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.