Category Archives: The Apartment

City Life, The Apartment, Travel

Chair rehab

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I am ashamed to think about, let alone admit, how little I’ve been cooking lately. I didn’t expect to experience the usual rush of activity come September, but we definitely have nevertheless. I hope in the next couple weeks that we can get back into a normal schedule and work our way through, say, the 900 bell peppers in the produce drawer. (A major upside to the CSA: Since I’m getting such very, very fresh produce, it lasts forever in the fridge! I know we should be eating it as quickly as possible but at least not much has gone to waste.)

There have been a few interesting additions to the apartment lately, so in lieu of any food today I thought I’d share some of the excitement. Part one: The chairs.

We went to Brimfield at the beginning of the month, wandering out around noon for the last day of the fair. I was a little overwhelmed but had chosen to make it a scouting trip so that next time I didn’t have newbie jitters. For the most part I picked up a couple random bits and bobs: a gorgeous antique L-Square with a rosewood handle, a lovely folding ruler, some Czech glass buttons, clothespins, an alphabet block with K (for me), B (for Ben) and T (for Tom) on it…

I would like to make some sort of tufted bulletin board (in rough natural linen) with these someday:

At the very end I found a set of four chairs that I loved and Ben hated. They were super-sturdy and had padded seats so I can cross one leg under me during long dinners without that bony bit on the side of my ankle hurting (this is key for comfort, if not good manners). They were a pale color that I don’t love for our dining room, but I got the guy to sell them for cheap. Then I forced Ben to get on board. My plan is to stain them ebony and recover the seats. Of course, once I got home I started poking around and posted a Good Question at Apartment Therapy and Anna at Door16 and someone else both said they’re probably Heywood Wakefield. I spent a few days agonizing over whether to re-sell them or go ahead and strip them and re-stain them, thus removing pretty much any value they might have had. I couldn’t find any photos of HW chairs with this style of back, and finally I decided I would just go for it.

Here is one of the chairs (I got four):

I took the seats off and put some plastic sheeting on the deck, then started brushing on paint stripper (it’s the slightly-less-toxic orange goo; the guy at the hardware store wouldn’t even sell me the really toxic stuff, not that I wanted it). Once the varnish was bubbled I scraped it with a plastic scraper (later I used a small metal one for narrow spots).

Pre-stripper:

Post-stripper:

That took a while, but on the flat surfaces, at least, it was super-satisfying. The next day I did some final touch-ups with the stripper, then rubbed the whole thing down with (I think) denatured alcohol. Or Thinner, or something. I will check all the labels at home. That ate away the not-exactly-solvent-resistant gloves I was wearing, so I need to get a pair of good solvent resistant ones before I move on to chairs two through four. After it dried out, I sanded the whole thing.

Post-sanding:

You can’t really tell from the photos, but after the stripping process the grain of the wood was raised and rough. The sanding made it nice and smooth, though I think there might be some spots where I didn’t really get all the varnish all the way off, especially around the joints.

I am terrified to start staining. I’ve never used stain and everyone says it’s a blotchy nightmare, especially on hard woods like maple (which I think these are), plus once I stain this there’s no going back and maybe I will have ruined a valuable mid-century antique. Agh! But imagine that in a nice dark stain with a fabulous print on the seat! I should go forward, right?

Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Blackboard results

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Oh, for shame, Kate! I swore to myself that I would do some posting while I was home in Oregon (for a very, very lovely wedding, in which I was participating and at which I gave a toast–eep–and ate wonderful food and danced a lot and my feet hurt), but I was too too busy and didn’t. Very briefly, here is the final result of the magnetic blackboard saga. I painted 5 or 6 coats of the magnetic primer, one coat of white primer and one coat (plus touch-ups) of homemade blackboard paint, from Martha Stewart Living per Germi‘s tip. The chalkboard works, but not that well–the wall is just too textured to get a smooth line from the chalk. I love the idea, though, and will definitely use the recipe for future projects–it is super easy and I bet it works great if you have a smooth surface and, um, use matte paint instead of eggshell heavily doctored with regular acrylics. Ahem.

Anyway!

This before picture doesn’t show the blank wall very well–the blank wall where the board went, anyway. But it does show the messy office and how badly I needed to hang art.

Now (The wall color is the same and is more accurate in the before photo!):

Closer look at the board–I had no idea I was on a citrus and orange-colored-things kick until I put up a pile of things I’d been saving in one place. The power of the inspiration board!

In addition to not writing very well on the bumpy surface, the chalk is not well served by my horrible handwriting–I need penmanship classes. There is a girl in my office with the most astonishing handwriting, and I always think back to my friend Margaret’s gorgeous perfect cursive with longing… I am too impatient!

Funny synergy thing: I just caught up on my bloglines from the last 5 days and saw that Mrs. Limestone just did a magnetic blackboard, too. And then I saw blackboard walls all over at The Kitchn today. Odd.

City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Lovely things for blank walls

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There are three things left to do in the kitchen:

-Install a hood
-Replace the lighting over the sink and in the middle of the room
-Hang art

I find the first two things totally overwhelming, but the third I can handle. Looking at the kitchen photos with the new shelf really made me aware of how bare the wall above the sink is, so I want to make that a priority. I have a whole pile of amazing prints and posters I’ve been buying from people like Keep Calm (the tea print), Amy Ross, Renee Garner of Wolfieandthesneak and Kate Bingaman-Burt. It’s an embarrassment of riches and I can’t seem to fit any of it in normal-sized frame (except the Amy Ross Manshroom, which is just languishing in my office waiting to be hung up).

I got the Kate Bingman-Burt and Renee Garner stuff just this week and both ladies sent along lovely little surprises with my purchases. I thought I’d post some photos since I was charmed.

From Kate I bought four of her “Obsessive Consumption” drawings, of things we like to eat. (The bananas are for Ben only. Yuck.) She is moving to Portland, OR as we speak and was having a moving sale in her Etsy shop. She included two issues of her Zine, which chronicles a purchase every day, each month. The zines are tiny and so fun and charming, I really enjoyed them.

For now I’ve propped the wrapped drawings on the kitchen shelf–once I frame them they may still live in the same place! Or I might try to hang them low under the shelf; not quite sure.

Renee really surpassed herself with darling packaging. I was a doofus and ordered the posters seperately, just far enough apart that she had to send them in two tubes (I’m sorry!). The first poster was the Fungi one I’ve been wanting since before Christmas. She sent it with a magnifying glass!! Plus a “No Plastic is Fantastic” fact card.

The second poster, the “pods” print, came today, and tucked inside was a little sketchbook with some of Renee’s drawings on the front, and an awesome lime green pencil. (Plus a nice note inside the sketchbook.)

(It was hard to photograph the funny pencil, but here’s my best attempt. It says “Wolfie and the Sneak Love You” but WordPress has started cropping my photos for me, so part of it is cut off.)

I can’t express how much I love Etsy; once I get around to framing everything (sigh) my house will be packed with art by people I’ve gotten to interact with, instead of random impersonal stuff. I was on the phone with my brother when I opened the new poster, and he said, “Etsy is sort of the CSA of art, isn’t it?” I think he hit the nail on the head!

More food soon, I promise…

Food, Home, The Apartment

The workers’ reward

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Hard work deserves a delicious lunch. In contrast to past periods of serious work around the house, when random leftovers were all that was on offer at lunchtime, I had actually laid in provisions this time:

Mmmm, bacon, tomato and avocado sandwiches.

I mashed up the avocado because I hate when the slices come shooting out the other side every time you take a bite. This worked somewhat better but it was still messy–mashed avocado definitely works best as a solo-open-faced sandwich component.

Just what a pair of hungry shelf-hangers needed!

Also, for the record, Ben was really proud of how much fruit he managed to squeeze in with his cheerios on Sunday morning. Banana, blueberries AND a peach. It took some seriously careful negotiation to get started eating without a catastrophe:

I stuck to my peach sliced up and broiled a bit on some buttered toast:

Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Much delayed kitchen progress

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Last time we checked in on the kitchen, I hadn’t bothered to post a photo with knobs up on the cabinets. We did actually take care of that back around Thanksgiving, but since then there has been little progress on the final few things to do in the kitchen. But sparked by I don’t know what last week, Ben and I spent Friday and Saturday gathering the goods and installing the long-awaited shelf above the counter! What better way to spend the Fourth of July than at two Home Depots? And how about a solid 12-hour day of work in the kitchen on a summer Saturday? (It was gray out, actually, which helped.) In addition to building the shelf, installing the brackets and attaching the lighting, we also painted all the trim in the kitchen, including the windows (argh), and I painted that magnetic board in my office.

So here is the kitchen on Friday:

A little more detail on the cluttered, cluttered counter:

To recap the difficulty that had delayed this little endeavor, our walls are 107-year-old horsehair plaster over lathing. They are not in great shape, and of course the plaster/lathing makes it nearly impossible to use an electronic stud-finder to locate the studs. I was worried that we would bring down the whole wall if we did the shelf ourselves. But some (lengthy) internet research on Friday led me to the discovery of old school magnetic stud finders, which are basically a little plastic bubble containing a strong magnet attached to a little plastic rod. You slowly, slowly move the doohickey along the wall, and when it is over a nail (attaching the lathing to the studs!) the magnet straightens out the plastic rod, pointing the way to the stud. We acquired one and over the course of about three laborious hours I mapped out the studs over the counter. It’s a slow process because you aren’t scanning for a nice big chunk of two-by-four (or thicker, one hopes), but instead for a tiny nail somewhere deep in the plaster. I found that we were on about a 16-inch center, and scanned up and down to find at least 4 or 5 nails on each stud, then picked a rough center line through the wavering dots to aim for.

Whew, that was long-winded, but maybe it will be helpful to other old-house owners on the interwebs.

Anyway, we bought an 8-foot pine board, 8 inches deep, for the shelf, and a 2.5 inch deep trim piece (in two pieces) to make a lip to cover the lights. two two-light and two three-light linkable xenon light strips. Three metal brackets and lots of #8 screws. We drilled pilot holes for the first two bracket screws, and Ben started to put the screw in, drilling it into the apparently-petrified stud (which I had accurately located, hurray!). The screw. broke. The drill skipped off the (flat-head; HD didn’t have phillips in the right size of wood screws) screw and into the wall:

Sigh. (But check out all the old paint colors!)

But we remained calm! Ben went to the local hardware store, where they had a much better selection of sturdier screws, and he got a longer drill bit for the pilot holes. From then on it was fairly smooth sailing.

After the first bracket we figured out where the others needed to go to be level:

Brackets up! And sturdy!

We primed, painted and assembled the shelf pieces, and once they were dry we attached the lights to the bottom:

Put the shelf in place and spent a long time messing around to get the lights strongly in place and the wires hidden:

Ta da!!

A little patching/painting action on that ding in the wall; another coat of paint on the shelf and trim, and we’re in business:

I don’t have the right mix of stuff on the shelf, but at least things are off the counter!

Hurray!

City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Quick question

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A quick survey: I have painted a large magnetic-paint board in my office, and am trying to decide whether to paint it over with black chalkboard paint, which would leave it looking roughly as it does now, but w/out messy painters tape, or with paint slightly different from the current shade of the office wall, probably a touch darker. Any opinions?

(Excuse yet another crap photo…)

We spent all day yesterday working around the house–more to come soon! Meanwhile, for Germi, who asked after my little basil plant, last seen after being replanted a couple weeks ago:

It’s thriving–my mom also said to stop watering too much, and it seems very happy….so far!

City Life, Home, The Apartment

Breaking news: Porch habitable

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This is not food-related, though it will lead to very happy food consumption: Ben got a bee in his bonnet on Sunday and by the end of the afternoon we had a porch covered in lovely new furniture, instead of several broken folding chairs and a pile of wood in a cardboard box. Sadly my computer remains on the fritz so I don’t have any before photos from when we lived here–the best I can do is an old through-the-screen shot from before we moved in:

Wow, useless.

Anyway, here is is now!

Long-time readers may remember the trauma I suffered after Ikea sold out of the very narrow table I
wanted last summer. Well, it turned out to be for the best, since this year they still have the other one, but they also have another 24″ wide table, but this time it is a double gateleg, allowing us to tuck it completely out of the way when not in use, which in turn frees up enough walking space to have those adirondack chairs at the end of the porch.

Closed (just over 7 inches deep):

Dinner for two:

Dinner for four, or six if they are really good friends and careful with their knees:

Brilliant! (We do have two more of those chairs, plus our old folding chairs.)

City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

I’ll take any progress I can get

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There will be cooking this week. It’s just been a rough and busy few weeks with lots of late work for one or both of us/meals in the office/travel, etc.

A few weekends ago when we had the three-day weekend all at home (bliss!), we knocked out lots of little tasks that needed doing around the house. The most satisfying (and life-improving) was finally buying a nightstand. I had been using a $6 Ikea tv tray as a nightstand since 2001. I painted the top at one point, but it was mostly unfinished pine, and just…not good. Because there was no drawer it tended to be cluttered with romantic things like eyeshades (our blinds aren’t great), and it just looked horrible all the time. Plus I kept an old magazine container under it, which was always too full and so I’d stack books and magazines on top of the holder, and….yeah, here’s what it looked like:

Wow, classy.

The new nightstand is simple but it lets me tidy things up. I required a shelf and a drawer, and I got both (I also replaced my lampshade):

So much better! Now I can tuck things away and keep the top neat! I have since moved the book to the bottom shelf. One thing that does stay out, and which you can barely see in that picture, is my new friend, who Christy gave me for Christmas:

Love!

City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Kitchen: Finishing touches

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As I said in the last post, we spent a lot of time this weekend working around the apartment. While the kitchen didn’t get any new touches, we did talk and think a lot about what it needs to make it feel complete… I need to upload a more recent photo, since we have added door pulls, etc. since this was taken, but as a reminder this is basically where the kitchen stands now:

We are struggling with how to hang art and shelves–the walls really are not in good shape, and we’re worried that we’ll make major trouble if we drill into them. On the other hand, I desperately want to run two shelves along that long left wall, one at the height of the top of the fridge surround, and one enough lower that I can store the coffee canister, etc. on it. I’d paint them white and we’d give them enough of a lip in front that we could have under-shelf lighting under the bottom one to light the counter. That would help with problem 2, which is lighting, which….sigh. I can’t even think about that right now.

We don’t know how to start with shelves. Do we shell out and have a professional come in? Do we experiment a bit with the lathing? I have become quite adept at using self-adhesive wire mesh and putty to patch large holes. Still, it’s overwhelming! But once we work out the shelf problem, we can also figure out how to hang some art above the sink–probably just my “Tea Revives You” print (which I need to frame), but maybe that plus a bunch of smaller things if we work out a good system. Maybe a hanging rail or something for a flexible system and fewer holes?

Keep Calm, Tea

On a simpler front, I am trying to decide between these two completely different clocks, both from Urban Outfitters. We nearly bought a really amazing vintage clock in France but we decided not to get entangled in issues of ancient battery sizes or hard wiring…

Choice One:

Choice Two:

Tricky! (By the way, the orange one is 8 inches wide; the white is 15 inches!)

City Life, Food, Home, The Apartment

Perfect day

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Almost two weeks ago we were home for the weekend, without guests or a trip, for the first time since…. Hmm, early September. There was a crazy storm on Saturday, which I was excited to see forecast since Ben had studying to do and I wanted nothing so much as an excuse to laze around all day. Friday I got a delivery of a lovely loaf of challah from a guy in the office, and I stopped after work to pick up essential groceries so we wouldn’t have to go outside all day.

Witness, a perfect day (half of the Sunday NY Times comes Saturday, so we had that handy!):

I wandered out to the dining room around 9:30, greeted by steaming steel-cut oatmeal cooked by Ben, who is the Oatmeal Master. His other areas of expertise: brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and pancakes. I’m not going to argue with that skill set!

After a very leisurely breakfast we retired to the living room and lit a fire, which we kept going all day. It was a violent storm, extremely windy with sheets of rain and dramatic whipping-about of all the trees.

When we got hungry for a little lunch, I got out the naan I’d bought the night before, drizzled them with olive oil, and topped Ben’s with goat cheese and mine with ricotta salata and leftover beets, and heated them up:

Later there was mint tea (I love the Trader Joe’s brand):

And through the day, the fire and my annual re-read of Pride & Prejudice. What could be better?

We were supposed to go to a party that night but we didn’t end up heading out into the rain. A friend from b-school came over and we had a casual pasta dinner. So cozy! As much as I envy the outdoor living thing you can do in Southern CA, I could never give up late fall/winter days.