The Pursuit of Happiness in Manhattan
Last month, I wrote about life beyond the kitchen renovation and our next plans for the apartment. I covered two projects which will elevate our home to a higher level of fabulousness. The big project I will be doing is crown molding in the living room to capture an original element long stripped away, albeit in a different profile, but fitting for the period. For the other project
It was only a few weeks ago that we had to let go of our little boy Fritz. Yoav and I watched him suffering those last few days, and we knew it was time to let go. After we took Fritz to the vets office for the final time we walked the 20 or so blocks home in mourning. During our walk we pledged that we would wait until next year to bring a new addition to the family.
At some point this year, the kitchen will be done (Oh dear God I hope). Once we have reached that point, it will be time to restore some of the dignity which was either stripped away or covered under countless layers of paint over the past 100 years. We also have two unfinished rooms I am anxious to get started on. But the bedroom and bathroom plans will have to wait until my next post.
Yesterday marked two years since we closed on our fixer-upper apartment on the upper portion of the Upper West Side of Manhattan (that was a lot of uppers, yes?). Taking a look back, we are both incredibly grateful for having done it when we did. Crazy thing about New York real estate is that our place would cost so much more now. Had we waited to buy as we originally planned, we wouldn’t have gotten our amazing apartment.
It’s with a heavy heart that I write this post, made even more so because my last post was also about loss. Today we had to say goodbye to our adorable silver haired ball of fur named Fritz. He came into our lives as Alvin back in November of 2014, just two months after we had moved into our apartment. By the time he came home with us, we changed his name from Alvin to Fritz (officially) and then we just called him “Little Boy” (or “Lil’ Boy”) at home.
Two years ago today, Yoav and I were super excited to finally be sitting for our board interview for the purchase of our half classic six. We had been waiting patiently for nearly three months since that first open house when we fell in love with our apartment after having attended about fifty open houses over the previous year. We were quite relieved to finally be at this point in the process after the long arduous process.
I would like to say that I am not materialistic, but that would be a lie, and I am not a good liar. Here is a post about an object I have obtained and why it matters. It’s been a long while since I did a material objects post, so I thought it would be perfect to do one while I am on vacation this week. It is also nice to post something, anything, that is not about the kitchen renovation, although it is still related.
I can finally say that Phase One of our kitchen renovation is done(ish)! Woo Hoo!!!!! And wow is it beautiful! This past holiday weekend, I met my goal of completing the majority of work on phase one of our kitchen renovation. OK, so we are two months behind our original timeline, but still….. We have a functioning kitchen folks. The last major hurdle being the completion and installation of our glass doors for the upper cabinets. Once we got through the fiasco of ordering our glass, it all went fairly smoothly and now I can move on.
Oh Yeah! This is our new reality and it is Cold, Hard, and Beautiful! It’s Marble Countertop Reveal Time!
Our kitchen may still be unfinished, but ten days after the second marble install was finished, I find myself in awe every time I walk into our kitchen. I also find myself freaking out about spilling wine, or tomato sauce, or lemon juice, or any other threat known to honed marble… But rest assured, it will be fine.
The countertops are in! And they are AMAZING!….. But you will have to wait a little bit more for the full reveal… Later this week, I will be posting a full marble countertop and backsplash reveal…. And it will be FABULOUS! In the meantime, let me catch you up on our now still unfinished, but finally functional kitchen! This is huge! After 130 days (a third of a year!) without running water in our kitchen, we got hooked up this past week. And after sealing our countertops on Saturday, we began to move things into our kitchen on Sunday, including the unpacking of some of my daily dinnerware which has been boxed up since January of 2014 when I packed up my Hell’s Kitchen apartment.
Hi, my name is Devyn. This was my blog about the adventures of finding, buying, renovating, fixing up, restoring, DIY'ing, and decorating a part of New York housing legacy. We have left NYC for a new life in Philadelphia. Visit my new blog Our Philly Row and read all about our "fixer-upper-ing" an 1852 rowhouse
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