And the beat goes on...

Make no mistake. That wasn't the end of my fascist reign over our Father's Day weekend. Oooohhhh noooooo. We have a lot to do, and by gum! It's gonna git dun! 

So in between hanging sheets of wallpaper, John and I continued the seemingly endless battle against the paneling in our attic. My god, people. There is a surprising amount of wall up there! I mean, really. It's deceiving actually. You'd never guess there is SO MUCH wall up there, given that it's all so slant-y. The walls look small, but SMACK-O. Once you get to the top, there's still like 8-0 feet of paneling, even in the smallest spots. This is not made faster by the fact that we're tackling the electrical situation simultaneously, because I'll tell you what I DON'T want to do: Panel the whole frigging attic and then say, "Darn. I wish there was an outlet here." 

No thanks. 

That said, we're a little bit dunce-y in the electrical department, mainly because we're installing two way switches, which will be connected to two lights, and controlled both up in the attic and down at the bottom of the attic stairs. All of that requires a considerable amount of wire as well as a good amount of head-scratching. "Wait. This wire will lead from the power, to the switch, to the light, to the other light, to the other switch? And then this switch will lead back past everything directly to the power? Or wait... What???" And then both of our heads simultaneously explode. 

                    

So-- that's not helping to move the process along obviously-- especially the brain explosion part-- and lest ye forget- we've still got to paint that baby once it's all paneled. But, we've made a blood oath that well rent a paint sprayer for that unholy task, so at least there's that! 

             

This weekend we're taking off for some fun in the searing sun--visiting friends in Texas-- but fear not, we'll be back on the job fast and furiously next week. I'm determined to get the inside of this house finished soon, so I can finally enjoy some of the summer!! 

Hope you're all doing the same! 

But wait! There's more!

Since I wrote that last post, I've been a manic beaver of productivity, and have peer-pressured much of my family into a similar state. 

Come. Join me... Wouldn't you rather be wallpapering...? Why aren't you holding a nail gun...? 

Yeah. I'm great to have around. A blast at parties... 

So last weekend I charged full-steam ahead, and with the help of my mom, managed to get our staircase wallpapered! Just to refresh your memory-- this is William Morris wallpaper (the Marigold pattern, color way: Brick. Swoon!) which I bought on Craig's List for, I think, $200.00. I'm embarrassed to say that I bought this wallpaper SO long ago that I don't remember what I paid for it-- either 200 bucks or three hundred; but either way, this stuff usually retails for $300/roll, and I paid something similar for four and a half tools of it. Which it turns out-- is EXACTLY how much wallpaper you need to paper my staircase. 

AWESOME. 

Okay. Don't bust my chops. It's actually slightly more than the amount I needed, but that's not really the point. The main point here is that I didn't have to buy more, and it looks totally stunning now. 

                

I should probably mention that wallpapering a staircase without the appropriate tools (Adjustable leg ladder. Plank. Stilts. Super tall friend.) is an unequivocal misery. And I definitely used John's body as a plank a couple of times-- where I essentially leaned into the stairwell and he pushed against me to keep me from falling down the stairs as I reached those "impossible to reach" corners. If I was just a few inches taller, this would have been considerably easier. If I was a few inches shorter, I'm pretty sure this would have been entirely impossible. I even hunted around for a pair of high heels, thinking those could give me the extra height I needed. What a sight that would have been-- but sadly-- I don't appear to do a lot of dressing up upstate. The best I could find was a pair of thick-soled Hunter boots. 

Not the same. 

But when all is said and done, my family is still speaking to me, the wallpaper looks amaze-balls, and I feel decidedly triumphant that we managed to slay that project in just one weekend. Victory!! 

                   

Because nothing is simple... Alternate title: I'm not dead.

                              

As if it wasn't enough that we're hacking away at the endless list of projects upstate (I know, I know- it's a long list still: Finish paneling the attic-- almost there! Paint the attic! Hang the stairwell wallpaper! Garden! Garden! Garden!) I just had to move my Brooklyn office. Oy-gavolt. I don't know exactly what oy-gavolt means, but my impression is it's Yiddish for "Are you kidding me? This too?!?"  And yeah- that's how I've been feeling... However, we've turned a major corner with that project and I just spent my first proper work day enjoying my new office! 

                        

You might think moving offices is no biggie-- unplug the printer... Roll the office chair into the elevator... But OH NO. My old office was five floors up-- no elevator-- and what I had up there were two enormous IKEA wall units, housing all of my fabric samples (1,000,000. Very light.) and all of my tile and stone samples (1,000,000. So f-ing heavy.) Not to disregard that actual weight and size of the IKEA units themselves. Which was truly unfathomable. Like when you try to move a boulder. This sensation actually continues to amuse me, if I was going to be honest. There's something so surprising about encountering a thing you can't even rock. Like-- you can make a at rock back and forth. You can push a tree. But if you try to push a building or these bookcases, they just stare back at you blankly. They didn't even notice. 

So yeah. That was a pleasure... 

But now it's all behind us and it's really so lovely. Great light, great space. Basically it looks exactly like my other office, but with recessed lights instead of that awesome Sputnik fixture I had in the old space... 

                          

So with that debacle behind us, it's time to focus my energy back upstate and really burn through the rest of that list. Because God knows-- the attic's not gonna paint it itself.  

Curse Thee, Oh David Lebovitz.

I had a real culinary battle last night. There was stress. There was swearing. There was possibly a little h-anger* involved. Yeah, yeah. If you know me well, you know that I swear basically all the time-- on an Easter Egg hunt. In the bath. At a buddhist retreat. So saying there was swearing doesn't say much. But still. Let me paint the picture: I was genuinely annoyed. And I blame David Lebovitz. Somebody get me that guy's address. Hate mail has been composed. Have you ever cooked artichokes? To be clear, I don't mean "steamed artichokes". That's a breeze. Little lemon, a bay leaf, a steamer basket, melted butter... Wait 20-30 minutes. La-de-dah.

Fancy appetizer, 

Ooooh no. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about cooking artichokes. Which takes roughly 12 minutes to do after you've spent 45 minutes hacking away at them with a machete.

 David Lebovitz's easy-to-do "How To Prepare & Cook Artichokes" (if you've got nothing to do and you're trapped on a forgotten island) is, like, a 15-page long recipe, devoted almost entirely to prepping the artichokes for cooking. An ode to annoying. Part of my frustration is that I ended up making these nine-hours artichokes because I was making this recipe. Which sounded both interesting and relatively easy. I'd never made freekah before, but I've been hearing good things, so I was into it. In David's recipe for this freekah risotto with artichokes and bacon, he literally says "2 cups of sliced artichokes", which I foolishly took to mean "2 cups of sliced artichokes" rather than "A totally different, labor-intensive sub-recipe that will require far more of your time and energy than the primary recipe." I know. What a dunce.


When all is said and done, though, it was honestly so good. Especially the artichokes. So I'm probably going to make it again.

Maybe I shouldn't mail that letter off after all?

*hunger-anger

Unbelievable find in Brooklyn!

 I know-- it must be getting old reading about these discoveries. Literally I walked out of the house yesterday morning (walkin' the dog...) and walked straight into a deer head. What? Did I say "deer head"? Why- yes I did! 

For some mysterious reason (hopefully never to be revealed to me) the clothing shop down the street from my apartment had abandoned a fully taxidermied deer head outside of their store, and because I am awake hours earlier than my fellow hipster-Williamburgers, I was the first one to see this gem, gleaming in the summer sunlight. I did stop the only other person I saw on the street-- a pregnant lady-- to ask her if she thought the deer head was "garbage". She looked around and then said, "Girl. I think it's all yours." If a pregnant lady says it's okay, it's got to be okay, right?

So off I marched, dog in one hand, deer in the other. The good news: despite being absolutely freaking gigantic, a taxidermied deer head is actually surprisingly light. Go figure.

Now I just have to decide where to hang it. 

* Though in the meantime, having a full-sized deer head in our laundry room closet is the practical joke that never stops being funny...

Hot Pie!

Holy hot pie. 

Well, I'm hoping holy hot pie... We've got folks coming up to the country this weekend, so I whipped up this lovely looking Strawberry Peach Rhubarb pie for everyone to enjoy... I'll report back, but so far, things are looking pretty promising. 

Strawberry Peach Rhubarb Pie

•  1 and 1/2  cups  rhubarb (1/2 inch cubes)
•  1  cup strawberries
•  1 and 1/2  cups peaches
•  ¾ cup sugar
• 3 Tbs corn starch
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

This is essentially the easiest recipe I've ever read. Here it goes: 1.) Mix the contents in a bowl and stir.  2.) Let it sit for 15 minutes.  3.) Pour in shell and top with latticed crust. (Okay, this is what we call a "faux-amis" in French. Shell and crust are a few more steps.) 4.) Bake for 40 minutes at 400.  Cover the crust with foil if it gets brown before the pie is done.  Let cool, but not too much. 

Boom. 

And Now: After!

After a little elbow grease, both of my street finds have found new lives in our apartment. 

I confess, the coffee table wasn't even supposed to be for me! I found it sitting on a street corner in the West Village. I was driving along and it was absolutely whizzing down rain, and I was like ------- ARRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I don't want to put that table in my car!!!! But then I had guilt because we have three friends who literally just moved into new apartments and it seemed sacrilegious for me to leave a perfectly good coffee table sitting there when they had nothing to put there drink on when they're watching a movie. So I rallied, stuck the coffee table into the car, and zipped it back to Brooklyn.

At which point, it looked like this:

So I lugged it upstairs and gave it a good spritzing, thinking maybe I could get that mysterious white grunge off the table with a little Fantastic. No idea what it was, but Fantastic wasn't doing a thing except making the white stuff shine, so I pulled out the big guns-- Magic Eraser! I know I've mentioned this before guys, but OMG. These are definitely magic. Like legit wand-waving, harry potter having MAGIC. Two rounds of magic eraser and a little tinted Old English and you'd never know that the mystery gunk had ever been there.

At which point I looked at the table, and it was like I was seeing it for the first time.

"Well hello nurse!" 

I hadn't realized it, but maybe we needed a new street-find coffee table. (Friends be damned!) After a little rejiggering, it fit perfectly into our living room and I couldn't be more pleased.

I love free! 

My next big win was a bent-wood walnut side chair, also a discard, found in Brooklyn. This one was a little more of a challenge-- the backrest had fallen off and the seat was scratched, damaged old black vinyl. But after a little brute-force and reupholstery, the chair was rejuvenated as well! It doesn't hurt that I just happened to have a perfect piece of citrus colored linen which worked terrifically with our existing IKEA drapes. This is just the chair I've been looking for for our bedroom-- small enough to fit in the room, large enough to receive the endless pile of clothes that had been building up on top of my dresser. Yes. I've become the kind of person who has a considerable pile of clothes in her room. Disguised by a basket. (Fooling no one.) Shame on me. : (

The good news is that this chair is so pretty, it might motivate me to hang my clothes back up instead of tossing them onto the chair. Though I wouldn't hold my breath.

Old habits die hard. 

Speaking of budget design...

I've had some major "street-shopping" victories over the past two days. I've got my work cut out for me re-inventing this rad mid-century side chair, as well as a slightly bonked around teak coffee table (Thank you the West Village!) and a fab-looking wicker headboard that I'm going to spray paint white for my guest room.

I know there are a lot of doubters regarding picking stuff up off the street, but so far I haven't been burned and I've accrued a pretty rad collection that required just a little bit of elbow grease to bring it back to life.

Not for everyone, but it works for me! 

Check back in soon ~~ hopefully I'll find the time tomorrow to give this bad boy a second life. 

Well within my budget...

I'm currently working on a project out in East Hampton where we're making a dated 1960's beach house into a clean, modern home.

The reason this pertains to us/me is that in the midst of this modernization, my client gave this sweet brass-and-glass light fixture the heave-ho, and when I mentioned that I thought it was charming and deserved another chance, it went from her trash to my treasure!

Ha-zah! Free to me! My favorite price tag! 

Fast forward a couple of weekends and now it's hanging gloriously in my upstairs hallway-- sitting there like it's exactly where it should have been hanging all these years. It's looking just as sharp as can be, along with my ever-growing collection of maps and my sultry red walls.

Couldn't be more pleased-- so a big shout out goes to my generous client for sending it my way and another major thanks goes out to John for putting up that light after a long day of paneling! What a trooper. What a hero. What an endlessly patient fella. Hooray!!