L I V I N G I N I T

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It seems like we've been at it for so long already...but when i just typed 2.5 weeks i think it's great progress! I guess when you're living in the middle of a major renovation and it's filth, it gets old fast. this little kitchen/bathroom reno has taken up our entire house! we thought we'd have our downstairs bedrooms as our safe dust-free haven but then our plumber told us he had a lot of work to do in our large bedroom closet which is where alot of plumbing runs through. so the entire closet had to be emptied into the second bedroom which was packed to the ceiling with stuff already. this is also where our 2 cats are locked up during the day.

so downstairs is mess.

upstairs, where the actual work is happening is a wreck. with our dining room and living room right outside the kitchen this has become a real work zone with appliance storage, central command/work table (with tools & plans), 2x4 storage, the plumbers entire van load of pipes, fittings, doo dads, connectors, and ominous looking tools...etc.

i am learning great patience in this process...and even with the mess i am grateful that we can even do this ;-)

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P R O G R E S S

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we're 2.5 weeks into this kitchen/bathroom renovation. most of that time spent ripping things OUT and assessing the awfulness behind 100+ year old walls.

finally things are going IN...not the prettiest things and most will never be seen again

(we hope), but things are happening!

the plumber is done with all the rough-in and repairs which wound up being alot more than anyone thought.

the electrician has put in 97% of the new outlets, switches, recessed lighting, bathroom fan etc. the new subfloor is mostly in (after our contractor's foot went through our bedroom ceiling which is underneath the kitchen) along with new insulation/soundproofing

in the kitchen ceiling.

some framing is complete with a bit more waiting on the plumber testing his lines. once he's out the sheetrock can go up! can't wait!

bathroom framing


kitchen cabinet/stove wall
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W E E K E N D A C T I O N

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we had a full house on saturday with 2 plumbers and 2 electricians all working with a 10 foot space of each other. luckily no fights broke out (just some rude comments).

with them here saturday it meant that for about 8 hours straight on sunday we cleaned up after them. the place was a complete mess...pieces of pipe, chunks of wood, wood shavings, old outlets, and scraps of wire all ending up all over the floors or within our joists. so we vacuumed everything out, replaced some insulation (recycled denim!)...and felt much better.

sorry guys ... my walls are not your garbage cans. i was so infuriated to spend an entire day on this that i put a not-so-subtle sign up to tell these guys to clean up after themselves. really?

on the bright side, we did buy a new shop-vac which made things a little more manageable. no more earplugs!

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O V E R H E A R D . . .

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here's a little gem of a conversation that i heard our polish plumber having with our albanian contractor as they debated the use of pvc pipes (imagine this with heavy accents).

plumber: i will not use pvc in chris's house...say what you want...no pvc in this house!

contractor: they use it in new jersey

plumber: new jersey is nothing

contractor: pvc is easier...what your problem with it

plumber: listen...if there a fire, the pvc melt and the fumes will kill everybody

contractor: the smoke will kill them first!

art unrelated to parties involved

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L O V E I T / W A N T I T

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how cool is this? i'm loving these "landrugs" designed by florian pucher. beautiful area rugs based on aerial views of farms in places like europe, africa, the u.s. (these areas pictured below) and the netherlands. cows not included.

i'm particularly loving africa...love that warm mustard color and those gorgeous organic shapes!

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L E S S M E S S

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yesterday our plumber came and worked his butt off to do more in a day

than most people do in a week! He replaced 2 floors of waste line, replaced all of

our 2nd floor tenants bathroom plumbing from below, installed all the venting, installed

the new kitchen faucet drain piping, and had a few meetings throughout the day. whew!

his work is really well done, though not pretty.

here's some shots of the new lines and the old waste pipes sitting in our backyard. now i see why the drains were so slow. for one thing they had so much old gunk in them...and about 6 feet of wire someone tried to snake the drain with...which then snapped on them.

i knew it couldn't just be all my hair slowing those drains!

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H E L L O G O R G E O U S

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all the plumbing fixtures have been pouring in via ups and fedex. the kitchen faucet is

particularly gorgeous...nice and weighty.

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T O O C U T E T U E S D A Y

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the kids got an early christmas gift from aunt linda...it took all of 20 seconds from the time this thing got out of the box for the full craziness to start. thanks!

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H O T S T U F F

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this weekend chris was feeling out-of-sorts since he's not involved in the demolition/renovation like projects past...he just had to get in there a bit.

i think he feels better now ;-)

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S O M E D A Y . . .

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wouldn't it be so cute to put up a modern cuckoo clock in the kitchen (when it's done,

of course)? yes, half our house is in a shambles and looks like a bomb hit it and here

i am thinking about a six hundred dollar cuckoo clock. looks like i'm a little cuckoo!

snap out of it!

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A B E A U T I F U L M E S S

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demolition started at 9 am on the dot monday morning. our contractor and his guys are doing a fast and furious job pulling everything done and or course discovering bizarro things along the way...like some the worst plumbing in history and entire sections of support beams chopped out to accommodate the worst plumbing in history. looking around on the internet i've found this is quite common for plumbers (aka: butchers) to just chop away at peoples homes for their own convenience...because hey...who's gonna notice?

oh and that big column in the middle of the room is a jack that had to put in to hold up the second floor til a new support wall is put in.

the good news...that we have someone else doing this! other good news is that the joists at the ceiling haven't been touched by termites like downstairs. that was the moment of truth for me since the downstairs joists were pretty much a vegas buffet for termites.

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B I Z Z A R O W O R L D

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while we undergo major demolition and rebuilding in our kitchen and bathroom, the other parts of our house are serving different and multiple purposes. the cats are now eating in the bathroom, the litterbox is under the desk, and i'm doing my hair etc in the laundry room where there's also a chopbox and table saw stored. i'm sure the novelty will wear

off very quickly.

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G O O D B Y E

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Goodbye you ugly beast of a kitchen. I most definitely will not be missing your green formica countertop, your permanently sticky cabinets, your lumpy floor, your cloudy windows, your continuously clogged drains, your smelly sink, your wobbly faucet, your dusty pantry, your sad singular ceiling light. None of this was even charming in an old house way but just skeevy in a "the previous owner was a dirtbag" way. I've dreamt of this kitchen being sucked into a creepy black hole since the day we saw it...so less dramatically today is demolition! Good riddance!

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T O O C U T E T U E S D A Y

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naughty arnold!

don't worry he was put back on the floor (in the sun, of course) and scolded

(with a smile).

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N E I G H B O R H O O D L O V E

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"The Carroll Street Bridge in Brooklyn is one of five bridges which span the Gowanus Canal. The canal has long been considered the dividing line between the Carroll Gardens and Park Slope neighborhoods although it is sometimes now referred to as it's own community - 'Gowanus'.

The Carroll Street Bridge was built in 1888 and is the oldest of only four retractile bridges in the United States. It rolls back horizontally on wheels set on steel rails in order to clear the waterway. The bridge was designated a NYC landmark in 1987.

The approach is still cobblestoned and the bridge itself is wooden planking. One of the better unnoticed details is the sign which remains atop the structure:

"Ordinance of the City :Any Person Driving over this Bridge Faster than a Walk will be Subject to a Penalty of Five Dollars for Each Offence." from nycbridges blog

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N E I G H B O R H O O D L O V E

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the holiday lights are up ;-)

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T H O U G H T S O N P L U M B I N G

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since our kitchen is pretty much planned...just waiting for materials...we can now really put some thought into the bathroom that's being renovated alongside the kitchen. it's a good sized room that isn't going to change as far as placement of things...the most affordable configuration is what's there now...with new beautiful fixtures of course! let's keep it simple people!

on a recent trip to my in-law's house in las vegas (my biggest fans!) i was inspired by their guest bathroom and detachable hand-shower head that simply takes the place of a regular shower head. no fancy body jets or shooting steam...just a good idea tastefully done. so i'm going to give it a go and hope our opinionated plumber doesn't shoot me down.

here's a look at some of the faucets and fixtures i'm thinking of.

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L I G H T S P L E A S E

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the pendants have arrived and boy are they nice!

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C Y C L E G I R L S

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here's some amazing illustrations by artist mads berg that combine some of my favorite things: bicycles, graphic design, and anything from copenhagen ;-)

aren't they gorgeous?

(from copenhagen cycle chic)

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L O V E T H I S N E I G H B O R H O O D

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for such a big city like brooklyn ;-) it sure feels like a small town sometimes.

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S T E V E ' S H O U S E

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stumbled upon some images from life.com of steve mcqueens palm springs house and

just thought i'd post 'em for the hell of it...plus it's steve mcqueen...the coolest!

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T O O C U T E T U E S D A Y

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P E N D A N T I N S C E N E

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i'm about to pull the trigger on 3 titan1 pendants from DWR. aren't they gorgeous?

(images from stephmodo, dwr, skonahem)

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H E L L O Y E L L O W ?

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it's about that time to buy kitchen stuff! i'll be placing my order for my gorgeous pendant lights at DesignWithinReach today...now i'm thinking i should order our counter stools while i'm at it. We have a wonderful discount thanks to our wonderful architects. i always had it in my head that the stools would be a fun bright color... just to add a bit of pop and whimsy to an otherwise neutral room. aside from ordering these Tolix stools from france in a ton of colors and a ton of money....DWR has them in red, yellow and steel. since i'm not a red person, and we've already got enough stainless steel going on, maybe yellow is in the cards? yellow and gray are a killer combination...i think it might be fun!

here's some examples of some yellow stools from the blogsphere (stephmodo, skonahem)

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3 R D F L O O R F I X U P

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we've spent the past two and a half weeks frantically fixing up our 3rd floor rental unit

for our new tenant to move in this past weekend. we renovated this apartment almost

2 years ago. the tenants who moved out were the nicest of people...they just

didn't take care of things as nicely as we would have liked.

but lets consider the lessons learned:

-granite countertops are great but they should be sealed like crazy and repeatedly and

maybe weren't the best choice for a rental unit.

-wood floors are fabulous and beautiful but all your furniture should have those little pads on the feet so they don't gouge the wood to the point where it has to be re-sanded and finished.

-not everyone cleans as often as we do...some people don't clean at all. make sure your tiles and grout are easy to clean and basically bullet-proof.

All is well though...the place looks great, our new tenant moved in, and we finally had a weekend to ourselves again.

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