We put the second coat of paint on...

... the first coat went on in 2006. Yes, we're just a little late.

After taking a break from anything nearing home renovation, we're back. This was a very home reno focused weekend.

First, closet

We needed some time to figure out what to do with our closet. We needed to maximize every little inch. After a weekend of sketching and researching, we realized we needed parts from 3 different manufacturers. Fun!

Here's Sean installing the railing for the closet.

Next, re-potting

Carl and Ellie are thriving. In fact, they're getting so big that we needed to re-pot them. This has never happened to us. How do you re-pot?!?! After some words of advice from parents (aka plant gurus), we got some pots, some potting soil, and gave it a go. It was surprisingly easy, and very fun! I like playing with mud!

Fingers crossed that Carl & Ellie survives.

Finally, painting

With our new living room arrangement, we wanted to move a shelf. Sounds so easy. Well, as part of moving the shelf, we needed to cover up some holes, then we needed to strip away this unused phone wire (okay, we didn't need to, but it was right there and it was bugging me). This last thing led to a lot of scraping off excess paint and sanding and need to repaint.

A simple "move the shelf" task became: move all the furniture, remove all the nails & screws, wash the walls, spackle the holes, remove the wire, scrape off paint, sand the baseboard, put down painter's tape, thrown down some drop-clothes, and finally... painting.

Here's Sean removing the wall anchors. Those babies stick!


Sean painting... look at the expression on his face, so thrilled.


We put down drop-clothes, yet I still managed to get paint all over my hands and feet!


This weekend was too exhausting... I curl up in a ball and go to sleep.

Hello Carl & Ellie

I've talked about them, but I just realized y'all have never met them.

Meet Carl & Ellie (formerly known as Hansel & Gretel). They joined us right before renovation started. I was a little concerned that they wouldn't survive the renovations. But they're little troopers.

Now they're as good as new with new buds and new leaves. You can't even tell they survived a 5 week renovation... well, except for all the plaster dust on their leaves. We're going to re-pot them and possibly give them another friend. So maybe soon, it'll be Carl, Ellie, and Dug :)

A weekend of unpacking

It's Friday night... instead of heading to the pier to watch a movie on the waterfront or any of the other various cool things to do in NY, we went home and unpacked. We had a deadline - Graham and Inge are coming Saturday night and we needed to make our home somewhat presentable.

This is what our home looked like Friday night - not quite what you would call presentable.


Lots of heaving lifting:


*ahem* unpacking:


By Saturday at around 4:




Ain't so shabby. The Ghetto Penthouse cleans up quite nicely given the right wardrobe and accessories :)

Sunday was closet day! We have this big closet space... but no closet rods or shelves. How to reclaim 16 cuft that will otherwise be lost with an off-the-shelf closet system?? Clearly this requires a tape measure, coffee, and a good sit.



Sean gets serious with ladder as he ponders all that is the closet.



After a few hours of flipping through catalogs and navigating web sites... and a few more hours of browsing Home Depot, Container Store, and Bed, Bath & Beyond - I think we may have a solution. It involves mixing and matching parts from different systems. We're not sure if they're all compatible - should be interesting experiment.

Unpacking

"Unpacking" - what a wonderful word. This time, it means that our renovations are nearly complete... complete enough where we can unpack some of our belongings and try to bring some sense of normality back into our lives.

This past weekend, we unpacked! Why tell you with words when we have pictures?!?!

First, we remove the tarp. Wow - stuff!

Sean rolls up the tarp. Or maybe he's doing a Child's Pose yoga move. Should I tell him that its not a yoga mat?

Kitchen

There was this pink film on the stove... apparently, it dissolves in water. A few swipes with a rag and voila - like new :)

The box that held our stove grates.

Door bumpers. They're the cutest thing ever.

Measuring & placing the shelf liners.

Dividers and first item in the drawers - our wok!

We found the very important coffee box (the drawing is clouds parting and the coffee pot arriving from on high - personally, I think it looks like a transformer)

Sean pays his respects to the coffee pot.

Drawers are filled!

Cupboards are filled!

Leftovers in the fridge since we can now microwave.

A bottle of wine in our new wine cubby.

Pretty vase with our spatulas and such.

Bedroom

Vacuuming and mopping to remove the 6 weeks of dust and plaster.

We attempted to move the bed without disassembling it. The doorways wouldn't have it. The bed disassembled very easily - which is a little worrisome as we used wood glue when we originally put it together, so it should have been - well, near impossible to take apart.

Well some things are still out of sorts - no working outlets in the kitchen yet. Though we may be onto something... stumbling out of bed and getting coffee within 2 ft ain't so shabby.

Bathroom

Not too much to do here yet... just hanging shower curtains. Which was a little hard to do when we could only find two curtain rings. Luckily, some scrummaging through boxes labeled bathroom (who would have thought a box labeled with bathroom would have bathroom stuff?!?!) and we uncovered the rest.

We're all moved in - again :)

Tonight I ate like a human being. On the floor.

With our renovations wrapping up, we spent the weekend unpacking our stuff back into the kitchen. Today, our stove was hooked up and the gas was on! We took the opportunity to visit our grocery store (hello grocery store, we've missed you. now kindly remind me where all your contents are located...) and buy groceries. Lily was working late so I surprised her with a home-cooked meal! Our first in 6 weeks! Just a simple pasta dish with Sean Kenney's Patented So-What-If-I'm-Irish Pasta Sauce, but it's one of Lily's favorites and she seemed happy to consume it. A little candles and some flowers, and ... we sat on the floor to eat, because we sold our dining furniture before this all began. Welll, close enough, we're slowly re-emerging in the 1st world, and it's kinda neat.

Missing: Kohler toilet

So our toilet is MIA. Home Depot has managed to lose our toilet AGAIN and has no clue what's going on.

First of all, how in the world do you lose a toilet?!?! And then to lose it again?!?! After days of trying to call them and track down our toilet - still no luck.

We've spent a lot of money at Home Depot for our renovation (mostly because their prices are lower in lots of cases than even online sites)... but I guess you get the service that you pay for. I've definitely gotten way better service from smaller companies - they do things like follow-up on questions and return calls.

*gasp* what a concept!??!

I'm definitely going to think twice before doing any more special orders from Home Depot.

Our apartment wants to be in Europe

The Ghetto Penthouse is disoriented. It thinks it's in Europe. I mean, I can't think of any other reason why its dimensions are perfect for European appliances and accessories. Hmmm... maybe the Ghetto Penthouse is snooty and pretending to be all Euro-style.

The latest saga is towel bars. Things that seem so simple is actually totally difficult. when you have an apartment with a Euro-complex. We need a 18" double towel bar in chrome. At this point, we're not even looking for a pretty one - just any towel bar that fit those criteria. Nope, no can do. They're either 24" or single or in any finish but chrome or they're $300.

Maybe we should just lift our apartment with balloons and head to Europe.

Ghetto dining

The good ol' days of ghetto living. Living ghetto style has many challenges. One of them is attempting to eat in our home. It usually involves sitting on the floor (thus, getting the butt covered in all the o-so-wonderful dust particles that's floating around our home) with plastic utensils that don't really cut food and plastic take-out container lids that threaten to topple over with each breath.

Every once in a while, we dine in style - sitting in a comfortable cozy chair and using a paint tray as a plate. Here's an action sequence of Sean eating sushi in style.