The Pursuit of Happiness in Manhattan
The Apartment
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.
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.
There is more coming soon! Seriously! It’s been a super busy work week and I haven’t had a moment to relax…. But next week, more pictures and updates. Copper sink is from Sinkology. Faucet is from the Delta Trinsic line
[Photo: While waiting for our train back to New York City after approving our slab of marble, we took in the beautiful scenery of Edison, New Jersey.]
Holy crap! I just realized I haven’t done a post since May 3rd! That would be three weeks in which I am confident you have been doing nothing but checking the internets on the hour for an update on our kitchen… Or maybe you have a life and cannot be bothered checking for updates but you still want to know about new stuff. There is a solution, plug, plug…. In the left column you should (if you haven’t done so already) sign up for email notifications of new posts. (I promise you will never receive unsolicited spam from me, nor will I ever share your email address, ever.) End of plug. OK, so it has been three weeks, and I can say that things did happen! Actually a lot happened, just not all related to our kitchen. Progress has felt like it is moving at a snails pace, but it is still progress nonetheless.
[Photo: Welcome to the Hoarders! Our living room has been even more chaotic than our kitchen during the renovation. The TV was covered in plastic for nearly two months as we were too busy to bother with watching TV.]
Hey all! We are now 13 weeks into our kitchen renovation we have had a lot of progress, a few delays, and a lot of excitement built up in anticipation of finally having our dream kitchen.
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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