A Beautiful Place To Rest My Head

Question:  What's pink and white and dirty all over?

Answer:  Our bedroom!

I'll bet you thought I was telling a joke, didn't you?? Fortunately I'm much better at decorating than I am at joke telling. But believe me, our bedroom was a joke. A very dirty joke. Just not the kind of dirty joke you are thinking of. 

When we agreed to buy the apartment, the master bedroom had built-in cabinets over several walls. They were fine, sort of, but just not what I envisioned for our new upper east side home. So, I insisted that the seller tear them out before our closing. Much to my surprise, behind the built-ins, even behind the bed, were bright pink blocks of wall.  Apparently, the last time it was painted, not only did they paint around the built-in cabinet, but they also painted around the desk. And the bed? 

And did I mention the live wire that we found scotch taped to the wall??
 

As if that wasn't bad enough, once we removed the old radiator cover, we discovered that the radiator and the wall behind it were downright terrifying. I couldn't tell if they were peeling away, or growing new layers of... something... toxic mold maybe?? (Ok now I'm just being a tad dramatic. I think.)

And, let's not forget the custom floral blinds on each of the two windows. Although I'm sure they were lovely in their day, let's just say they are not quite my style.

These many fun surprises should have caused us to run screaming back to our midtown high rise, a world where landlords dealt with problems and we just wrote rent checks. But this, this problem was ours and ours alone. Needless to say, the day we signed the contracts was not exactly the fairytale homecoming that people dream of. Although most people would have begged their old landlord for their old apartment back, I decided that this was just a bigger and better challenge than I had expected. For those of you who know me, you know I live for a good challenge! I held onto my vision (and held my breath), and set out to make this room a beautiful and comfortable place for us to rest our heads at the end of our long and exhausting New York days.

Here are our new before and after pictures:

 Before...

After...

And a few more...

Before...

After...

Before...

After...

There's even a cute little leather club chair in the corner under a lamp for reading. (Although if I'm being completely honest, I should probably admit that out of the thirty or more books I've read in the eight months we've been here, not a single one was read in this chair!)

As for the details:  The floors, once again, are Minwax Special Walnut stain (stained over our original 88-year-old oak floors) with a high gloss polyurethane. The paint again is Restoration Hardware, this time in "Cappuccino."  The furniture I already owned, with the exception of the second smaller dresser, which we added (since I now have to share my drawers!)  The set is also from Restoration Hardware, as are the three lamps. We definitely splurged the most on the accessories for this room. The bedding came from Bloomingdale's, and is Diane Von Furstenberg. The silk drapes came from Bed Bath and Beyond. We even got the world's most comfortable pillows from the W hotel, after falling in love with them the night we stayed there to sign our first New York City lease together more than two years ago. It's like sleeping on a cloud!!

I have to admit though, despite all the pricey things we bought for this room, my absolute favorite accessory is the simple two-sided Pottery Barn clock that sticks out from the wall right next to the door (Al calls it the "train station clock"). Wherever I am in the room, I can always see that I'm about to be late for work!

Life in Manhattan is crazy. If I'm not working or writing or reading or running or playing tennis or making my far too frequent trips to Bloomingdale's, I am out and about, enjoying every inch of this amazing city until I can't keep my eyes open another minute. Our days are long and there are never enough hours to do it all and still properly sleep. That is why it is so important to have that perfect place to collapse, face first, after each and every exhausting and amazing day in New York City!

Sweet dreams my decorating friends....

So Much More Than a Hallway!

In the last three and a half months, I have learned a lot about what life is like as a married person.  For example, one thing I have learned about being one half of a married couple, or at least a married couple decorating a new home, is that it is the end of romance in terms of gift giving.  This Christmas, my hubby and I did our present buying on lighting company websites and at plumbing stores!

Let me back up.  I recently decorated the foyer in our new apartment.  This "foyer," as I call it, is really just a hallway between the front door and the living room, with the dining room off to one side.  It is probably only ten feet long and three feet wide, but it is a great example of making the most of tiny spaces.  (And it is so much more fun to call it a "foyer"!) 

We started out by refinishing the floors like we did in the rest of the apartment.  We then had the painters work their magic.  (The wall color is Pumice by Restoration Hardware in a subtle velvet finish.)  But even putting a fresh face on the floor and walls did not do enough to make this little space special.  When you live in Manhattan and homes are small, I believe you should make each little space feel like it's very own special room.  So, I turned this ordinary hallway into our wedding photo gallery! 

The New and Improved Foyer

Here is a before and after of what was once an ordinary hallway:

Before

After

When my dad offered to buy us a generous Christmas gift, I decided that a gift for our home was probably the way to go.  The chandelier that was hanging was gold (I prefer silver) with ivory shades (I prefer white) which may or may not have started out ivory, but definitely ended up that way after decades of use.  After months of searching for the perfect chandelier, with a brushed nickel finish and bright white shades, I finally found just what I wanted.  And with my dad footing the bill, my husband couldn't complain that it didn't have a more reasonable Home Depot-type price tag!  Thanks to my handy hubby's vast knowledge of electricity, we were able to install it ourselves, which kept our costs down.  (So did his haggling with the lighting company on the phone.  Do you know that if you just call up and demand free shipping and added discounts, sometimes you will get them??)  Holding a chandelier over my head while balancing on a tiny step stool is certainly not fun, but it made Al so happy to do it ourselves that I guess the pain (literally...  my arms were burning!!) was worth it. 

After the chandelier was picked, we turned the wall with the beautiful (and freshly painted) molding into a black and white photo gallery with some of our favorite black and white wedding pictures.  I thought this was a fun use of the foyer, and allowed us to display a lot of photos without having them all over the apartment.  The frames are all from Pottery Barn, and were generous wedding gifts from our family and friends.  Unfortunately, right in the middle of the "gallery" is our security camera phone, but I tried to arrange the frames in such a way that the phone detracts as little as possible.  To tie it all together I put down a black and white runner from Crate and Barrel, which I bought on sale many years ago! 

Finally, we coordinated the small hallway that separates the living room from the two bedrooms and the bathroom with the front foyer.  We not only matched the paint color, but we bought a miniature version of the same chandelier, this one with three shades instead of five.  Actually, "we" didn't buy this chandelier...  This was Al's Christmas gift to me.  Before you judge him for being unromantic and giving me a light fixture, I should probably tell you that I gave him radiator temperature regulator valves purchased at a plumbing store!  In my defense, he picked them himself, and I have never seen him more excited about any gift I have ever given him!  The heart wants what it wants... and sometimes the heart wants to go to a plumbing store, apparently.

The small hallway, before...

The small hallway, after...

At the end of the day, Al and I couldn't be happier with our unromantic Christmas gifts.  They make our home much more beautiful (and, in the case of his radiator valves, our apartment no longer feels like the inside of an Easy-Bake Oven.)  I am a firm believer that the smallest details can make the biggest difference, and these two little hallways are a great example.  However, men, don't try this at home...  not all the ladies out there will be as excited as I am with a light fixture!

Not Just An Urban Legend

Despite its many flaws, there was one room that sold me, instantly, on our Carnegie Hill diamond in the rough. That room was the formal dining room. Up until that moment, I had believed that the formal dining room was a Manhattan urban legend. And once I saw one that was real, I simply had to have it.
 

I sometimes "joke" that I bought an apartment to fit my dining room set. If I'm being totally honest, however, it's not entirely a joke! You see, while living in Connecticut, I had purchased a fabulous dining room set from Pottery Barn, complete with a massive table, two insert leaves, eight chairs, and a six piece bar/china cabinet. The set was huge, but I loved it. Unfortunately, when we returned to NYC in 2010, we left it behind in my Hartford condo. There was no way it was fitting in our midtown high rise.
 

Then, when I began searching for a place to buy in Manhattan, a place to make our permanent home, my thoughts always wandered back to that Pottery Barn set. How could I possibly say good-bye permanently?? Although it's just furniture, I couldn't bring myself to let it go. I think a part of me couldn't give it away as a matter of principle. I wanted our journey to the big apple to give us a much fuller life than we had in Connecticut. But, I wanted to make the transition with as few casualties as possible along the way. I had promised my husband that life would be better here, and keeping that promise meant I had to work extra hard to make sure we gave up as little as possible. The furniture became symbolic of that mission. For that reason, when I first walked into our new home in the upper east side, I was immediately sold when I sized up the dining room and knew my furniture could finally make the journey.

Although there are still some things I would like to do, our dining room is now mostly ready to host Thanksgiving dinner next November and many fun dinner parties with our friends in the interim. Here are a few before and after shots:

Before...

After...

And a few more...

Before...

After...

A few more still...

Before...

After...

And a few more...

Before...

After...

And finally...

Before...

After...

As we did with the other rooms, we had the floor sanded and stained in Minwax Special Walnut (after replacing a few rotten floor boards). After having some cracked plaster repaired, we stuck with Restoration Hardware for the paint, choosing Atmosphere Blue, which I thought would look great with the black furniture. We also painted all the trim, baseboards, and picture molding in a high gloss white, and repainted the ceiling with a bright white ceiling paint. The best improvement we made to this room was removing the unsightly bare light bulb hanging from the ten thousand pound ceiling fan. In its place is now a Pottery Barn chandelier I bought when I made the original furniture purchase. Although I am not crazy about the built-in bar/wine rack on the far side of the room, we  slightly improved the look by painting the doors all white, and (crazy as it sounds) covering up the green counter top with black wrapping paper. It's a nice temporary fix until I figure out something more permanent to do with the space. The unattractive forest green window panes are now hidden behind white linen curtains from Bed Bath & Beyond, which add a bit of casual elegance with their waterfall valance. We also subtlely personalized the space with the three prints on the wall, two of which are prints from Paris where we were engaged, and one of which is the inside of the gorgeous church we were married in last fall. The big red flowers/sticks and vase are from Crate & Barrel. Other than the curtains, we were able to completely furnish the room with our existing possessions, so besides the floor restoration and the painters, the total cost of this room was practically nothing. 

With the slight changes we have made, I am now super excited to host holidays and lots of fun evenings with our friends. See you soon for dinner!

A Room To Call My Own

Another major milestone is complete! My room is done. No, I don't mean my/our bedroom. I mean my room. I'm entitled to my very own room, right?? Well maybe not, but my awesome hubby lets me get away with it. This is my place to write, my place to read, my place to sit and go through the mail with Twilight on the TV while he watches the news and other far more sophisticated programming elsewhere. This is my place to be me and do me things. This room, as it turns out, is also my favorite.  

Oddly enough, this now favorite room of mine started off as the worst in the apartment. But for those of you who know me, you know I enjoy a good challenge! This is how it all began, in June...

"My" room in June, when we first saw the apartment

Right from the beginning, it was not a pretty sight.  But it got even worse when we closed in September.  We had a bookcase torn out, and had an interesting brown patch of wall waiting behind it. We also finally got to see what was hiding under the rug! The radiator cover was missing a panel, and apparently an entire leg, as one side was at least two inches higher than the other.  It was beyond a mess, it was terrifying. I think this room alone was enough to scare my hubby out of the sale. 

My room when we closed in September...

But not me! I knew this room was going to be beautiful. You see, I get visions. I'm not talking the psychic, see the future kind of visions. I get decorating visions. I can look at the above room, for example, and instantly see in my mind exactly what I am going to make it look like. My visions are the only thing that sold my husband on this apartment. He thought it was horrible, and couldn't see it any other way. But, he trusts me. And he trusts my visions.

And now today, just two months after the above picture, this room has been transformed into my very own happy place. The very same corner of the room that you see above now looks like this!

My room today, November 2011...

The room, officially our combination office/guest room, is colorful and fun and just feels like home. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had the floors sanded and stained in Minwax Special Walnut stain, followed by high gloss polyurethane. All the molding was painted in a bright white high gloss paint, and the ceilings and everything above the picture molding was done in a bright white ceiling paint. The beams on the ceiling look so beautiful, and really stand out in the bright white. The walls are Shore by Restoration Hardware. I had previously used this color in Connecticut in my dining room and half bathroom. My inspiration for this room, however, was Carrie Bradshaw's remodel in Sex and the City, the movie. As for the radiator covers, although the parts are apparently very old and valuable, and although I did just find the missing panel the other day on the floor of my closet, we decided that it just looked better without it. Although the radiator itself was in pretty sorry shape, our painters did a beautiful job restoring it.

As for the decor, the room is a combination of several other rooms from my past. The white desk is from Crate and Barrel, and was originally bought for my bedroom in Hartford. The black ladders from Pottery Barn originally sat on either side of my living room couch. The black chairs are a part of my Pottery Barn dining room set, and are probably just temporary until I find something more permanent. The day bed was from my guest room in Hartford, and came from Pier One Imports. The black and white rug, from Overstock.com, was bought for our living room in our last New York apartment. The Diane Von Furstenberg duvet cover is the only new item in the whole room, besides the still wrinkled, fresh from the package curtains we just hung from Bed Bath and Beyond. 

I couldn't be more excited about my new room, not just because I love it and it feels so cozy, but because this is exactly the vision I had when I looked at this sad little room for the first time less than five months ago. It feels so great to turn that vision into a reality! 

Here is another before and after shot...

Before, what you first saw when you looked in the room...

And after, your first view of the room!

And finally, just a few more "after" shots...

My guest bed/personal lounge couch!

The beautiful ceiling...

A nice "after" shot...

There is still some work to be done... I have to decorate the walls, for one thing. (One very empty wall is conspicuously absent from the pictures.) But it's so close to completion that I decided it was worthy of being called an "after." Also, a special thanks goes out to my hubby, of course, for mounting our TV on the wall (and for giving up this TV, which used to be in our bedroom!), for hanging the curtains, and for understanding that I'm the kind of girl who needs to have a place to call her very own!

Tiny Room, Big Accomplishment. (Not Really. But at Least it's a Start!)

Hello friends, readers, and people who ended up here quite by accident! Now that my new hubby and I are done saying our "I do"s and honeymooning in Hawaii, we are back in New York and getting back down to business! Tonight we finished making one whole room in our apartment livable.  It was, of course, the smallest room... the bathroom. It might not look like much, but it was a nice little accomplishment for two people who have been living in utter chaos for six weeks. For starters, our bath towels will no longer end up on the floor, and we finally have a place to hang our toilet paper roll! And best of all, we got rid of the ribbed wallpaper on the ceiling. That's right, I said ceiling!





My textured wallpapered bathroom ceiling. The picture doesn't do it justice!

Ok so maybe the wallpaper wasn't technically ribbed. But close enough. It definitely had a texture to it, and it definitely reminded me of a condom ad. Needless to say, it had to go. So we started our project by saying goodbye to our bumpy brown wall/ceiling paper and never looked back. The results, at first, were not pretty. But after our painter was done tearing down the paper, and repairing the old plaster walls underneath (this tiny room was a tad expensive in that regard), he painted the walls with Restoration Hardware's Gravel in a low gloss finish. He also painted the ceiling a glossy white. The result? A greatly improved bathroom without actually doing any true renovations! Here are a few before and after shots...

 


Before...

After...



And a few more....

  

Before...























After the wallpaper, before the paint...

  


After...

















And a few more still....


Before...



After...

 We used some wedding gift cards to fill the room with Lacoste towels and floor mats from the Crocod'il Collection in Nile and True Navy. (Based on the name of the collection, I have only now just realized that my friends are not, in fact, 'gators!) We added a simple white window shade from Bed Bath and Beyond and a few towel bars and a toilet paper holder from Home Depot's Palladium collection. (Oh what fun we had, both crammed in that tiny room all night, anchoring screws and leveling towel bars!) And did you notice the big lily pads from Crate and Barrel? My husband loves our shower, which he calls "the Fishbowl." Always one step ahead of him, I strategically decorated with three large faux-lily pads, which conveniently double as Fishbowl-Blockers!

This bathroom is certainly nothing special, and I hope to do much more with it (i.e. rip it all out and start from scratch) down the road. But for now, we have a cozy little bathroom filled with lots of Crocod'illy friends and the occasional nice bright color accent to liven things up!

In Case You've Been Wondering...

Perhaps some of you (my three readers!) have been wondering where my blog and I have been lately. For those who know me well, you already know that, with me, there's always something.  

First here's the good news. Our painters finished a seemingly impossible job beautifully, and on time. That never happens! We were officially moved in on October 6 after a 13.5 hour grueling move (ok it looked grueling anyway, for the four large men we paid to carry my grand piano and other belongings using the city's smallest service elevator). Naturally, like the dedicated blogger that I am, I documented the whole thing with countless pictures. I photographed every single wall before the first box was moved in, shooting every angle to ensure that I could recreate each "before" shot with a mirroring "after" shot. Then, just to be dramatic, I shot the aftermath of each room, filled almost to the ceiling with boxes.... So many boxes in fact that the professional movers, who do this for a living, asked "what is in all these boxes??"

Then, as my fiance and I like to say, something bad happened.

Just 39 hours after the movers left, my bridal shower/bachelorette party began. Somewhere around hour number 12, I apparently "misplaced" my camera while riding in an Acura MDX driven by a purported "driver" named Pauly.  Although I did notice the first time my camera went crashing to the floor, and the second, I apparently did not notice the third. I wonder if Pauly has discovered my little pink camera and the interesting picture combination of walls, boxes, and girls holding up new bridal lingerie and wearing inappropriate candy necklaces.  

Needless to say, my blog suffered an unexpected setback. But, not to worry, I bought a nice little camera tonight at the Best Buy in the new neighborhood. Even though I'm getting married in just four and a half days, here is a good faith showing of my commitment to my blog! Before I get buried in an avalanche of place cards and seating charts, here is the first preview of the newly painted walls. This corner of our living room may very well be the only corner of the entire apartment not still covered in boxes (and only because it houses a baby grand piano!)

The formerly dingy ceiling, trim, and baseboards now pop in a very bright white. I can't tell you how in love I am with the squares, which one painter (who did not get the job) recommended we tear out. Even my own painter, who believed they could be saved, recommended that we not use a high gloss paint on the trim because we risked showing more imperfections. I went against his advice, having faith in him and my molding, and wow, it all looks amazing!! The squares really pop up against the blue-grey walls, which were painted the color Pumice by Restoration Hardware (subtle velvet finish). This is the second home I have had painted entirely in Restoration Hardware paint, and once again I could not be more thrilled with the results.

Of course, no "after" picture would be complete without showing the "before." Here is the same corner of the living room just two weeks ago, before the paint and floors were done.  

What a wonderful improvement already!! More to come soon, as long as I don't lose my camera again!

Project #1: Refinishing Our Floors. I Hope I Look This Good When I'm 87!

For our very first project, we tackled our 87 year old oak floors. To their credit, they weren't too bad considering their age. Sort of. Most of the rooms were a little warn out, and pretty orangey, but overall, not so bad.

And then there was the guest room.

Yikes!!  We're pretty sure that the guest room was covered by carpet the last time the floors were refinished.  (Either that or it was used to house wild animals.)  In either case, our floors needed a serious face lift!

After much debate over the perfect color, I finally convinced my hubby-to-be to go with Minwax Special Walnut wood stain with high-gloss polyurethane.  We couldn't be happier with the result.  The floors are absolutely gorgeous now! 

Although I picked the color, Al found the fabulous contractors who did a beautiful job and were very reasonably priced. If anyone needs a referral in NYC, let me know. 

Although this is what the floors looked like at just 8AM, by the time I stopped by after work the place looked like a war zone. 

The painters have moved in (and kindly covered every inch of our beautiful new floors with paper), so it's going to be awhile before we see that gorgeous wood again!  Well done gentlemen...  I hope someone can make me look this good when I'm 87!