Tag Archives: budget renovation

Design Idea: Microwave Cubby

Whether you’re planning a big budget kitchen renovation or a small budget kitchen upgrade, it’s the little details that matter.  One detail we took into account was the microwave.  Since we hardly ever use it, and since microwaves aren’t sexy, we didn’t want it to be front and center in our kitchen.  We definitely didn’t want [...]
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The Hunt: Junkyard Chic

I don’t have any pretty photos today, so I’m just going to show you some quick pix of my latest junkyard find.  I bought this solid wood vintage medicine cabinet with original beveled mirror ($60) on a recent Brooklyn thrift store junket and quickly sprayed it white so that I could hang it over my [...]
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Backyard after planting (2009)

Backyard Before & After

If you stopped by the blog on Friday, you know that my Dad was in town for the weekend.  We didn’t make it to the flea market because I was a little under the weather, but Dad and I visited the farmers market Saturday morning and we had a casual dinner in the backyard that [...]
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Photo: ©Moya Mc Allister

Your Kitchen Questions Answered

Some of you may remember that Scott and I recently completed our galley kitchen renovation, replete with hand-finished floors (which I goofed and still have to repair) and a DIY pot rack.  It was featured on Apartment Therapy and  in a guest post on BrooklynLimestone, but if you missed that, you can catch all of [...]
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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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Kitchen elevations by Josh Pulver, www.apluscny.com

Kitchen cabinet build starts this week

Our new galley kitchen will be beautiful, despite some budget compromises.  Our cabinets are being custom made by a local carpenter.  Initially we designed the kitchen with face frame cabinets and inset doors with exposed hinges, but this was way out of our budget reality, so we opted for more typical “frameless” cabinets.  They will [...]
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Kitchen floorplan by Josh Pulver, www.apluscny.com

sleek appliances for our small galley kitchen = big budget

Redoing the small galley kitchen of our brownstone apartment is eating up a BIG part of our renovation budget. We have splurged on some pricey European appliances because they tend to have a shallower profile, which we need in this narrow space. Our kitchen is not only a workspace, it is also the throughway to [...]
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