The Pursuit of Happiness in Manhattan
Last week marked a one year and a lot of change since Yoav and I sat down at a table with a group of disparate people, all with one common interest of varying degrees. Our mission, transferring the ownership of our apartment from the sellers to us, the buyers (or really our bank). Like most everything in New York City, nothing can be simple or cheap.
Part of the joy (or is that sorrow?) of owning an old home is that things inevitably wear out. Sometimes it is a slow process where it occurs over years and other times it is an unexpected emergency where you are forced to address it immediately. This (above image) is what it came down to in our bathroom. A bit embarrassing as this was cleaned less than a week ago. Fortunately for us, there was no emergency requiring expensive immediate attention. But that doesn’t mean that there is no sense of urgency. Drip, drip, drip…
[Mott’s Modern Plumbing Catalog from 1910. This would have certainly been a fancy kitchen in 1910, but it is still quite utilitarian compared to the “Old World” style kitchens we see today. Image: NYPL]
Kitchen floors and walls….. Using common tile and elevating it to classy and timeless.
[Update at bottom] As the plans for our kitchen renovation are forming and the anticipated start date of
[Photo: This is one of the more beautiful kitchen combos I have run across in my countless hours of obsessing and planning our new kitchen. Source: Remodelista]
In my last post, I went into great detail about how compromise won when it came to figuring out what we are going to do for our cabinets. I am completely in love with the shaker cabinets which are commonly available in the UK, but are not easily attainable in the good old boring US of A. But, in the end, I think I have a solution we can be happy with
“You say “Stiffkey”, “I’ll say Stewkey”. . .
Those close to me know that I have been obsessing over our kitchen design for months, and months, and months, and…. you get the idea. And in doing so, I have discovered that what I thought I liked three months ago may not be what I like today. As I have delved deeper and deeper into the possibilities of what we can do, I have made surprising discoveries about my taste and desires for the new kitchen.
This past weekend I walked into our bathroom and the sun was shining through the textured glass of our rather large window and a big smile came across my face. It’s not as though the sun doesn’t shine often in our bathroom, or that I never have a smile on my face while in the bathroom, but the sight of our bold red Componibili sitting next to the window with a bit of greenery on top just made me smile.
OK, I know you all have been patiently waiting with baited breath to see the living room in all its glory….
OK, I know two or three of my readers have been patiently waiting with baited breath to see the living room in all its glory….
Well, finally….. The living room reveal is here. But first a few thoughts and a bit of background….
OK… So I know I promised that I would have a full reveal of the living room last week, and I shot a bunch of pictures with my trusty iPhone… But after looking at the photos, it was clear that they didn’t quite capture what I was hoping to convey. Mea culpa…. Oy!
It was obvious to me that I needed to re-shoot the room and use a better camera to better capture the space.
A few weeks back, I wrote about the The Big Oops and the Big Fix in our center hall. The tale of my making a huge dumb-ass choice in paint color for the ceiling, and then the magical fix a few hours later.
I am sure after last weeks posts about the black ceiling (Part one and Part two), that you are expecting photos of the living room…. but you’re gonna have to wait… (Soon…. I promise!).
So, instead, I am excited to show you the newest updates to the center hall.
Yesterday was The Big Black Reveal (Part I) where I described how I was enthralled with the idea of a black ceiling, yet terrified of doing it. And then after letting go of my fear and getting the approval of my husband, moved forward and painted our living room ceiling black.
Back in January I wrote a post (Embracing Black and the End of Mediocrity) in which I declared war on the status of mediocrity in a mini manifesto of sorts. I declared that I was going to embrace my true self and express my individuality (with my husband Yoav’s blessing) and basically not give a sh*t what people think about our home and how we have it decorated.
I don’t always have big things to write about, but there are often little things which I think are important enough to warrant their own post. To fill that niche, I am creating a series of posts to called Detail Matters.
God is in the details….. This phrase brings to mind my design ethos. Basically it is saying that attention paid to small things has big rewards, or that details are important.
Hi folks! I am still here! Yoav and I just got back from a much-needed vacation in Arizona (my first time traveling more than 100 miles from NYC in 19 months!). Now that we are back, we are getting full swing into working on the apartment. Each weekend is devoted to projects, sometimes one big one, sometimes lots of small ones. We have much to write about and reveal, but all in due time as much of what we are working on is still in progress. But I promise some super amazing stuff soon…. In the meantime, here is an update on one of my favorite spaces in our apartment, our center hall.
I would like to say that I am not materialistic, but that would be a lie, and I am not a good liar. And while I may not have any want for status objects desired most by others (fancy cars, jewelry, designer clothes, etc…) I do have a strong sense of aesthetics and a strong opinion that end user experience is of utmost importance. Form should follow function and sometimes that function is to just look beautiful.
So from time to time, I plan to do a post about a material object that I have obtained (or lusted after) and this is my first post about a material object.
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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