very simple

The kitchen was ripped out last week, so I’m really committed to this whole renovation thing – then again, I did already buy new appliances that are sitting in a warehouse somewhere, so I probably should have come to that realization a few weeks ago.

The fun part of this visit was actually that there were several open houses in the building at the same time, one of which was in the same "line" as my apartment. It was interesting to see what they did to renovate – in particular, they took down the wall that separates the foyer from the living room. I actually thought that it lost something in the transition, because you don’t really get more living room space, but you lose the sense of having another “room”.

New pictures below – the folks have moved out, all remaining furniture is stuff that they’re leaving for me (which is all pretty cool stuff). Combined with my apartment full of fairly nice furniture, and I don’t need to buy a thing on that front. Hope you all enjoy the gaping hole that used to be my kitchen (oh, and my friends who came to see the apartment this week):

This weekend was one of those supremely awesome weekends – yesterday in the 60s and today in the 70s, no humidity, and real sun. It’s one of those weekends which, after a crappy northeastern winter, really makes you feel alive again. Yesterday I spent the day at Ikea with my best friend from high school, where we obsessed alternately, over my possible kitchen layouts and her newly announced pregnancy. Since she moved up the ‘burbs with her husband, we don’t see each other as much as we used to (particularly not as much as when she lived 2 blocks from my office – it was a lot easier to drop in for dinner back in those days), and it was just really great to spend an entire day with her, driving with the sunroof open, with happy things to discuss.

Today, I spent the day with my dad, obsessing some more about the kitchen layout, debating which cabinets to buy and where to find appliances in miniature – my new kitchen is going to be extremely tiny – it’s a separate room, but the entire room is only 35 square feet and currently doesn’t have any counter space – right now it’s a 23" refrigerator next to an enourmous double basin porcelain sink next to a 20" stove. It’s pretty old school, and I’ve become somewhat obsessed about how to move things around to make it more practical. Oh, and I got to see my dad and stepmom’s new place again – they’re moving in in three weeks, and it’s almost complete. It’s pretty gorgeous. Of course, their living room is bigger than my entire current apartment, so it inspires a bit of jealousy as well. But the best part of the day was wandering around the Upper West Side, eating lunch at an outdoor table and actually getting so warm that I had to tie my jacket around my waist. Tomorrow it should be miserable, so I’m glad I got to enjoy it.

Reading Apartment Therapy today led me to this site, which is just, well, you have to see it for yourself. What’s scarier? These photos are from the year I was born, and much of my childhood was spent in interiors that were remarkably similar.

So, this morning I decided it would be a really good idea, since I actually have free time this weekend, to clean out my closet. The problem? I’m now halfway done, and all I want to do is take a nap. And for me, "halfway done" means I’ve emptied out the entire closet, and now every piece of clothing I own is sitting on my floor.

I did manage to fill 10 big black garbage bags with clothes and shoes. That is so scary to me. Thank god my cleaning lady comes this wednesday. She’s going to absolutely hate me.

This did give me an opportunity to take a little trip over to the Container Store, a place I’ve been studiously avoiding until now because I know exactly how I get when confronted with organizational nirvana. I just bought one of those elfa drawer things, which was the perfect size for the alcove at the back of my closet. I never seem to have enough space in my dresser, so I thought this could help take some of the pressure off.