2015 – Half Classic Six Year in Review (Enter to Win a Prize!)

OK, I know…. You are probably tired of reading year in review posts and articles by now, but this one is important (to me at least) so pay attention, there is a quiz at the end, and a prize for the winner! 2015 has been quite a year for Yoav and me. We made huge progress in certain areas of our apartment, and fell way behind in others. As I was relaxing this past weekend, taking in the quiet moments in our currently clean and somewhat ordered home (before the chaos of renovation takes over our place in the next month or so), I looked back over the year and began to go through my posts to remember the changes. And changes were a plenty this past year. Whenever I feel like it is taking forever to get anything done, I just need to look back at where we were. Which in some ways is the entire point of my doing this blog, I wanted to document our process and share it with family and friends as well as anybody else who is curious.

Let’s go back and see just how far Yoav and I have come since January.

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Hardware and Appliances Finalized–Finally! (Part III of The Final Kitchen Plans Series)

This is the third post in my series The Final Kitchen Plans. In my first post, Part I, I talked about how our final plans evolved to using materials we had either never considered or previously just written off and said no to. I kicked off this series about our finalized plans for materials and space plans, I recapped our very exciting flooring decision from last week, and then went on to reveal that we are not going to go with subway tile, but instead will be installing 4.25 inch beadboard planks as wainscoting around the entire room. In Part II, it was all about cabinets and countertops, how we ended up ditching IKEA and going with a more traditional plan, and deciding to defy the naysayers and go with white marble countertops. Now in Part III it is all about using mixed metals in our hardware and appliances. So kick back and read my post about hardware and metals. It doesn’t get much more exciting than this folks (I’m lying, it can only get more exciting).

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Cabinets and Countertops Finalized–Finally! (Part II of The Final Kitchen Plans Series)

This is the second post in my series The Final Kitchen Plans. In my last post, I talked about how our final plans evolved from initial ideas and plans into using materials we had either never considered or previously just written off. In my first post, I kicked off this series with a high level outline of our finalized materials and space plans, I recapped our very exciting flooring decision from previous week, and then went on to reveal that we are not going to go with subway tile, but instead will be installing wide plank beadboard as wainscoting around the entire room. In Part II, it’s all about cabinets and countertops!

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Floors and Walls Finalized–Finally! (Part I of The Final Kitchen Plans Series)

Finally I can finally say that 90+ percent of our plans for our new kitchen are finalized. I can also say that just as Hilary has evolved on same sex marriage, we too have evolved on our kitchen plans. We are now planning on doing things we would never have approved of (or even thought of) in the past. With each passing day we are getting super excited because this sh*t is finally getting real! How real?

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The Floor That Made Our Hearts Sing

As we get closer and closer to finally starting our kitchen renovation after many, many, many delays, we are finding that there has been an unexpected benefit to having postponed our renovation for so long. That unexpected benefit is that with each delay comes continued insight to plan as it relates to materials resulting in a much more refined final look which we would never have done had we just gone with our initial plans.

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Video Tour, Recap, and Update

In August of last year, within two hours after leaving our closing on our apartment with keys in hand, I created a walk-through video tour of our apartment [view last years video here]. I wanted to document our apartment before we made a single change as a way to look back and remember where we started.

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