Tear Drop Lights

This is more of the strange day I had walking about in Manhattan, and it really deserves a whole entry, but I wanted to put a pic up of these lights so I could link to them.....I remember when this restaurant opened, before I was pregnant, when I was living in the West Village. I remember it because of the lights, they were so amazing! They all appear to be hand-blown milk glass, each one a different size. (I know the pic doesn't do them justice, but I had trouble shooting the photo through the window) The restaurant is closed now, and the sign on the door says by order of the Marshal, so I guess they got evicted. Signs of the times I guess. I wonder what will happen to the lights?

NYC gone wild!

I had to go to the city yesterday, and saw all sorts of strange and not so strange things...I have pics of some of it, and I will post them later when I can sort out all the photos. However, I don't have pics of the first thing I saw when I got out at Union Square: a hawk, sitting in the middle of Union Square Park surrounded by the feathers of the pigeon he was devouring. Moments before I got there it had swooped down and caught the pigeon, one of the amazed bystanders told me. I have lived in NYC for almost 17 years, and this is one of the most unexpected things I have ever seen.

Bookcase of the Day

Sometimes I get bored and I go trolling about blogs, looking for some inspiration/motivation.....I just found this blog, which is cute, but what I love is this lady shares my obsession with bookcases. Check out the bookcase of the day collection on the side bar!

You can move far away, but you can't escape your childhood, especially if it keeps popping up all over the net!

A few months ago I posted this detail of the wallpaper from my childhood bedroom.

Here is more of an overall shot.

A few months later I went to a housewarming party for some old friends upstate, and, while touring their house, saw this room. It took me a few minutes, but I realized it was the same pattern, just a different color-way.

A close-up of that.

A few months go by and I see this shot from a house tour at design*sponge.



Then today, while doing a vintage wallpaper search in a quest for something to cover B's bed drawers, I come across these 3 different color-ways, each with multiple rolls available, from different sellers! I did find out the wallpaper was from a manufacturer called Thomas Strahan. A few googles later and I now know that the company was founded in 1886 and was later responsible for multiple historical reproductions. All of the ebayers say the wallpaper is from the 40s, but the wallpaper in my parents house was hung in 1975, and the renovation of my friend's house responsible for their color-way was also from the 70s. I wonder when and where the pattern was originally designed....

More Urban In-fill

Love this entry way!

Here it is in the context of the building. It looks like they are still doing work...I wonder what the rest of the building will look like?

Giraffe Hat

Baby Boy went to the Bronx Zoo with his dad last week, but the trip was kind of a bust. Evidently, though B likes lions and tigers and bears in theory, the up-close and personal experience was down-right terrifying! Especially the tiger....the tigers live on a "moutain"; the boys had to leave the stroller at the bottom and climb up a big hill, at the top there is a glass viewing window. I guess the tiger walked right up to the window, and B jumped up his Dad, and they had to run back down the hill. Pretty much repeat story for every other big animal. Oh well, they came back with this cool visor.

Nice Patterns....(the baby and dog aren't half-bad either)

I was doing some back-up of old photos from my hard-drive this morning and I came across this pic from my sister's house. I mean really AWWWWWWW, but besides the cuteness of my sister's yellow lab and my roly-poly little baby, do you notice the two fabrics. Some people just have an innate ability to throw together a few things and have it look great. My sister and her girlfriend are both some of those people. I love the pillow and vintage sheet mix; the scale of the patterns, the colors, everything just works together. Great moment!

Metrocard Flowers

Things you see in the trash in New York City! First: WOW, just WOW! but second, Why? Why would you spend god knows how many hours collecting empty metrocards and carefully turning them into flowers, just to have it thrown in the trash? Maybe it is the end to a tragic love story, the reminder of which, has been tossed out to the street.....

Proof: the 80's is back.

Little B playing with his 80s vintage "Supercar" while wearing his brand new Yo Gabba Gabba hoodie.

Not my House!

These people probably think that I am some crazy stalker, because I cruise their house several times/week, usually stopping to take pictures. I guess I am sort of stalking, just stalking the light as it plays across this incredibly beautiful roof line!

Big Boy Bed

This is a BREKKE bed from IKEA, a discontinued item that I found on Craigslist and bought this weekend. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, I wanted an old iron daybed, or cot base, but I have been looking for a while and haven't found one. This is nice, I can style it like a nice daybed, and the storage drawers underneath are useful, I think I will look for some vintage kid's wallpaper to put over the drawer fronts. A plan is coming together for B's room finally! I'll try to pull together a materials/inspiration board to post.

Yet more pics of my house

I am constantly restyling, but I hope working towards an overall vision. I wanted to enter the house in Apartment Therapy's Small Cool Contest, but had trouble with the upload. However, here are the shots of my clean house. Things to note: I finally finished the wallpaper above the door in the dining room; there are mirrors covering the hole in the wall, and the quilt has been moved to form a headboard as it was always meant to be; the rug is fairly new, a cast off from my sister; I did not shoot the dining room because just beyond sight is everything I didn't want in the photos; I only styled that corner of B's room, the rest of it is pretty much a mess. The first pic is actually a hastily thrown together floor plan, but it gives you an idea of the overall layout.

Bathroom to do list:

Just to put a damper on the toilet excitement....a list of things to do in bath to make it not look like a crack house (working toilet and non-holey walls only being a few steps):

Repaint (after repairs were made, it ruined my initial paint job, so have to redo the work)
Refix the fixed light (someone did finally show-up to fix the light fixture, can't find a pic now but will post what they did later. At least I do have a working light fixture now!)
Paint? floor, haven't decided how best to do floor
Paint over pink sponge paint job on bathtub exterior (black? or deep blue?)
Hang towel shelf with hooks
Put frosted window film on windows
New shower curtains
Strip door?
Wallpaper back of shelf
Curtain around sink

To think this is all a rental! I do love the fix-up though, and I do try to get landlord to pay for as much as possible.

New Toilet

So one of the things that happened over the past month is that we got a new toilet....YEAH!!!!! It is a cool low-flow model, with an impressively simple mechanism....anyway, here are way too many pictures of toilets, but what can I say, I am easily pleased:


Waste-line, don't know why I love seeing all the pipes and stuff, but it thrills me!

There was no shut-off valve for the toilet, so the plumber installed a nice shiny new one!

Out with the old 1971 model, in with the new, low-flush modern model.

Ta-Da! Here is the final product!

My 35th Birthday

I turned 35 this weekend. We had a nice party. Other things have happened and I will post pictures, but mostly life is plodding along. I am neither sad, nor full of joy, just in the middle...enjoying my boy in all his 2.5 year old glory, but not a lot else going on. I wonder if it matters really....I used to think life had to be something, always happening, always moving, but maybe this is enough...just my boy and me, filling each day with sticks and trains and lions...well that does sound quite adventurous now, doesn't it?

Our Family

This week spiraled out of time. I have a million things to catch up on, including week 3 of the cure, which I did nothing on this week. In the mean time though, we are applying to nursery school (crazy process here in New York!!!!!!) One of the schools asked us to send a pic, and when I realized we didn't have any recent of all 3 of us, we did a quick family portrait, arm out style.

Love Letters

To my dearest Baby Boy,

You are sleeping now. We ran all over the house this morning, you helped me bake banana muffins and oatmeal cookies and then we did somersaults on Mommy's bed. I love the way you talk, so precisely, each word thought about and pronounced carefully. I love that you don't use k sounds and instead use t sounds; "otay, i toming" is a phrase that makes me feel as if my heart will burst. I love that you love to paint, no markers, no crayons, glue doesn't float your boat, but with a paintbrush in hand you are a master creator. I love how picky you are about food combinations; raisins in oatmeal, not bananas! Pears in pancakes, not blueberries! Broccoli in cous-cous and peas in mac & cheese. If these are what you desire, let me cook them everyday! I know that lately it seems as if your mama has been half-asleep, but you, my dearest lovely son, you always bring me back. I can not imagine not hearing your laugh, I live for your sweet little "I love you", I like you clean and fresh from the bath, streaking through the house, and dirty and snotty, climbing in my lap. You build towers for me to be amazed at, you make me wonder at the lives of squirrels.

Little boy, I love you too,

Your Mama

Secret pictures

Sometimes when i download my camera there are pictures my boyfriend took while I was asleep. It feels so sweet.

The Cure: Week 2

Week 1 done, and I am already behind...oh well. I still need to get the Baby's room swept and mopped today and that will catch me up. Week 2 is supposed to be about the kitchen mostly, but I cook every night, and while my kitchen could use some reorganization, I could use a little money to do that, and since there is none to spare this week, I am putting it off. So instead I am combining the exercises of week 2 with week 3's landing strip.

Before pics of my entryway (aka landing strip):





Week 2 To Do:
Fix one thing in my apartment--I am going to pull up the cracking, stinky entryway floor. I'm not sure that I can keep the vinyl (1 layer down, cracked, and painted on) or the linoleum beneath that (unsure of composition, also painted on, don't know about overall shape) but I don't think I am going to try going all the way down to wood (don't want to deal with pulling up linoleum, this is a rental!!!!) Eventually I think I will put in something from FLOR.

Clear Space For an Outbox--Straightforward
Clear one Surface and use the Outbox--I think I will pick my closet, not a surface, but it is in the entryway so the two go together.

Buy fresh flowers--I think I might buy a plant instead....I have a black thumb, but periodically I try.

Determine your style--I need no help there...that sounds arrogant, but it is just a fact, there is a reason I was an Interior Designer after all.

Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home: I cook almost every meal, but I am trying to revise the way I eat. My sister, who was macrobiotic for 2 years, just gave me 2 books on macrobiotics, and I think I am going to try out macrobiotic cooking and practices for at least the duration of this Cure. This week at least one recipe from my new books, I think something with barley....and a lot of chewing!

Choose the date for your housewarming--Feb. 28th (my birthday is March 1st, I will be 35!!!) so I can celebrate my home, my family, and growing old!

Create Landing Strip--List--Pin board, calender, set up mail station with shredder, clean up shoe area and hang art. I am not going to buy any of this, I will make from what I have.
Quick repair list for this room: Front door handle and lock: need to call locksmith, should I try to order fancy door handle? Get landlord to cover replacing with cheap option, and I will cover difference?
Strip front door (paint rubs off every time it opens and closes, worried about lead dust) Need to clear entry to other door, and order peel-away, another thing that needs money......

Clues, clues and more clues.

I love trying to figure out the history of decoration from the little bits left behind by previous inhabitants. I posted awhile back about the fish wallpaper and sponge paint job discovered while doing work on my bath. This is a pic of the linoleum tile I found underneath several layers of vinyl and stick down:

It seems to be a match, color wise, to the fish and sponge paint job. Also the paint is on the outside of the clawfoot tub, and the linoleum is the last layer of floor to go under the clawfoot legs. I thought the fish wallpaper was maybe from the 20s or 30s, but here is a link to a picture of a 1952 Armstrong Linoleum ad. Isn't that the same tile?

(PS American Vintage's Flickr stream, where I got this ad from, is amazing!!!!!) (I have been browsing it for hours, this post should just be about that.)