Archive for November, 2007
Silver Bells (And Pigs)
Is Christmas in the air or what? Now that it’s our second “winter” in Richmond we’re used to the milder temperatures and the fact that some of our annuals are actually still blooming. But even though there’s been no morning frost (let alone snow) as of yet, we still hear the Christmas songs on the radio and see the Christmas trees at Lowe’s so we know that the 25th of December is just around the corner.
And we’ve come up with a fun ornament theme for our tree this year that makes us feel mucho sophisticado: all silver. Not stuffy sterling silver ornaments or anything, just a firm rule that anything silver goes.
We already picked up some fun mirrored disco ball ornaments at CB2 and found the coolest silver starburst ornament at Z Gallerie while we were in NYC last weekend. And Target has been a great resource for silver balls of all sizes along with some fun shapes like a silver piggy bank ornament and a mini Empire State Building to hang in honor of our old hometown.
Anyone who’s asked us what we’d like for Christmas knows about our special ornament request, so hopefully our tree will be noticably more full of silver ornaments of all shapes and sizes by next year. I actually read something that said that the perfect number of ornaments for a six foot tree is 120-140. So far we only have about 40, so we better get cracking!
Spin City
I’m so excited about this next post. It’s my favorite transformation to date and the ironic part is that I’m about to reveal our brand spankin’ new laundry nook and I’m not even the one who does the laundry (it’s the twenty first century people!).
The fact that we cobbled this model-home-looking laundry center together on a budget just makes my chest puff up with pride. It has worked wonders on updating our house and laundry has never been more fun for my hubby (sorry babe, your love of doing laundry is now public knowledge).
Here’s what it looked like as we knocked out those bi-fold doors (see how close the wall was to the sunroom door- it robbed us of so much hall space!):
And here’s a shot of our beautiful new laundry nook:
We made the counter ourselves from a piece of plywood that we painted and polyurethaned, we leaned two big frames from Ikea (showcasing some cheap wrapping paper, which always makes for cheap art) against the back wall to cover the ugly plugs and pipes, and we hung some Wal-Mart blinds to cover the cluttered storage shelf above:
And we even got a rolling storage caddy from Target (for under twenty bucks) which fits perfectly beside our washer and dryer and holds all of our cleaning supplies:
Life is good in our little laundry nook. And we’d love to hear about how you’ve organized everything from your laundry room to your attic- we have about 20 other corners, closets, and crevices that could benefit from a little organization so let us know what works for you.
Playing Architect
We’ve finally found a way to show off the changing layout of our house without actually inviting everyone over for a visit (although we’re always happy to give tours). The other day I was browsing RemodelingMySpace.com and saw a link to some free (!!) software called Floorplanner, which they had reviewed as an easy-to-use tool for creating 2D house plans. They also showcase software like Plan 3D and Google SketchUp if you’re looking to do more involved, 3D drawings. But I’m starting slow…
Last night I cranked away on two very different floor plans: our old layout, and our almost-there new layout. Check each of them out below, but ignore the square footage and other technical stuff (I didn’t bother to measure every room exactly). I just tried to make everything as proportional as possible. So without further ado…
Here’s our old floor plan:
And now our new floor plan:
Some noteworthy changes are:
- The wider doorways around the kitchen and den
- The new wood floor uniting the kitchen, den and laundry/bathroom area
- The more open laundry nook (buh-bye bi-fold doors)
- The living room became a living / dining room
- The dining room became a third bedroom
- And, of course, the new kitchen (with about 50% more counter-space!)
Hope all my time was worth it and you guys can better visualize the transformation happening over here. And again, Floorplanner is free so I encourage everyone to take it for a spin. We’d love to see the results.
Special Delivery
The cabinets arrived yesterday. Woohoo!
The initial excitement of seeing the Kraftmaid 18-wheeler roll up outside was momentarily replaced by a fear that we hadn’t cleared enough temporary storage space for the boxes. Fortunately the truck wasn’t full. But I can’t say the same for our living room after the Kraftmaid guys finished moving box after box through the front door.
So how does a box-filled living room turn into a cabinet-filled kitchen? First, our Home Depot project manager shows up today to inspect the delivery and make sure nothing is missing or damaged. Assuming nothing is awry (knock on wood- er, Thermofoil) the HD installer will start assembling the kitchen next Monday, Dec 3rd.
That should mean completed cabinetry no later than Dec 5th, at which point the countertop process begins. But that’s a whole other story. So for now let’s just concentrate on the small victory of a quick and painless cabinet delivery.
City Slickers
After sitting in 9.5 hours of holiday traffic, we’re finally home from our whirlwind Thanksgiving weekend in New York. After a Thanksgiving gathering in Long Island followed by another family feast on Friday in New Jersey, we tackled New York City on Saturday to enjoy our old home turf.
Between the two of us we lived in NYC for 8 years (in 10 different apartments and 3 different boroughs) before retreating south to my home state of VA. And the only time we lived even remotely close to each other was in Astoria, Queens. Which would’ve been great if we’d known each other then- and it hadn’t been 2 years apart. Details, details…
So we took a quick tour of Astoria to revisit our old apartments (and to be reminded of how low our standards were when we were both broke college students). I was particularly grossed out by the state of my old place. I can’t tell if it got worse in the past three years or if I’m just sugar coating my memory of it.
Sherry Was Here John Was Here
After slumming it in Queens, we decided to spoil ourselves with a trip to the new CB2 store in SoHo (one of our other old addresses). It opened about 3 weeks ago as the first and only CB2 store in the world. So (surprise, surprise) it was pretty crowded. But it was still tons of fun to see all their stuff in real life. We restrained ourselves and walked out with only a few disco-ball Christmas ornaments. Probably because we knew we’d have to carry our purchases around with us the rest of the day.
While in SoHo we also checked out the semi-new Z Gallerie store (where we picked up another Christmas ornament) and a new Japanese store called Muji (picture American Apparel meets Ikea – I know, hard to imagine). We also grabbed lunch at a cool gourmet coffee & crepe shop called Kitchen Commune where, like dorks, we were more interested in the decor than the goat cheese and turkey crepes we ordered. For instance, check out this cool, huge kitchen-utensil chandelier:
After lunch and a swoop through Chinatown, we hopped back on the A train towards the top tip of Manhattan where my big sister and bro-in-law live in a sweet apartment they bought last year. There we got to sit back and watch someone else’s home improvement for a change. Here’s strong-man Marty showing off the chandelier he hung to better define their dining space (sound familiar?).
They got the light at Lowe’s after a few other light fixtures (including a shade from CB2) didn’t work out. Everyone was thrilled with the final result, and I empathized with Marty’s relief that the project was over.
That pretty much wraps up our quick trip to the big city. We’re not sure when we’ll be back next, except that we want to go when it’s warmer!
