Snow Frog

At the top of our stairs, on the second floor, we have a small hallway linking all of the actual rooms. For a long time it was a neglected area, since the only time we spent in it was passing through to get somewhere else. It has finally been done though although we still don’t spend too much time there.

Here is what the hallway looked like when we first moved in.

Note the nice window seat (that opens to be a storage area) with an old fashioned phone. I can just imagine the woman who lived in the house before us sitting there on the bench, looking into the backyard while chatting on the phone.

We quickly ripped up the carpet (like every other room in the house), had the floors done, and tore down the wallpaper. Then, for a long time, we did nothing. For over a year the room looked like this: (note the walls are covered in old wallpaper glue — gross!)

We finally removed the wall phone (which was attached directly to the wall), and I inserted a phone wall mount and also updated the outlet there. I spent a weekend scrubbing and cleaning the walls. We then took our perpetual Gobi Desert paint color (which Gaja tinted slightly since she was getting bored of it) and finally turned our dingy gross hallway into something usable.

You might be wondering about that cushion on the window seat — I was when Gaja first showed it to me. It is not what it appears however. Gaja had a piece of foam leftover from another project (coming soon) and wrapped it in an old green rug we had. She then put pillows around and voila we had a comfy new window seat.

We swapped out the mirror on the closet door and hung some art, which you can see in the next photo. We’re still debating a new light fixture.

The hallway also goes back into our office (turning 180 degrees from the other photos). Along this wall, we found space to hang four pictures done by Gaja’s great aunt Zofia (depicting four seasons in Warsaw). This last photo also gives a bit of a sneak peek into some other projects we did. Stay tuned to learn more about the hint of green in the corner!

In the past year, we’ve done a few updates to our kitchen.

Last time we posted, here’s how our kitchen looked:

Getting a new range makes a big difference!

We don’t have gas in the house so when we decided to update our stove and keep the existing layout, we actually only had two ranges to choose from! There only exist 2 stainless steel 48″ electric ranges so our decision was fairly simple (albeit a bit expensive, as far as ranges go), and we’ve been very happy with the result.

Below you can see the range in place. In this shot you can spot a few other random updates: 1) a new light fixture, 2) a new trashcan with a sensor so it opens when you wave your hand above it without having to touch it (as a side note, I am *kinda* OCD about washing my hands; if I touch anything dirty, including trashcans or even cabinet doors leading to trashcans, I have to wash my hands before I touch anything else. So this trashcan has helped dramatically reduced the number of times I wash my hands each day, which should really help my hands when the cold, dry weather comes in the winter), 3) you can see on the far wall several updates.

The black board with circles on it was actually a not-so-minor project - it houses pretty much all of our spices! I bought the black metal board at ikea and separately bought 5 packs of magnetic spice containers to go on it. I also bought a label maker so that we knew what the heck was in each container! (I’ve wanted an excuse to get a label maker for a while, and as you’ll see below, this was not the only opportunity to use it). It’s really convenient being able to see all your spices at once, and it’s kind of pretty too!

In this pic you can also see (part of) a much larger project we did in the kitchen. We modified the tall cabinet you see there in several ways. The doors used to go up to where the top of the (new) microwave is now, and the shelf the microwave is on was inside and lower. So we trimmed the top of the doors and raised the interior shelf to create a built-in look for our new microwave. Previously, inside the cabinet we had several stacked layers of plastic drawers with the microwave resting precariously on top. Now, it looks much nicer and is much more convenient than having to open a cabinet in order to get into our microwave.

And that’s just the outside. On the inside, instead of the ill-fitting plastic drawers, we installed a mail-ordered 5 tier lazy susan! This cabinet is our only pantry area so we wanted to make it as organized and accessible as possible. For a long time I tried to figure out how to make some kind of drawers work in this cabinet, but it was just not workable due to the odd size and the fact that the opening of the doors is much narrower than the interior dimensions. So a lazy susan was the runner up - and here’s how it looks:

As you can see, we kept some of the original shelves, where we store less frequently accessed goods and, conveniently, all our cutting boards. It’s a little bit fuller now (this picture was taken right after the project was completed), and we also have labels (using the label maker!) on each of the tiers to help us remember where things go.  Matt still makes fun of me, perhaps rightfully so, for some of my category choices: in addition to the fairly clear and reasonable labels of ’snacks’, ‘pasta & grains’, and ’soups & sauces’, we have the somewhat ambiguous categories of ‘jars’, ‘jars & spices’, and ‘canned goods’. All I can say is that these made sense to me at the time; and in my defense, it’s not so easy to come up with exactly the right categories that fit into the number of spaces there are without wasting space! I think I was employing some version of the ‘Elsewhere Principle’. This is a principle from linguistics that says if there are multiple rules/choices that are applicable, select the most specific one. So this means, for example, that a jar of soup would go into the ’soups & sauces’ category rather than the ‘jars’ category. (this makes for more efficient labeling since we don’t have to call the ‘jars’ category the ‘jars but not soups’ category). Who knew that linguistic principles were relevant to pantry organization! Or maybe not so much…

Another small change is that we have a counter composter now, and a very futuristic-looking composter in the back yard, both of which you can sort of see in the picture below. We’ve been asked by several neighbors what that alien looking sphere in our backyard is. It is a green sphere, 3-4 feet in diameter, which rests in the back of our backyard. The sphere shape is helpful for mixing the compost around (by rolling it around), which should be done regularly, and for rolling the compost to wherever it’s going to be used. By the way, it’s also good for making your dog think that he/she is about to play with a really, really, … really large ball.

Hi everyone!

We haven’t posted in so long that I’m not sure where to begin! So much has changed since our last post, pretty much in every room, so it will take a few posts to bring you up to date.

So here is a list of things that you will hopefully see some posts about soon.

1. Big landscaping changes in the front of the house… and not just plants
2. A number of improvements in the kitchen, including carpentry and sewing
3. Renovated dining room
4. Updated living room
5. A small, but dramatic update to the basement
6. Upstairs hallway improvements
7. A total transformation of the den
8. A new bachelor pad in the city

Maybe we’ll start with a room that has been totally ignored until this point - one we hardly dared step into.

The Sun Room!

As you can see it was pretty bad before. Prior to the update I had trouble imagining why anyone would want a room like this. But it’s lookin’ pretty spiffy since its update about a year ago, when it got a complete overhaul. Everything got painted with a new color palette, and we even installed a new floor all on our own! The decorating has a way to go still, but the renovations are mostly finished, and it’s pretty pleasant to be in there (when it’s not too hot… or cold!). I even spent a couple of days painstakingly washing all those individual window panels on both sides (that was a pain in the @#$@#%!).

So here’s what it looks like now. I decided on a nature-inspired color palette, and very dark espresso trim paint. I thought it would cause the columns around the windows to recede and highlight what was outside the windows. I think it worked!

We moved our existing Ikea day bed into the room, and I found some outdoor furniture covers that pretty much fit a standard twin mattress at west elm. I hope to eventually stuff the bolster pillows with some appropriately shaped foam, but for now they are stuffed with extra pillows and bedding we have!

Here’s the view to the backyard to compare with the ‘before’ shot.

Here’s the view toward the kitchen/house:

And here’s a closer look at the new floor. We got this floor at ikea, originally thinking it might go in the kitchen, I believe, since it is a fairly moisture-resistant laminate of some sort. That idea got scrapped very quickly, and then we actually began trying to install it in the basement - that was a DISASTER. It was so discouraging that our basement floor stayed half-installed and half exposed tile glue for like half a year I think.

The floor was a tongue and grove install so putting the boards in was not too bad. But first, we had to paint the concrete floor with several layers to water-proof it. Then we laid down a moisture barrier (plastic sheeting). Obviously, we had to custom cut a bunch of the laminate boards, and Matt did this using a circular saw he got as a gift from his brother, while Gaja measured and marked the boards. We also had to remove and reattach the base trim, which we painted the espresso color. Before re-attaching the trim, we sealed the floor edges using regular white caulk. The shiny white nicely matched the actual floor boards to create a finished look.