Steel Big Wheel Mystery

I found this steel big wheel in the trash on the Upper East Side and of course had to pick it up. I have often wondered about its origins,but have been too lazy to actually track it down, but thanks to Daddytypes, I don't have to. He posted this rickshaw:
for sale at modern50. A few quick googles later I found that the company, Angeles, is still making products. Thanks Greg!

update: Go figure, a site called, Tricyle Fetish, has a whole bunch more info about the company Angeles, history and a couple cool shots of their products. Go check it out.

Family Photo--On Vacation

This is the last picture I am posting in today's desktop clean-up. Last month we went to DC for a few days, before going down to Charlottesville to visit friends. We took Baby Boy to see the White House, and here is the obligatory photo. I think it was a bit of a disappointment for BB though. We told him we were going to see Obama's house and I think he thought we were going for a playdate with Obama. He was very upset when we couldn't go up to the house and spent the rest of the weekend asking when we could go see Obama.

Baby Boy-The Photographer

This is James, one of our neighbors. BB loves her.

B loves to get his hands on my camera, after which sessions I find images like these. I actually love these portraits....they have a strange otherworldly quality. I think though, that B does live in a world different than mind, all his edges are still soft.

Baby Boy and his Daddy

I love this picture.

Annoying Light

I didn't post this when it happened, but this light continues to annoy the crap out of me! Our bathroom light had to be replaced and I picked up the replacement fixture. I had this clever idea to get an inexpensive light that was meant to be mounted over the mirror, and turn it on it's side so it aligned with the mirror, as a side-light. I explained this to the "electrician" (I put that in quotes because this guy barely deserved the title!) but gave him the option of mounting the light in the more traditional manner, if he was more comfortable with that, and left the room so as not to hover over him in a 6' x 8' space. When I came back this was his interpretation of my instructions; excuse: didn't have a long enough wire to lower the light another 4 inches. Like I said, the light continues to annoy the crap out of me, but at least it works, which is more than I can say for the ceiling fixture (which the "electrician" did not bother to remove).

A perfect rainy day we had:

We painted and baked banana muffins (an ongoing project to find the right proportions for sugarcane processed sugar free baking, note the Agave syrup).
At the end of the day I had a partly blue B covered in batter:

A great excuse for a splashy bath!

Wierd things I have seen.

This post is part of a massive desktop clean-up. I have all sorts of images sitting around that I haven't gotten around to posting about. These are from 2 years ago......anyhoooooo, sitting on Columbia U's campus with Baby Boy and his BFF and this group of students starts playing with this GIANORMOUS balloon. As they were playing with it they were slowly joined by every mobile child (BB and BFF couldn't walk yet) in the area! I have no idea where they got the giant balloon, but I can tell you, I think I am going to get one for B's birthday one year; I think it would make the party.

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.