Pics of the new apartment

At long last, I’ve quit being so lazy and taken some photos of our new apartment.  Well, actually…I’ve just been enjoying living here so much that it’s not quite laziness as it is absent-mindedness.  At any rate, here are some pics of the new digs here in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

This is the reading nook in the dining room…looking into the “living room” and bedroom.  (I put “Living Room” in quotes b/c it’s super small and really more of a tv watching spot and nothing else.  Oh well, we don’t usually invite people over for tv anyways!

This is our “office” zone in the dining room.

This is our “music & books” zone in the dining room.  I thought I’d taken a photo of the kitchen too, but I suppose I forgot to upload it from the camera…and now I don’t have much time to fiddle with more.  We’re off to PA today to spend a little time with MOM!   Have fun everyone!  Hats off to SUMMER!!!

Brooklyn Apartment Tour

This is our friend Amy’s apartment.  It’s delightful, no?  She’s quite a talented prop stylist.  And Nick took these lovely photos of her place today.  I couldn’t help but share them with you.

Lovely.  Sigh.

Apartment Update

Things are finally coming together around here…

You can see (below) which bare-bulb light fixture that we ended up going with.  It’s the “Defiance” fixture from Schoolhouse Electric.  I can’t even tell you how much we love it too by the way.   It’s black enamel, and looks great with an oblong edison light bulb.

Here’s our dining space.  It’s part of the main living/dining combo.  I must say that I’m really starting to LOVE the apartment by the way.  We are now becoming converts to “living small.”  There was no reason for us to have a 4 bedroom house before.  It was absolutely crazy and way too much to clean and take care of.  But now, this is completely manageable.  Possibly our only complaint would have to be about the size of the kitchen.  (But that’s probably more Nick’s complaint than mine at this point since I don’t have time to cook very often.)

A sneak peak into our bedroom.

Let it snow…let it snow…let it snow.

Well, the weather outside is frightful…

(We didn’t write that, I swear.)

But the fire is so delightful…

But since we’ve no place to go…

Let it snow…let it snow…let it snow!!

Today was possibly the best snow day, I’ve ever had.  Complete with Scrabble, homemade soup, and our first fire in our very own fireplace.  I couldn’t love Brooklyn more right now.  Of course, our street may never get plowed if that person doesn’t come back for the minivan they abandoned at 4am last night.

Apartment Kitchen Update

The difference between living in your own house and living in an apartment is pretty big.   For example, what I would choose to upgrade my kitchen with vs. what the landlord chooses to use is vastly different.  Neither of us are fans of granite countertops…however, never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, we’re grateful for our new dishwasher, granite counter, and single-head sprayer faucet.  I feel as if “The Jefferson’s Theme Song” has been running through my head all day. We almost didn’t even get the sprayer faucet, but I mentioned that since the new sink is shallower than the old one due to the under-sink dishwasher, it would be next to impossible to fill our coffee pot if we kept the old faucet.  He agreed.  (Whew!)  One lesson learned today…it never hurts to ask!

Our next plan is to paint the cabinets black.  It’s going to make a huge improvement on the overall aesthetics of this little 5′ x 5′ space.  (Mainly because the fridge and stove are white….so it needs a single color scheme to keep it in check.)  Also, I’ll be getting rid of all the brass cabinet pulls.  Little details will make a big improvement.   (P.S. Our counterspace is hilariously small.   Can you tell from this photo?  Yes, that’s IT!  But we have a solution for that too thanks to Ikea.  More details to come soon.)

The Beauty of the Bulb: Light bulb-exposing industrial lighting trend

I love my cfl’s for the sole purpose of saving energy costs, don’t get me wrong…but I hate the light quality that they produce. Therefore I’ve relegated them to use in our reading lights, lamps with patterned shades [to help disguise the light color], and any overhead lights with frosted glass shades.  So with that disclaimer, I launch into a post about bare bulb lighting.  It seems to be everywhere these days, as are edison bulbs.  (Even my mother-in-law has used them in her new guest house!)  And now that we’ve moved into a new apartment with TERRIBLE cheap, brass apartment light fixtures, we’re looking for some relatively inexpensive light fixtures that we can replace these gaudy brass ones with.

Now, I’m sure you’re thinking…why would you replace them?  This isn’t your apartment!  Well…true that.  But we will be living here for quite some time, and when we move we can always put back up the ugly ones and take the new ones with us.  Sooo…with that being said, here are a few of the bulb-exposing fixtures that have caught our eye during our lighting search.

1. Burnside Bulb Pendant from Rejuvenation $112, comes in 12 finishes and different classic cord colors. 2. Blazon Gleam Copper Pendant from Anthropologie $98.  3. Barely There Pendant from Anthropologie $248. 4. Mechanic’s Beacon Pendant – Large Flower from Anthropologie, $148. 5. Defiance Bare Bulb ceiling mount fixture at Schoolhouse Electric, $89. 6.  Clark Flushmount Ceiling Fixture by Wilmette Lighting at Affordable Lamps, $200. It reminds me of this Roost table lamp, but for your ceiling!  7. Clark Modern Pendant Light by Wilmette Lighting at Affordable Lamps, $292.

1.  Wayland Pendant from Schoolhouse Electric, $151 as shown 2.  Porcelain Bare Bulb from any local hardware store, $3.50  3.  Lyon Ceiling Mount fixture from Schoolhouse Electric, $127 as shown 4.  Vintage Pendant Lights from Moon River Chattel, $300

1. Dose of Color Fabric Cord bare bulbs at Anthropologie, $68 (These also look great when used with a lampshade as a hanging pendant over a dining table.  The fabric cord is a great pop of color!)  2.  Roost Berlin Pendant Light from Velocity Art & Design, $163

Soon, you’ll see what we ended up choosing for ourselves and our new apartment!  Hint:  One of these we already owned and brought with us.  A second we chose out of this grouping, and the third wasn’t on here at all.  Haha!  (Everything can’t be bare bulb, y’know!  After all, variety is the spice of life!)

Settling into the place…

Well, it’s after Thanksgiving now and we’re finally starting to settle in.  Things feel kind of homey, although not totally perfect.  Here’s a bit of what things are shaping up like so far.

This is what we’re referring to as our “Christmas Tree.”  I mean…hey, the lights are in the shape of a cone, and there is a hanging green plant in the center.  Soon we’ll start hanging ornaments from it.  Ha!

Every year we decorate gingerbread houses after stuffing ourselves with Turkey at my in-laws house.  This was my contribution, and now my only real Christmas decoration.  Everything else is in storage, and I don’t feel like digging it out.  :-\

We had to scale back a lot when downsizing to this apartment, but we did bring a ton of wall art.  In fact, our movers made a snarky comment about it.  We obviously don’t have room for it all (and we have a bunch shoved under our sofa), but here’s a little bit that actually made it up.  Little by little…

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!