This galley office and
this FLOR tile carpet found via the Dooce are inspiring our new office space.
Here is the office/baby’s room before we moved in…
… and here is a “under construction” shot that shows off the results of yesterday’s labors. The baby’s room will be on the left and our office on the right. I will need to worry about “baby proofing” but in the near term, this will do! I’m planning on putting FLOR tiles as “wall to wall” in the office and on adding another Ikea bookcase to really finish defining the office space. Then, I think that two long narrow shelves above the desks will look great.
Here’s another photo shelf from new to me blog Loving Living Small…. delicious!
Here’s a shot of the new living room, which we were able to unpack pretty quickly. You’ll notice all our old furniture in exactly the same configuration as the old apartment — it won’t stay this way, but for now, it is comfortable while we unpack the sea of boxes in the rest of the apartment. I’m thinking of doing a gallery wall on the wall behind the couch.
Just for giggles, here is a shot of the old apartment in total moving chaos!
The move went as smoothly as any move could, which is to say I only burst into tears once! We woke up in the new apartment this morning and it felt like home already. As promised, here are some snapshots of the new apartment. The former tenet was a religious art dealer, so that explains the art in this photo. Let’s see: it is a two bedroom, on the Upper West Side, with a dishwasher and a hook up for a european style washer-dryer (there are no words to express how happy I am about the latter two items!). It gets nice light and we have lots more square feet to grow our new family in (still shocks me to write that). You can see the rest of the (mostly bad) photos here. We’re unpacking and I’ll be sure to share some shots with our furniture as we start to make this apartment our own.
So, one of the big things on my mind these days is that we’re thinking about moving to a 2 bedroom apartment. I’m torn. I love our home and yet, I’m not sure this will make the best space for our life with a baby. I’ve been crisscrossing the city looking at apartments (which is no fun under normal circumstances, but even less so when it’s freezing and you’re pregnant) trying to get a sense of what’s out there.
What I’ve found: rents are really really soft in NYC right now. Like insanely soft. So, for not much more a month we could have a real room for the baby (or my mom in the first couple of weeks), AND a dishwasher, AND a washer-dryer AND room to breathe. So, I think it makes sense. I mean, all those things will make our life easier during the transition to having a child and that seems really important to me right now. But then, some little part of my soul says “I love this home you’ve built! Don’t leave!” Check out this kitchen below, from an apartment on the Upper West Side — its HUGE! And so was the rest of the apartment. We didn’t put an application in on this apartment — but I’ll post some photos as we continue to look. PS See this NYTimes article on failing rents in New York.
PS The top image is just dreamy, right?
This past Sunday our apartment was featured in Page Six Magazine‘s lifestyle section (and yes, that’s me on the couch!)!! You can see the whole article here and all the photos here. The best part of the experience was working with such an amazing team including totally rad photographer Karin Kohlberg, talented stylist James Massenburg, super savy editor Kirsten Matthews and hip photo editor Michelle Yoo, and funny and charming writer Kristin Fleming. They made the house and me look wonderful and somehow ensured that I even had fun doing it! So, a huge thank you to Page Six and these pros.
Thanks to Jordan, last time we were in IKEA we headed to the rug section and spent spent some serious time mulling our choices. Rugs can be really expensive (try $2800 for a piece of medium-nice wall to wall that we were thinking of having cut to 10 by 12 feet). We’re in a rental and that just seemed like WAY too much money for a rug we might never get to use when we inevitably move apartments or cities. So imagine our delight when we found this rug, 100% wool, hand-made for $159. We bought two, had two pieces of rug pad cut at ABC Homes for around $200 and laid out the rug pads in such a way that the overlap of the two rugs doesn’t really show. I’m so happy with how it looks and really see how much rugs help finish rooms and make them comfortable.
I’ve long been an admirer of Katherine Wolkoff’s amazing photography (well, really six months, but that feels like a long time — I first found them on the lovely cup of jo!). Three weeks ago, I screwed up my courage and emailed her asking if her deer bed series was for sale. She was lovely, she had a few left over from her show at the NY Photography Show and now one is safely lulling us to sleep. It’s a joint 30th birthday gift — Tim turns 30 in two weeks and I turn in February (and just as Stephanie says, we figured that a great piece of art was the best investment we could make in these crazy financial times).
PS: YAHOOO! TO THE ELECTION NEWS!
I snagged two of these Tosca chairs designed by Richard Sapper (who also designed the IBM Think Pad!) — they make a perfect addition to our dining room table chairs!
I have an old beat up secretary that I would LOVE to paint the inside this color, Shale Blue, and turn into a bar. Such a genius idea from the folks at Cottage Living. PS I’m in love with their “Design Assistant” feature which is an archive of photos from Cottage Living, Coastal Living, Southern Living and Sunset Magazines. Lots of inspiration from magazines I don’t normally buy unless I’ve been traveling a lot and get desperate in the Hudson News.
After talking about chalk drawings and peg boards for the huge white wall in the kitchen, we finally decided on a easy to put up and easy to remove decal! Many thanks to readers Nancy and Erin for pointing out the decals would be a smart solutions (I love readers!). It looks super low in this picture, but, in practice, it feels like the right height when you see it in the room.
This image from Martha Stewart Weddings has been on my mind recently — I love love love the chalk chandelier and am thinking of drawing something similar in our kitchen, since we have a loooooong wall (below) that just needs something . And a chalk drawing would be basically free.
I’m thinking of using this runner from Urban Outfitters as a bath mat. I measured our bathroom (below) and the runner will run right until the sink. Which might be a good thing (some how the floor is always wet with the sorry bath mat we’ve got now). And, for $28 dollars, I can’t go wrong!
We have a big white wall in our kitchen (above) that is calling out for something besides white paint. Tim suggested a peg board. I like the one below — any other images I should consider?
via desire to inspire
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kitchen
Our apartment is up over at Design*Sponge as a sneak peek today! A huge thank you, thank you, thank you to lovely ladies Grace, Joanna and Anne for including me in the amazing sneak peek tradition. I’ve blogged bits and pieces of our apartment but never really the whole thing, so I’m so pleased to share all of it with you! I hope you’ll take a peek.
