1 Hour Love Day Banner

I love love. Does that make sense? I feel so good when I hear, see or feel love. Only one day a year seems a little on the skimpy side. But everyday is Valentines Day in my house. We say I love you, a lot. But part of me gets sickened by the gross amounts of pink and red Valentines Day seems to exude. Don't get me wrong I still use those sometimes, but not to excess. I like seeing shades of blush and raspberry instead.

I made this whole banner start to finish in under 1 hour. Perfect nap time project! I saw something similar a long time ago (aka pre-pinterest). So I did my best to create something similar.

What you will need:

Paint Chip Samples in your favorite colors. 

Chipboard or Card Stock (Cereal boxes work great!)

String

Sharpie (a pen/pencil would work fine too)

Scissors

Hole punch (aka my meat fork)

A sleeping baby helps too

oh and some flowers from Trader Joe's

Make a heart, on the card stock and use it as a template onto the samples. 

I choose Glidden samples because they were the biggest solid color ones. The multi-tone samples would be neat too. Honestly the rest is self explanatory, you cut them out and string them together!  I did use my meat fork to produce evenly spaced holes. 

If you need step by step instructions for how to poke holes and string them together. I will happily send you the number to my 7th grade home-ec teacher Mrs. Armbruster. 

I have a ton of 3M command strips and I always use them on stuff like this. I cut out 2 extra hearts to make end caps for the banner. 

HAVE A HAPPY LOVE DAY!!

oh, and make sure to hang it out of reach. 

Chalk Board Door + Bonus

So sorry for another delay... my excuses are so lame. But now my computer is set up on my kitchen counter with a wireless card installed and I am good to go! (I am hunting for a desk) If you follow me on instagram, you saw we had a busy week, from the Maya Hayuk mural on The Bowery, play dates with favorite friends and being locked out of the apartment by my toddler. 

As we were moving in we realized we had not painted the back of the front door! It was still that hideous green/gray color of years past. I was ready to whip out my paint brush and paint it off white like the rest of the walls. But my brilliant husband suggested a chalk board! (how cool is he?) I honestly could of slapped my for head with a dramatic "Why didn't I think of that?!"

I gave the back door a good washing and sanding to help the paint stick to the old paint. 

Everything was covered and taped. What would we do without blue tape?

Product of Choice.

After the first coat, I did 3 coats just to give it good coverage.

VERY IMPORTANT: It is imperative to have a toddler wrapped around your legs while you are painting. Absolutely key.

After waiting the designated 3 days (or almost 3 weeks) I conditioned the door with a chalk layer.

Rub it in, while asking your tired husband to take pictures of you doing it. After I rubbed it all in I washed it off and started doodling.

It made for a very entertaining morning watching him color and doodle all over the door. 

I was also planning on painting the front door this month as well. Then the Polar Vortex hit. And we haven't had an above freezing in awhile. I think my feet are actually getting used to socks! But it has been way too cold to paint the front door. But as a bonus here is what color it will be!

Touches in Duke's Room

Sorry for the delays we have been without internet, the polar vortex froze all the snow on our roof and the installer couldn't open the access door. It was a long week! But I was able to unpack a good bit of our stuff. I am the worst unpacker ever, because I try to think out where everything should go to make the most sense. This is also so in 3 months I don't rearrange my kitchen.

Seeing this room this way, I am even more grateful I wouldn't let them cover up the archway, or even the ledge in the archway. It came out exactly as I had envisioned.

Babyletto Grayson mini crib in navy and a Monte glider in charcoal.

  

Letters left over from Dukes birthday party.  I might paint them to look like Zinc, but I am happy with them at the moment.

 Vintage globes I have acquired over the years (I have 3 more in storage) and a miniature bookshelf I rescued from the trash at our old building.

Dukes first paining, a vintage cast iron Hubley motocycle I got for $7 at an estate sale and a carved Bernese Mountain Dog from my dad. Not to mention all of our books! We have many more to unpack as well. Of course they never look like this, Duke pulls them down on a daily basis.

The space above Duke's crib will not be left blank, I have been on the hunt for the perfect pull down type map.  Or, a beautiful blue print of the NYSE I have been coveting for months.

Goldilocks Bathroom

Wow, we are feeling so blessed. We have recieved so many texts, emails and comments of support and encouragement after our times article (read it here). It was so exciting for us and we could not have been happier with it. We grabbed several copies on Sunday and were shocked to see our faces on the front page of the real estate section! We of course took cheesy pictures of ourselves holding the newspaper. It was a wonderful moment to be in. We feel like real New Yorkers now. Watch Out World!

I am working on responding to all the emails and comments, bear with me! We are busy packing and moving this week so that has been pretty time consuming. But have no fear, I will respond.

But here is the bathroom, with it's 3rd sink. Yes, third. First (pictured on my bathroom board) was too big, which was a error on our part. We thought it was 18 inches side to side, not front to back. Lesson learned. Second sink was a wall mount with a towel bar underneath. Super cute, but way too tiny for our main bathroom. It would have been awesome for a half bath. We did not really want a cabinet but we were running out of options and time and it fit the bill. So, we brought it home with us. Not to mention that you can never have too much storage in NYC. 

We are having mirror problems, we (I) can't decide if a full width mirror would be best or a smaller and scaled down mirror would be better. I found an awesome dresser mirror but its 1 inch too big and its wood, so it would get ruined in a bathroom. Maybe I'll find something stellar on Craigslist. fingers crossed!

I just bought a shower rod but have not committed to a curtain yet. We are moving in this weekend so I am going to need to make some decisions soon. I am going to show you all my spiffy shelves soon once I finish working with my great friend Carly who is the most organized person of all time. Since I am not that person she is going to help me with creating an awesome plan for that space. Lets be honest "stuff" is ugly. 

95% Done

Today was the first time Duke was ever allowed out of the stroller to run around. (I was meticulous last night about making sure every nail and screw were completely picked up.) He was in heaven. There is still some lingering dust on the floors it started to turn into a slip and slide, but he loved running in and out of each room and opening and closing all the doors. He even got in on our cleaning action this morning. 

Kitchen is all done, with the exception of 6 drawers. But done enough for me! I am going to take a fine grit sand paper and go over the top of the counter before treating it with mineral oil. 

More kitchen. I am so grateful for all of that counter space. I think our first order of business will be to bake some cookies as a family. 

We haven't decided if we want to repaint the interior of the window well Ivory or keep them blue. To be debated. 

Still my favorite bedroom. This is the room that makes me tear up when I think about the whole process. I can't wait to start bringing in our own things and putting in curtains and blinds. 

I completely forgot to take a picture of the bathroom today. But that can wait. It's not as cute as this:

My little helper. 

All Night Cleaning Session

We were cleaning this place until 4 AM. When we left there were people delivering the day's food and trash was being picked up. I don't know if we have ever seen the city at that hour. We had to take out mounds of trash, mostly cardboard and packaging boxes. Then we had to tear off all the red rosin paper to get to the hardwood floors and finally be able to see them. I was doing most of the vacuuming and removing the floor paper while Brandon installed the doors to the cabinets.  Here is a sort of time line for how the apartment went this weekend.

Saturday Night:

 Sunday Night 7:00 PM

 Sunday Night 9:00 PM

 Monday Morning 1:00 AM

 Monday Morning 3:30 AM

Taking up all the paper was tedious because we had to rip it up in sections to try to contain the dust that had settled on top of it. But we are in love with our hardwood floors. And even though we were up all night it was worth it. However we are paying for it dearly today. 

Kitchen Installation Part 2

Appliance Delivery: I wish I got more pictures of this process, but I had Duke in the stroller and there was some extreme jack hammering going on 15 feet to the left of where these guys were all standing. I would have also been in the way and it was raining. So Duke and I watched from Dunkin Donuts across the street. (Have I mentioned that a Dunkin Donuts is across the street? They know us already...) 

The trouble with the delivery was that once they showed up, the delivery crew said they couldn't take the appliances upstairs, because they would have to be lifted over the banister. A very not happy Brandon even offered them more than they make in a day to do it, but still nothing. So Brandon, my brother Brian who was here for the weekend and Carlos hoisted it all in their selves. I was impressed as I watched them do it and figure it out. They told me the worst piece was the washer because it was so heavy and the fridge because of the height was tricky, but made it in unscathed. 

A big THANK YOU to our friends in the downtown area we texted (way too early) on Saturday morning to come help us, but it ended up being much quicker than anticipated, and everyone was able to go back to bed. We are so glad we are staying so close to all these peeps even though some of them are leaving us very soon. 

A quick note about Brandon: He has worked so hard on this place, not only does he have a full time job, but he is always over at the new place working on anything he can. He spent this entire weekend working through the pain of a kidney stone. He said he wasn't in much pain Saturday until Saturday night when he was installing the ceiling fan and all of a sudden he went white with pain. It took almost 30 minutes for the pain to subside and when it did, he went back to work before heading home. 

If you have ever had a kidney stone you can sympathize, I have experienced both a kidney stone and giving birth and people always ask which is worse, and there is no real answer. Kidney stone pain feels like a 20-30 minute contraction (labor pain) straight. But it goes away right after for hours, days or weeks. You never know if and when the pain will come back. Unlike labor pain which comes and goes for hours (and hours). 

Needless to say, Brandon is a rock star and this place would not be as amazing with out all of his efforts and attention!

Cabinet, Counter and Appliance Installation: 

Counter top for the washer and dryer.

I joked with a few friends that these are my new toys. I am so excited to do laundry! (I love doing laundry, HATE folding it)

I love all of this. Its so fun to peel all the protective layers off the appliances.

I am so grateful my brother Brian was here this weekend. He and Duke played all day Saturday so I could go on multiple Home Depot trips and help with some major installation decisions. We wouldn't have been able to it with out him. 

We got a really late start the next day. Brandon needed more sleep and our construction guys had something come up so they would be running late. Which is fine, but we were on a deadline for Monday morning so we  really needed to push it the rest of the day to get the work done. 

Also really grateful for the Goforths who volunteered to take Duke for the afternoon (they are saints). I don't think we would have made our deadline with out them because I had so much stuff to do, that I couldn't do with Duke in tow.

Paneling pieces being cut.

Upper cabinets going in! 

Last base cabinet Hooray! 

Fixing something with the dishwasher

Time to put doors on and start cleaning the apartment. 

Kitchen Installation Part 1

Brandon's dad, John, came to help assemble the kitchen last weekend. They knocked out all of the assembly and installed almost all of the base cabinets and counter tops. It was a little tricky because the floors are still a smidgen unlevel (yes, even after the floors got leveled...) so there was some adjusting that needed to happen.  Brandon and his dad really did a great job it was amazing to come through out the day to see the progress! 

A kitchen in boxes

The assembly line

Lets be honest this weekend was really about bonding. 

My living room... So much stuff needs to get out of here.  

Then I came back the next day and BOOM! My kitchen is coming together! They have knocked this thing out of the park so far! Looks great doesn't it!?

I am so glad I chose the apron front sink, even though I had originally wanted the 30" I am going to be just fine with the 24". So many plans got changed throughout this remodel, some decisions were made based on cost, others on fit and size, I have learned a great deal about prioritizing my needs for the apartment. (see post about window trim, ha)