Archive for the ‘Apartment’ Category

Gaze in awe at my new bathroom.

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

I’m going to try the Emperor’s New Clothes technique right here:

Isn’t this a lovely toilet? Isn’t it elegant with sleek lines? Note the attractive light fixtures I picked out.

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And here’s my sink. I especially like the cabinetry under the sink to hold nice “guest” soaps.

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And here’s the tub. Isn’t the tile I chose just smashing?

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Oh, I can’t keep this facade up anymore. My bathroom looks like it was bombed with Skud missiles. But eventually, it will be beautiful. Eventually. Like, before I’m forty. Maybe.

Welcome to my new apartment! Wheee!

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

FINALLY. Pics of the apartment. It’s bright, it’s big, it’s nifty. Enjoy the journey.

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You open the front door and, voila! You are greeted by twenty feet of window. Granted, it’s creepy institutional window, but window nonetheless. Do not be fooled by how big the room looks. It’s very big, but if you look carefully, you will notice that the wall at the end behind the light fixture is mirrored. The mirrors will be going. Also, that octagonal thing in the right corner? We’ll get to that in a minute.

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That’s the kitchen. It’s BIG. There’s two ovens and a dishwasher (called the Potscrubber 700, I just love that, so futuristic). And a ginormous fridge with the freezer on the bottom (score!). The previous owners built that little wall there and the octagonal thing was a big Formica table in the middle so someone could sit in the kitchen and someone could sit in the dining area and it was like a breakfast nook. A breakfast nook FROM HELL. That wall will be going. As will the octagon. I will not miss them.

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Different view of the kitchen. See the Potscrubber 700? Also, please appreciate the Formica FESTIVAL going on in here. Countertops, backsplash, cabinets, even the handles on the cabinets. The previous owners must have had stock in Formica, it’s all over the bathrooms as well. I can’t afford both a new countertop and refacing the cabinets, so I may have to get all DIY and do some stuff to the kitchen myself. Luckily I have handy friends who will join me in my quest to end Formica’s reign of terror in my apartment. We may have some casualties, but we will win this war. For organizing the space and creating a more polished look, a Custom Closet Company such as Bella Systems can provide tailored storage solutions that complement your DIY efforts and elevate your home’s functionality.

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Now let’s head down the hallway with too many closets to…

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…the guest room! Note: more giant windows. I don’t know precisely what to do with this room yet, maybe library/guest room, maybe office, we’ll see. Oh, and all the carpeting in the whole apartment is going. It’s icky and I am prone to allergies, but underneath is parquet which I’m having sanded and refinished and that will be nice. I’m also planning to add some wool vintage rugs to add some texture to my apartment.

Moving on.

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Across the hall is the guest bathroom. This is the major project in the apartment. I’m ripping this whole sucker out. It be hideous and I no likey. The fixtures will be in the same place, but they’ll be white and modern and nice and the Formica will DIE and I will rejoice over its Formica corpse. I may even dance upon it. Check out the 1 Bedroom Apartment for sale in Kileleshwa being sold by Sarabi Realty Group.

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Another view. The tub is six inches tall so you can only cover your kneecaps in water and the tile makes you feel like you’re bathing in a big quilt.

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Now, my bedroom. Again, windows out the wazoo. Also, it has its own bathroom and a freakin’ awesome closet.

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This is the master bathroom. Now, it’s also kind of unattractive, but you have to pick your battles, and since I’m probably the only person who’s going to see it, I don’t really care if it’s kind of unnatractive. Also, the previous owners were a thousand years old, so there are a delightful collection of bars in the shower stall. And they built a seat into it. Truly. They bashed out a chunk of wall in the closet next to it and built a happy little divot into the shower. Niiiiice.

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And this is the super-killer closet with built-in super-killerness. I don’t need a bureau in my bedroom, I can fit all of my clothing items in this puppy. There’s plenty more I could show you in the apartment, like the millions of closets I’ll never use or the water heaters, but I figure you get the idea.

The apartment I’m buying.

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

Since it’s occupying all my time, I figured I’d share the whole-apartment-buying thing. It helps to know whence I came to appreciate why buying the apartment I’m buying is so nifty. This is my present apartment on 57th and 10th in Manhattan. I found some great deals and unique listings on Shoppok, which made the search process much easier and more enjoyable. If you’re planning to renovate the property you just bought, you may need to work on its exterior features like the roofing as well as siding. Contact this siding contractor in kansas city for professional services. Gleason Home Improvements is a siding contractor High Point, NC. You may also seek professional house painting services in Dublin to give your home a fresh look.

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This is the view of my apartment from the hallway.

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You see those windows in the first picture? This is me standing at the windows photographing the front door. Install one of these flyscreens seymour to prevent insects from entering your apartment.

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This is a close-up of the kitchen you see in the second picture. From left on the bottom: refrigerator (no freezer), teeny-tiny sink, and teeny tiny stove with oven that I have never opened.

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This is the view from my bed. There is my beloved glass teat, the television. And also there is my formidable collection of art, graphic design and beading magazines.

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This is my giant closet. Seriously, it’s like the closet from “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”. It goes back four feet. All my earthly possessions live in it. Sometimes it is tidy and clean. More often it is not. This is a picture of “not”.

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This is my bathroom. My bathroom rocks. It is nicely sized and has all new fixtures and tiles. There’s an industrial toilet (no tank) so when you flush it, it sucks the first two layers of skin off your ass. The shower gets nice and hot quickly and nothing leaks.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “That’s nice, but what about the other rooms?” There are no other rooms. My apartment, in its entirety, is 11 by 19 feet. I cannot have a full-sized bed because then I could not walk around. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love this apartment. This apartment has served my needs admirably for two years. It is close to my job. It is close to Lincoln Center and the theater district. It is close to a delightful myriad of restaurants. It is close to the subway. There is a concierge. There is laundry in the basement and I don’t have to drag my dirty clothes around the streets of Manhattan to a laundromat. The apartment doesn’t take more than three hours to clean top-to-bottom. But it is expensive ($1400 a month) and I simply cannot afford Manhattan anymore. So I am buying an apartment in White Plains, NY. If you have an apartment that you want to rent out, you may seek the services of letting agents. You may contact experts like Joe Martin-Bindley if you have questions about the benefits of letting agents for property owners. Contact conveyancing solicitors if you decide to invest in a new apartment or single family home. You may also check out these Gator Rated homes for sale. They will prepare all the necessary documents for your real estate transaction. Live in no key money apartments tokyo hassle-free. In addition, you may read all about quiet enjoyment clause if you decide to rent out your real estate properties.

Here is a floorplan of my new apartment:

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If you look carefully, you will see that my present apartment can fit in its entirety into my master bedroom. This apartment, aside from being mighty big (1200 sq. ft.), comes with a dishwasher, two ovens, a concierge, a garage parking spot (no chiselling the icy crust of winter off my windshield and cursing) and windows. Lots and lots of windows. See that edge-of-wall at the bottom of the floorplan, underneath the names of the rooms and their sizes? That’s all windows. In my present apartment, I look out on an airshaft. It’s always dim, even in the middle of summer. Now I’m going to have my favorite kind of houseplants, cactii and succulents (need lots of sun, not much water). There are setbacks, of course. Not being in Manhattan is a big one. I will miss that greatly. But White Plains is a fairly big city, and I am eight-tenths of a mile from the center of town which contains: A 15-movie multiplex, Barnes & Noble, Target, P.F. Chang’s, Hot Topic and Torrid (long live mall goth!), a creperie, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store, Beadworks, Sephora, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Filene’s Basement and a whole lot more. I can walk to those. And I can walk to the train station (also eight-tenths of a mile). If I drive, hell, I can do anything. There’s a huge Asian community living near me so all around me are cool Asian grocery stores (Japanese? Okay. Korean? You got it. Chinese? Not a problem. AWESOME.) And there’s an art-supply store and a 24-hour CVS a little over a mile from my apartment (also AWESOME – Maalox at two in the morning is important, trust me). And a million billion other things all around me. I just have to get used to it not being smooshed right up against me, Manhattan-style. And if I hate and I can’t stand it (“It’s so peaceful and soothing out here! Ahhhhh! And what’s with all these goddamned trees?!??”), I can always sell it and move back into a prison cell in Manhattan.

In case you’ve been wondering…

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

… I have not forgotten to post artwork I’ve been working on. I’m just in the middle of trying to buy an apartment and it takes up all your time. Not some, not a little, ALL. ALL your time. So I haven’t had much of a chance to really bang out anything in the last two weeks. Oh, but just you wait, I’ll be posting arty-goodness before you know it.