Renovate Brooklyn! Day Four: The Parents Come for a Visit!

It was meant to be an early night, in the construction sense of the word, since John's parents, Michael and Sally, were coming to Brooklyn for dinner (...to celebrate John's 29th birthday for those who haven't yet wished him a Happy Birthday...) The plan was to make a little more headway and then clean like billio so we didn't have to provide them with face-masks because of all of the dirt and dust. Plus the house was a horrifying mess with the contents of every room spread every which-way, and you simply can't let the in-laws see you living like that, can you? 

 

 

Yes, that is a dresser on top of a bed, under a large pile of god-knows-what. 

And yes, that is Joseph, from a light-up Nativity Scene. Good to have in the

case of emergency.

Can you imagine coming home to this every evening? It's great.

But before we started cleaning, there was one more drastic change that I wanted to make-- cutting a window into the wall between our bedroom and the new living room/office, which would allow more natural light to pass from the street windows into the living room. There was already a funny little nook in the bedroom that looked as though someone had closed up an existing door with a sheet of dry-wall, so this wasn't going to be a difficult process. In fact, it was so simple that the door bell rang, and by the time I got back, John had already cut out the hole for the window. Whoa! That's fast.

 

Preparing to cut the new window...

Still very dusty...

 Now granted, this is a little rigged because I waited until this morning to take my "After" photo to get the full affect of the morning sun bursting through the windows, but even though I cheated a little, you have to admit- it looks pretty awesome. We still have to frame it out with a panel of drywall below the glass and then add moldings so it looks more like a window and less like the door it is, but all in all, we were quite pleased with ourselves for whipping through this quick but significant accomplishment. And then the cleaning began... and went on and on...

Looking back at these photos, I am realizing that maybe I was the only one cleaning, and John just did a thorough job of documenting the process. Thanks John. 

 

I even look a little suspicious already...

 

 

And like that, everything was tidied up just in the nick of time, and Michael and Sally came over and were wowed, and then we left, and had the most delicious dinner at one of our favorite local spots, Marlow & Sons, and the kooky waitresses came and they were so enthusiastic and all the food was "coming with something obscure" and life was good! 

Until tomorrow!