so many things to do

I am counting down the days until I'm done with school. Only 15 more class days left, and I couldn't be more excited or distracted, thinking of all of the things I am going to do when my days are free (shopping, for a start.) I'm so distracted that during a particularly boring part of class today I wrote my entire to do list for the apartment, detailing what needs to be done in each room. It feels good to have it down on paper; I work better that way.

The list was started because we had such a successful weekend. The boy installed shelving in my closet, put together the other chest of drawers in the living room, and assembled the last bookcase for the kitchen. That one was tricky because I needed to hack an ordinary Ikea Billy bookshelf. I wanted to make it into a utility closet, complete with doors, but it needed to be built without the fixed middle shelf, which is integral to its strength. So the boy had to brace it from the inside with 2x4s, and it was a whole lot of work. You'll see the photos of it sometime in the future. I'm shy about taking pictures of my apartment because I want it to be perfect! I tend to forget to take 'before' or 'during' shots, only to regret it later. I have some poor quality pictures on my iPhone from when the apartment was empty, though, so perhaps you'll see them for comparison.

Sorry for such a jumbled entry. I just wanted to write that I had a productive weekend, except that it gave way to so many more things I have to do (paint, changing hardware, installing hooks, getting curtains, etc.) Luckily, it's all stuff I can do. Before, it was a lot of waiting around for the boy to do important construction that I wasn't experienced enough to do (he was taking drills and saws to stuff like you wouldn't believe.) I hate it when I need something to be done by someone else, that I can't do. But at last, it's done, and his work in the apartment is largely done in general. Now, for the next few weekends, as well as late August, and into September, I'll be playing decorator, so maybe, finally you can see what my apartment looks like!

wake up and smell the clover

I know I'm just blogging about a little clover plant, but Jolly's been sniffing it ever since it came home, so I think it's quite cute. It also gives me the perfect oppertunity to plug the two framed pieces that the clover sits in front of. On the left is a photograph from byCole called "a bunch a bunch." On the right is a collage print by Swallowfield (a.k.a. Jennifer Judd-McGee), who is one of my very favorite artists. I bought this print from her at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn in 2007. I couldn't find the exact print on her Etsy shop.

in the studio

I thought I'd share some pictures of my livingroom/studio space. I meant to do this earlier in the day when the light was better, but my apartment is so dark anyway. We're moving this summer and I swear, this is the last apartment I'll ever take that faces the back!




My favorite part of the room is all the tear-outs from magazines I have pinned up above my desk of rooms and products I like. They are so colorful and inspiring!

I've got two and a half weeks left until my shop opens, and I still have so much left to do. I puttered around all afternoon with some design stuff that turned into nothing! You know, I've always said I wanted to work for myself, and work at home, but it's difficult. The TV goes on, Facebook comes out, I start browsing design*sponge instead of working... what's a girl to do?

dog days

So, the first photos from the new camera are in. I'm happy with them in that this is soooo much better than from my old camera! Already I can tell I have a lot of practicing and learning to do. I can't wait to get outside though because my apartment is so poorly lit and I've never been completely happy with the quality of any photos taken here. Especially at night. These were taken at f/1.8 at around 1/25sec, which is too slow.



Three more here.

What do you think?

mr. gorbachev, break up this wall!

This is my living room, or at least the right most 70% of it. My living room is an 11x21" box, and the entire southern wall is blank. 21 feet of blank! I know frames should go on this wall, but I don't know where, and I don't know what it ought to look like in the end. I don't want to go overboard with holes and shelving, since we are moving in 6-8 months. I was thinking of getting 2-3 large posters to hang behind the TV, and then maybe I could have a small cluster of photographs and prints in line with the dining room table. What do you think? I'm stumped.

Please excuse the mess! I always forget to clean up before I take photos of my apartment!

(Clicking on the image above should link to a larger version.)

bird silhouettes

Since my last post, I've completed the bird silhouettes on the kitchen cabinets. I suppose I'm happy with the results, though perhaps in the future some addition, subtraction, or repositioning may be in order.


Here's a closer up of the individual birds. Can anyone name them? I've no idea!


(Sorry about the grain, gosh I need a new camera...)

What do you think? Comments, suggestions?

decorating the kitchen

The one room in the apartment that I haven't given up on is the kitchen. Perhaps its the small (too small) size. Today I was feeling crafty, and originally I wanted to cover the fronts of the cabinets with a pretty paper, but I didn't have enough paper, and I was antsy. So I decided to make cutouts to apply instead. I wanted white contact paper, but like I said, I was antsy, so I settled for dark wood colored kind that I had, and I'm not at all unimpressed with the results.


What do you think? I'm thinking of adding several more birds in trees over the three cabinet fronts, but I don't want to overdo it. Also I'll have to find other kinds of birds! Luckily, it's just contact paper over highly glossed wood, so it peels right off like vinyl!

thank blog I'm back

I knew today would be the day. When I got out of class, I had a voicemail from a 212 number, and I heard that my laptop was ready! After only five days in the shop. I went right to the Apple store and got my baby back. They replaced the logicboard completely. With a happy sigh, I say, life can finally return back to normal (though I was getting used to replacing TV shows with the Internet!)

This past Friday was not a good day. At 8:45am, just before I was going to get up to go to class, the building's super knocks on my door to say that the plumbers working on the unit above me needed to get into my apartment. These are the same guys behind the lovely leak in my kitchen ceiling, and I had to go to class, so I said no, they'll have to come another time.

Then I received one of the worst phone calls of my life from the management company, threatening me that if I didn't let them in, I would be evicted. After that, she manages to tell me it's an emergency. Well, why didn't you say so! I had no choice but to let them in, and I wouldn't have thought twice in the first place had I known that from the start. Then they tore a gorgeous hole in the boy's closet.


Luckily, they've since patched it up. It didn't have to sit for weeks like the state of my kitchen. They fixed that too, both the light fixture and patching up the ceiling (though they haven't painted over the plaster yet.) In my excitement to have overhead lighting again, I realized, I've never blogged about my kitchen before!


This is our kitchen before we ever moved in. Tiny, salmon, and without much storage.



We painted it light blue and installed some white metal shelving above the stove, but that wasn't enough. So we installed a pegboard on the side wall, and a small ikea shelf and a rail above the butcher block, I guess we can call it. That was enough for about five minutes, when I quickly realized we could maximize this space completely and inexpensively.


Over the summer, we took a trip to the Home Depot in Jersey City, where we got custom cut shelves that I painted white, and we hung them with Ikea Valter brackets.


Much improved. Now there isn't any more space to add storage, and I cannot imagine how we could have functioned in that kitchen without all of this. Never mind the fact that I rarely cook anyway. So that's my kitchen, and I am so glad to have it back to normal, and to have everything back to normal today!