Things are looking up

This is my best friend's mother's apartment, which is the mirror-image and right next door to mine. She has been living without a hallway light fixture for months now, all because we got a little too excited when renovating her kitchen (the Tiffany-blue walls you can catch a glimpse of and you can see in all it's glory right here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/february-jumpstart-2009-entries/how-to-make-over-moms-kitchen-in-one-weekend-february-jumpstart-project-2009-077319

Well, I finally decided to take matters in my own hands this morning while the painters were finishing up at my place. I used the old light fixture from my bedroom (which now has a ceiling fan!) and jerry-rigged the chandelier together using a ceiling bracket and sheer willpower....





In other news, the painters finished.

















I have new brushed satin nickel knobs and handles for the kitchen and they look divine w/the wood and new countertops. I'm still tweaking the layout of the bathroom tile, but it's coming together.

It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for the mind and the soul.... I'm ready to sell this place for a profit and move on to bigger and better things (that purr and woof).

Picture updates

If it's not one thing....

....it's another! Now that the holes in the walls are patched and primed - which was news to me, they never primed after patching before - they decided to slop the gray primer on my brand-new light switches/outlets :( UGH! So frustrating when I could have removed them, but since they have never bothered to paint after patching before.... just frustrating.

Then, of all things, the kitchen P-trap drain elbow split in half on me. I was simply investigating to see what the hold-up was as I'm guessing the workers dumped drywall dust and debris in the sink.... then the P-trap split - water everywhere. This is not the first water damage to sully the under-sink cabinet, but damn. Just not what I was trying to focus on as the real painters are coming tomorrow!!!!

At least with all of these headaches, I am finally looking forward to getting it done and over with.

Updates:

COOP:
1. Plumber to fix kitchen sink and bathtub CHANGE to Bathfitter October 13th
2. Electrician to fix outlet in living room
-Move kitchen cabinets to Left Side CHANGE to add base and upper cabinet in left corner October 13th b/t 3:30-6 and flip refrigerator
-Remove tile from bathroom walls CHANGE to Bathfitter October 14th
3. Plasterer (Mom) to fix walls in all rooms (unpainted walls & ceilings)
4. Sheet vinyl for bathroom and kitchen floor CHANGE to mend tile in bathroom (OCTOBER 9th, ebay) and kitchen (need propane or dry ice) CHANGE to mend hole in floor and put down a thin vinyl (bought 7/25) that won't go too far above the surface
5. Countertop for kitchen - 6 foot and 8 foot -Strip window and door in bathroom
-cut counter for sink and for stove island & install
6. Paint trim (satin) and hall(s)(linen) and Kitchen
-Faux glaze paint over patches CHANGE TO HIRE PAINTERS TO PAINT ENTIRE APARTMENT 7/25 - hired for Aug. 19th
- Workers need to patch up the gigantic holes in my living room before I can sign the contract
-Paint Bathroom window and touch up radiator with rustoleum satin white
7. Replace toilet to 12 inch. model
8. Spray range, hood and fridge
9. Install hardware in kitchen
10. Add trim or shim up the cabinet to meet the new cabinet height
11. Install toe-kick under kitchen cabinets
12. Install ceiling fan in bedroom
13. Fix kitchen sink/drain

I promised you pictures

Here they are! So much is getting done now, it's ridiculous ~

Coop Improvements:

Testing out the new countertop in the new microwave area~

Before ~ Old Toilet

After a whole lot of clean-up, we had this:

YES, I said clean-up! This is CLEANED UP. I can't even begin to explain how nasty it was before (I timestamped the pics and it took me about 2 hours to clean this little 1x1 area). This ended up being the most whacked-out flange system I've ever seen (after doing all of my Internet-searching on the subject of replacing toilets). It turned out to be a lot of rust (which stained the porous marble tile like crazy) and corrosion that had to be chipped away in order to create a level surface for the wax ring/toilet base to sit upon. Aside from the chipping and the cleaning up of the rust-flakes that left permanent scars all over that beautiful tile, the job was not that difficult. I did it myself and pulled my hamstrings in the process. But all ended very well, cleaning up nicely into this:

After ~ Ahhhh.... she's beautiful!

Condo Improvements:

Bedroom before:

I can't really express how much I hated this layout. I think it speaks for itself and need I point out that "my side" of the bed is on the far side? The one over there where you have to squeeze through a tiny space between the corner of the bed and the corner of the bureau (can we say Bachelor Pad?)

Bedroom reconfigured ~

This is now what you see upon entering the room, of course, if I had my druthers there would be an upholstered headboard on that bed, or even a wall of fabric a la The Youngsters or Bower Power, but work with whatcha got.... instead I added a mirror to "my side" to mimic the window. It's not the same size, but whatever, it helps me save time primping in the morning (I like to roll right out of bed a minute before I have to leave for work).

Living Room before:



Excuse the crappy pic, my camera broke and I was using my phone for a few months a while back. Again, I can barely find words to describe my disdain for the color of the couch and the layout (there is a futon next to the TV, facing the couch), so let me just skip to the goods....

Living Room reconfigured & slipcovered:

This new layout frees up all of the breezeways through this undefined space and creates a more intimate conversational setting. It also allows us to open the blinds behind the futon and that coupled with slipping the sofa has lightened and brightened the space by a million! We'll just ignore that Christmas tree for now.... (picking battles, picking battles....)

New TV and pulled it out of the freakin corner!

The original layout was kinda geared toward One particular person... ahem, The Bachelor. Now everyone can enjoy it, or, more importantly, This Girl. And, please, let's just pretend the Barca Lounger doesn't exist, alright?

Freshly de-mildewed and painted bathroom w/brighter shower curtain~

I scrubbed the ceilings and walls by hand - they were a putrid yellow before and with a disgusting border that soaked up all the mold/mildew. EW.

A fresh coat of white, mildew-resistant paint makes the room breathable. And the white shower curtain with clear liner allows the vanity lights to penetrate the shower area SO ONE CAN SEE WHAT ONE IS DOING IN THERE. Imagine that.

Laundry Central~

The Bachelor likes to separate each clothing article by individual color, so 2 of these 2 part containers from Ikea do the trick.

Now for the disappointing part, I swore I had some updated pics of the lakehouse projects in progress, but I can't find them! All I could find that hasn't been uploaded already are these upstairs shower pics:

Not too exciting, I just changed out the fixtures to: a. fix a leaky shower and b. match all the finishes to the brass (which I hate, but the shower door and everything else was already brassy to begin with) . Maybe one day I will spray them all oil-rubbed bronze????

OR TEAR OUT THE WHOLE THING. My mind goes crazy when I haven't been there in a while (it's going on 6 weeks and counting....)

That's it for now, is it just me or is organizing pics on blogger extremely difficult?

Picture Update - Living Room

The walls are done!

 

 

Patched and painted and I do declare that you can't tell where the old paint stops and the new paint starts.

The Living Room Makeover

One day back in the spring of 2007 I decided that I had had enough of the hand-me-down furniture in my living room. Yes, it had inspired the paint color, but the furniture was too dark and depressing. Big, bulky hand-me-downs that I had inherited after graduating college and moving into this apartment. I had been working for 5 years at that point and felt like I could afford an upgrade.

[Unfortunately all of the "before" pictures are locked in my old laptop that died. If I ever recover them, I'll make sure to add them to this post.]

Well, in about one month's time I was able to post all of the huge items on Craigslist and some very nice people came and picked them up and took them away. It was nice to see things that were going to be used and appreciated by actual people, rather than dumping them in the trash or off at a donation site....

Then, I commenced to buying a new futon from ikea, several pieces of fabric to use as covers from Urban Outfitters,



and I also found the perfect-sized entertainment/storage unit for my TV and things.

Somehow, propelled by sheer willpower, the desire for change and an amazing amount of adrenaline.... I was able to lift over 150 lbs. up 2 flights of stairs, then proceeded to put together the media unit [that requires 2 people, it says so on the box] by myself.



Also, moving that 92 lb. TV back and forth in the process resulted in more than a few bruises on my legs.

Why did Blogger lock my Blog????

I'm so #$&%! that immediately upon starting this thing (which took me a long time in the first place), I've been put "under review" as a potential spam blog. WTF???? Why me?

All I want to do is share the process and progress of renovating my 3 homes all by myself. Is that too much to ask????

I need to just do this.... and that

Where do I start? From the very beginning, there was a one-bedroom coop apartment. Pre-war. Dirt cheap. Here's the short version:

The year was 2002 and I had just graduated college, started working and bought a car all in the same month. I decided I wanted to live close to my job with an easy commute. Unfortunately, at this time, the beginning of the house market boom, not a realtor was taking me seriously. I would be told not to bother showing up to appointments, offers were already made, that I didn't have enough financial security, and basically that I was just a kid, what did I know?

Then I just so happened to wind up with the perfect-for-me living situation in my Washington, DC Coop.

I immediately fixed up what I could on my meager salary and with my limited knowledge of home improvement.


I changed out the sink, cabinet, faucet, medicine cabinet and lights in the bathroom.

I painted the living room... :



...and bedroom with a faux finish that was inspired by my Aunt Donna. She was an artist and had an amazing flair for color.


The orange color in the living room came from that oldie-but-goodie couch (made in North Carolina, furniture capitol of the world!) I inherited from some family friends. See the dark green with peach accent colors? I wanted to brighten up the room. The base coat of paint came from a Home Depot Oops shelf - one gallon for a whopping $3! I color matched it and chose a darker hue in the same family for the top coat, which was mixed with glaze and rag-rolled on top.

I also did this border stripe around the doorways with the topcoat color, just because I had seen a morroccan style room makeover on TLC and I wondered if I could achieve a similar look....


Well, it didn't quite turn out as planned, but at the same time I always get compliments on it and I think it gives definition to the doorways, since they have no moulding and the wall paint is so flow-y. You can also see the transition from the living room to the bedroom in the picture - see how the orange and green are like hot and cold yet somehow manage to work together????

In the bedroom I chose another Oops paint, since it was only $5 and I still had glaze left from the living room. This time, I used that as the topcoat and brushed it on with a dry brush technique.



At first, when I finished one whole uninterupted wall, I thought it looked like a field of grass on the wall. I hated it! But eventually it grew on me. The inspiration for this room came from these pillows I got on clearance at Steinmart:



From there, the rest of the color scheme fell into place: drape-y sheers, glass bauble rods, bamboo blinds all from Target. On sale. Then I would pick up sheets, fabric duvet covers or coverlets wherever I could find them on sale. Always in complementary colors.



The yellow is from Gaiam and the green from Urban Outfitters. The striped pillow was a gift. As was the shadowbox in the corner. And I love elephants, so that plaque was from Filene's Basement on super sale.

That was all I did for a very long time. It was enough for me to feel comfortable in my living room and bedroom. I was okay with the bathroom storage and cosmetic updates. And the kitchen? Well, that was a lost cause in my mind.

The only thing I could bring myself to do was un-clutter and change the faucet. I'll get to that next time, but for now just enjoy.....