View allAll Photos Tagged homeimprovements
This is my newly installed toilet flushing. And better yet-- it is flushing without leaks. I had someone help me carry the toilet upstairs-- after that I did all the installation myself.
Fuck yeah! Go toilet go!
The finished paint job. Looks a bit purply sometimes, but I think grey was a good choice with the pink tiles.
Started the flooring in our bedroom which is that last one. We should be able to move back in about 2 weeks.
We were fortunate that we got a few helpers to do this project. We got a good 3/4 of the project done by the end of the first day.
The lock in our front door has been sort of crappy and prone to sticking since the day we moved in; we've pretty much always used the back door only for the last couple years because we wanted to make sure not to get locked out of our own house.
Until today! Some drilling and some chiseling and some screwdrivering and some futzing and, blammo: a front door we can actually use to leave the house through.
Once upon time, in a quiet village, stood a small bungalow, which suffered from neglect because its owners didn't have any money to maintain it properly. A sign "for sale" had been standing in the front garden for a very long time, but nobody was interested since the bungalow was of very modern design, which was a sharp contrast to the rest of the historic village. Day after day the wood rotted away and nature slowly took over the garden, until only a complete make-over could help the bungalow to survive...
Our kitchen is well-used. We love to cook, and cook at least three dinners a week at home. We also try to eat breakfast together and we eat at the table. When we have one or two guests we try to eat at the table too.
But our kitchen could do better in terms of comfort. The overhead fluorescent light makes it a very cold space at night, when we usually have guests. The wall spaceabove the kitchen table is underutilized and makes the room seem bare and overly functional. The ironing board stashed over my sewing machine in the corner doesn't help with that.
Another detail I like is our fridge magnets. They're a combo of marble magnets and vintage soda caps.
This is the only room in the house where the walls have color. Our landlord (well, actually his wife) made it clear that we shouldn't paint in dark colors, and since he'd hired someone to paint we complied with a soft lemon yellow. It's a little "country" for my taste, but it's acceptable and warms up the room a bit.
It's weird, but the herb plants may be my favorite thing about our apartment. I think they sort of summarize what I'd characterize as my style (since the book asks you to describe your style in three words) - organic, bohemian, a little messy. Looking at all the examples on AT lately, I feel like a bit of an outsider. Everyone's taste seems so ultra-modern, and while I love to look at those examples they strike me as somewhat sterile. That's not me. At the same time my style is a bit unfocused. Part of me looooves the Bauhaus and Danish modern stuff - my parents had a good bit of this type of furniture in our house growing up - Wassily chairs and stuff. It's just mostly out of our price range, even Ikea versions (our price range is generally "free" since we are both full time students in NYC).
edit: actually, maybe the best way to describe our style is "wabi-sabi."
Once upon time, in a quiet village, stood a small bungalow, which suffered from neglect because its owners didn't have any money to maintain it properly. A sign "for sale" had been standing in the front garden for a very long time, but nobody was interested since the bungalow was of very modern design, which was a sharp contrast to the rest of the historic village. Day after day the wood rotted away and nature slowly took over the garden, until only a complete make-over could help the bungalow to survive...
Joanna putting the outlet cover back on. The hallway has been repainted and we finished replacing the underlayment.
The blue of the bedroom plays nicely off the green of the hallway. My scarves are all neatly kept behind the door on Captain Hook, and the print from the Ecuadorian cloud forest has finally found a home.
Alison, in what used to be the kitchen, and what will eventually be the stairs. Everything to the left of her used to be our bedroom and will become a new bigger kitchen. With a window!
The old switch box. The wires have been pulled back up to the top. This will be mostly covered by trim, the rest covered by spackle and texture.
Box for the outlets, one switched (for the closet light) the other hot (for recharging stuff at some point?).
... annd the clothes descending back into the darkness beyond. Mostly either hung laundry or jackets that never make it out to the coat rack during the winter.
Time has come to fix up the dining area in the house. New floor coming but first is painting the walls.
As a brief side note, during all the rest of this activity, Jim also put together new shelving for the washer and dryer closet. As can be seen, there was only one shelf, high up and back. The wall has some test painting that Margie had done several years ago. By the time Jim was done there were two better shelves in back, a broad board /shelf across the washer and dryer, shelves down and to the right, and the whole thing was repainted.
(that was the name of the green paint. "liberty park.")
we tried out many, many different scenarios for furniture arrangement in the office. should we share a desk? should our desks face each other? as you can see we ended up dividing one wall down the middle, but we share the file cabinet and the monster shelf that tom built.