did a great job sanding down the wall and touching up the paint):


During (wooh, D. showing some skin - didn't know it was that kind of blog!)


And after! Our retreat!

Office Closet?

We finally got cable installed this weekend, though, because our building is so old, the only place it could go without the hick installer drilling was the linen closet (which doesn't have an outlet and is totally inconvenient). So there are wires stretched across the hall and into the den, but we're pretty happy to finally have TV/non-hijacked Internet/land-line.

We had an electrician come in and give us an estimate on moving the cable to our utility closet, hiding the wires, and reversing an outlet to that closet so that we have a few plugs in there. He's also going to redo all of our outlets and switches so that we don't electrocute ourselves (me) and are able to plug in modern appliances (D.). This will be done in the coming weeks and, hopefully before then, we'll be finally getting our storage space downstairs.

D.'s brother and our sister-in-law were here this weekend and, upon getting a tour of our apartment, made a comment about our huge our closets were -- they joked about putting another bedroom in.

Originally, D. had thought the utility closet (off the foyer) would be a great place to have a media stand with the cable hookup, router, phone, fax, and printer, and we would continue to use our laptops around the house and store stuff in the rest of the closet. But once the BIL and SIL noted how large the closets were, I got to thinking that once we had all of our electronics hooked up and stuff stored, I could make the closet into a home office.

If it was cleared, wired, and cleaned, I think it might work. I've been googling ideas and have found a few interesting, if not totally inspiring, links.

I think there was a Domino article on this last year, so I'll try to find it when I'm home later and link to it then. I'm assuming it will give a little more fashionable advice than what I've found so far.

We're pretty settled in, and have dealt with the joys of homeownership: our first bug problem (it was a small one - some tiny black beetles in one windowsill), our first temperature problem (while we don't regret getting rid of the huge, ugly, and moldy windowAC's left there, it's been unusually hot this week, but we keep fans going constantly and are looking into a portable AC), a few carbon monoxide scares (which have been solved by buying our own detector, and not relying on the old one left there), a realization that the smoke detector was sitting there without a battery for a month (so we put one in, then ended up replacing the unit anyway), a mini-electrocution (of me - D. later installed some new, updated outlets), and a crashing down (on D., luckily I wasn't home) of bedroom window blinds (I wanted curtains for the BR anyway - it's another project for this weekend).

Happily, the apartment isn't really the
Money Pit it sounds like above. While we're tweaking the problems, I'm also enjoying tweaking the layout and design. On a day off Monday, I moved around some foyer and living room furniture and, inspired by my friend who I stayed with this weekend, put out a bowl of coffee beans (cooler than potpourri, easier than flowers, and makes the room smell great). The bowl was given to us by D.'s grandpa when he moved out of his house - I had been looking to put it out but keep it in a safe place - and I saw him this weekend, also, so this was inspired by my Wisconsin friends and family:




We're also enjoying the area: our corner pub that opens its window-walls, biking Sundays on the Parkway behind our building, our walks to the train station, our local bodega, two
diners, and the neighborhood park.

Before and After

I never knew that sanded walls and fresh, white ceilings could make or break a place so much! While we didn't go 100% with the Benjamin Moore color scheme, we used their foyer, LR, and BR color suggestions, and highlighted the den and kitchen with their suggestions. I'm really happy with the results and will submit my before-and-afters to them, as they ask for on their site.

The Befores:


Foyer (from when they still lived there)


LR (while they were there)


Den (formerly a nursery - after they moved though)


Kitchen (after they moved out but still mint green!)


Bedroom (after their move - dirty carpet and purple walls!)

A Tour...

While we've put up some more art and rearranged a table since these were taken, here are a few photos to give you an idea of how our place looks and how our projects fit into the big picture - also, these are our 'afters':


Entry/foyer into dining/living area (my painted $25 mirror!)


Dining area (the finished table ended up looking okay!)


Living area


Den (no bubble-filled nursery!)


Kitchen (no '70s mint green!)


Bedroom (hooray - a new carpet and no purple!)

Shoutout to the Parentals

I have to take a moment to remind everyone of the mess that was my parents' garage (and house, frankly) for eight months while D. and I were living there, but I'm happy to say that the last of our belongings (our bikes, which were in the basement) are now out (and in our bike storage room in our building!). But we truly couldn't have bought a place without the rent-free life we had over the summer/fall/winter this year, so THANK YOU to them.

Can't Believe It's Been Two Months!

I can't believe my last post was over two months ago! Needless to
say, we've been swamped moving, doing work, cleaning, cleaning, and
cleaning, in addition to our usual lives, but we are officially
settled, the art is even on the walls, and we absolutely adore our
apartment. I have this blog (and its readers!) to thank for how well
everything turned out, because - though I was so frustrated with how
long it took to get in - it forced us to think and rethink all of our
decisions, and complete projects that I wouldn't have the time or
energy to do post-move. I still have a few projects that I'd like to do
in the coming months/year, butnow's not the time. The drapery, kitchen
floor, and bathroom vanity are on my list, but can wait. For now, I'll
start to try to recap the move... And can anyone believe it's already April??

A Whirlwind

I started to write this post in February, so will leave what I wrote and add to it a bit--it's April 9th, no matter what the post date says--

I haven't been writing much, but these past few weeks have been a whirlwind of all abode activity.

I was afraid I would jinx our luck if I wrote too much when we were actually making progress, but I'm fairly confident now that we'll actually get in, so here's the update.

It's been four months since we started negotiations on our apartment, and eight months since we started looking for real estate in New York, but on Monday, we will be totally into the place. The sellers moved out last Friday, we spent Friday night on aerobeds in the apartment (I INSISTED on sleeping there at least one night just to actually be in), then Saturday morning at 9, our painters arrived. They finished yesterday, my mom and I spent six hours cleaning today, and we have a truck and our elevator booked for Monday. D. and I got rid of the old, moldy air conditioning units this morning (between that and my four hours of window cleaning today, we now ACTUALLY can see out of our amazing windows). The painters pulled up the BR carpet and got rid of some bad shelving. I have lots of 'before-and-after' photos, but -- after all the work we did today -- it looks even better, so I'll have to take new photos before I post them.

The paint job is great, though. We stuck with some of our original plans that Benjamin Moore suggested, and modified others.


--So that was what I wrote and basically everything did work out well. We had a few snags, though. First, our painters apparently kept getting in trouble with the co-op board for such ghastly infractions such as working on President's Day (I mean, it's not Christmas or Yom Kippur), walking in the front door and not the service entrance, and parking in the building's lot "not once, but multiple times" (-from the Board hate-letter we recieved). Of course, they did not let us know this until we were fined, but that's besides the point...
Our other snag came on move-in day. After our wedding, we used many of our Crate & Barrel gift cards to buy the world's most comfortable couch. What makes it so comfortable? It is huge and overstuffed. Did it fit in the elevator of our 1940's building? No. Did my dad and D. try to bring it up the fire stairs? Yes. Did it fit? No. Did they break a light in the stairwell trying? Yes. So my dad and D. got obsessed with fixing this, and my dad found us all of these 'couch doctor' companies who take apart, move, and put back together couches (apparently this is a very common problem in New York buildings). My idea was to trade couches with my parents - so we ended up using my (free and not so crazy) idea, took a couch from their porch, and left our couch there. Frankly, I think each couch suits its new spot, but D. is still a little sad. But we'll get our couch back whenever we have a place for it. The end.
We also got - not in trouble - but - whined at by our super a lot during the move in weeks. We'd tell him we were bringing in a couch and he said "you have to let me know in advance" (well, we were doing that now...). We didn't schedule our carpet delivery or our CB2 furniture delivery enough in advance, blah, blah, blah. But since then, we haven't heard a peep from him. He was pretty intimidating at first, but I think he was more confused by us than anything (we may be the first people in the history of the building who didn't hire professional movers or a cleaning service). D., my dad, and I worked on taking out the beastly air conditioners ourselves, and we think his disappointment in us was just that we didn't have a great need for him. I think a lot of the other residents contract him to do work, so he's probably making a pretty penny under the table that we're not so much good for.

While we don't have our basement storage yet, wedo have bike storage; we're getting mail, though the previous owners' names are still on the mailbox. I can't wait to go to the May annual meeting and vote against the whole board!