Tag Archives: brownstone renovation

DIY pot rack in kitchen shelve brackets.

Project: DIY pot rack

Scott added this stainless steel rod last weekend to our custom kitchen shelving.  The open shelving with a long pot rack was one of the cornerstones of our kitchen design.  It’s definitely convenient to have pots and pans within easy reach of the stove and not taking up precious cabinet space.  The rod was thirty [...]
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New Shaker doors.

shaker doors & tung oiled floors

In many ways, our renovated apartment doesn’t look hugely different from the dumpy place we bought.  Except, um, it’s not dumpy anymore.  The layout didn’t change much on the parlor floor.  The living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen and bath all exist in their original footprints.  We liked the layout on this floor and opted [...]
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New Kitchen

It’s great to be home

We are all settled in to our newly renovated kitchen.   It is great to be back in our home, but the to-do list is long and the bills are daunting.  Forgive the blog silence, but Scott and I have been busy traveling, unpacking & DIY’ing. Here’s our kitchen to-do list that we hope to complete by [...]
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The downstairs hall.

Move in Day!!!!

Scott and I have packed up the art studio where we’ve been living for the past three and a half months and we are moving back to the brownstone tomorrow morning!!! While the project was fast by renovation standards, it felt like a long time for us to be out of our home. We are thrilled [...]
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Kitchen Renovation Update

This is just a quick update on the kitchen.  The open shelves that I designed and Marcello built are now hung above the shallow cabinets in our galley kitchen.  We opted for shelves instead of cabinets on this wall to keep the space as open as possible.   We are on the hunt for the right [...]
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Drywall going up in garden level master bedroom.

Master Bedroom Progress

Our master bedroom suite is on the garden level of the brownstone, so it is one floor down from our main living space on the parlor floor.  When we bought the apartment, the garden level was a large recroom with a miniature and nightmarish bathroom that was “renovated” by the previous owner’s brother.  The mudroom [...]
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Our soon-to-be-realized- floorpans.

Shades of Gray

I’m sitting in our backyard listening to the screeching whirl of a saw ripping eight inch poplar baseboards and watching tiny furled fronds push their way up through the soggy soil. I can imagine that the ferns are curling their way out of the ground as I write this.  There was no evidence of the [...]
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New Kholer toilet in master bathroom.

Working toilet in the master bath!

Anyone who has lived through a renovation knows that it’s an exciting day when your new toilet gets installed and you hear the sweet sound of a low-flow flush.  It was a big week at our brownstone construction site with lots of progress made.  The tiler, plumber and electrician were working overtime.  Both bathrooms and [...]
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Kitchen cabinet installation

Kitchen Cabinet Installation

Here’s a sneak peak of our kitchen cabinets, which were installed today.  There was a whole lot of sawing, planing and shimming going on because there are few right angles in our brownstone kitchen, despite our contractor’s valiant efforts.   The house was built in the 1890’s and there has been quite a bit of [...]
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B&W tile in master bath

B & W bathroom tile

The tile is about 50% installed in our garden level master bathroom.  They will use a stain-resistant white grout on the subway tile.  The hex tile floor was grouted with a dark charcoal grey, but it looks lighter than I thought it would be. They haven’t wiped the floor down yet after grouting, but the [...]
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