Monday, December 22, 2008

PBJ


I'm trying to clean house and get packed before we leave at 5:30AM to Wednesday, but here is my Baby Boy eating PBJ!

Friday, December 19, 2008

More gushing about Alan

Did I forget to mention that Alan also gave me a few awesome 1960s lamps to aid in my ongoing battle against overhead lighting?

Bath AA

Henceforth I shall refer to my bathroom from a time either AA or BA. That would be before Alan and after Alan. Alan is the wonderful man my landlord sent to fix the crumbling walls surrounding my tub. You may remember the joys of our bath from such previous posts as this
and this. However, when the walls (which were really just wood paneling) litteraly began to crumble, I had to call in the big guns. Alan is wonderful, Alan is amazing, Alan is my new hero. Even though he had to jury rig a solution and work with-in a limited budget, he left my claw-foot tub exposed and fixed the surround in a non-hideous, even attractive way. I didn't really take before, before shots, so here are some of bath in progress:


This is a nice detail shot of some wood rot and mold:

Here is the AFTER (please add your own chorus of hallelujah):

This is my favorite bit, formed from a scrap of marble left over from another project:

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Playhouse


This is the box our mattress came in last year!!! I finally got tired enough of it falling over, and desperate enough for something to entertain B with, that I built a playhouse yesterday, or at least started it.


Playhouse in progress.


B when I told him it wasn't ready yet.


Happy B, when I gave in and just let him play in his roofless playhouse. (Notice the Frank Loyd Wright, Falling Water cornerless window detail.)

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Chicken Soup with Rice

Note to self: when you have a very particular 2 year old eater, try to find Carole King ballads accompanied by Maurice Sendak animation to encourage intake of previously rejected food.



He even asked for seconds. (Thank you Penny for the delicious soup!)

Nice House



Forgive the photo quality, my camera was low on batteries and the day was low on light. There is just about nothing I like better than a little urban renewal, particularly thoughtful, inexpensive, modern bits like this house. I especially love the simple entryway and unfinished wood slats (so in keeping with the neighborhood vernacular, but natural and modern at the same time).

Friday, December 12, 2008

Baby Boy's Art Wall

BB and I cleaned his room this morning. Getting him to help me with this is usually terribly unpleasant, but this morning I decided his growing stack of paintings , which is continually getting strewn across the floor, was driving me crazy. In an effort to get them out of the way I started to just tack them up with painter's tape. B loved this!! We ended up spending a lovely morning putting away all his toys and books so that we could "discover" more paintings to hang. Every time we found a new one B would ask to be lifted up to hang it. Here is the result:

Quite stylish and bright I think.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Clean House

I took pics of the house in all its cleanly glory on Thanksgiving morn and am just getting around to posting them.


Entryway with postcard collection (I have about 10x what is hung here)


Living Room


After I took a pic of these chairs I decided that they needed art of their own and dug out the painting.


Living Room with napping husband (and a lot of orange!! I never noticed that before.)


Long view of the apartment.


Another kids chair.


Little B's Room, sort of clean.


Little B asleep in his bed nook with Auntie's painting.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I did not finish the dining room


I did not even finish the wall, but I put the table in, and a wonderful dinner was had by all.

Found Wallpaper

They are working on my bathroom right now, and there were 3 different wallpapers lurking under the layers. First up, the most recent, from the late '60s, early 70s, maybe:

Please note that there are two different different depictions of pink swans, one with a blue bow...does this conotate maleness?

Second is a beautiful, simple all over pattern from maybe the '40s:


The final pattern is a hand-printed fish border (which appears to have been accompanied by a peptobismal pink and black sponge paint job!!!!) :

Despite dubious design pairings, I am very charmed by the pattern. I wonder when it dates to? It is the oldest, on the bottom layer of renovations...maybe the late '20s, early '30s?