Wednesday, October 26, 2011

My portfolio so far...

Finally got a chance to update my portfolio!  Check it out here.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

the Apartment Vol. 2

This weekend I learned a very embarrassing lesson.  Somethings should not be "Done Yourself".  There are somethings that should be left alone... for instance ugly jumbled up cable wires outside of your building.  Are they connected or are they not connected?  In attempts to clean up the entrance side of our building, Mr. Z and I were over zealous and ended up cutting one of our neighbors' internet/phone/cable tv...  Yikes!  Luckily, our neighbors were very cool and calm about the situation, but we still felt terrible.  We all know what a pain it is to call the cable company, set up an appointment, and wait for the guy to show up between a time frame of 5 or so hours... that is if you get an appointment within 2 weeks of your call.  Hopefully that will not be the case.  To help lessen the blow, I got them a bottle of wine.  Oh man... I'm still cringing from it.

So, on to more things that are safely done yourself...



I love the way chalkboard looks so why not make a whole wall a chalkboard?  It makes it really convenient to write your to-do's and warms up the space a bit.  The only thing is that the stuff stinks so you have to have a lot of fans and ventilation while you are painting.  I wanted the wall to be magnetic as well, so I applied a magnetic primer.  However, I found that the magnetic primer makes the wall a little too course for a writing surface.  So if I were to do it again, I would only use the chalkboard paint.


A little trauma happened while we were painting... Loki one of our cats got into the chalkboard paint and his paw was black for weeks... so if you have animals, you probably want to shut them out of the room you are painting.  This stuff has a tar-like consistency.




Friday, October 14, 2011

the Apartment Vol.1

It has taken some time, but our apartment is finally coming together.  The first completed area was the living room/dining room/sewing room.  We are still waiting for our sectional, so I'm just going to show you the dining/sewing area.  It doesn't look like we did a lot of work to change the space... but it feels like we did a lot of work.  Here are the before photos...


There were pretty sizable gaps between the floor and the foot of the molding, so we tore them out and replaced them with new ones.

I love the amount of light we get and the details of an older building.  I usually go for grey or white walls, so this time I went for aqua, but chose a grey color as well to balance.  I say "I" but Mr. Z of course had a lot to say about the colors as well ;-P.  I think the painting was the hardest part.  It was never ending because we repainted all of the molding too!

Happy Friday!  I'll post more of our apartment and DIY renovations soon... once I think it's presentable.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

More about my Windowfarm

It took some work at first, but now I have the beginnings of a hydroponic garden!  I've been eye-ing the Windowfarms™ project for some time now, and was lucky enough to attend their moving sale/potluck/learning session.  The project is pretty amazing, and I can't wait to see what they come up with, in the next stage of their window farm design.  Made from found and recycled water bottles, tubes, and an aquarium pump (and more but you get the point) the current home kit runs about $274 ($139 without the bottles).  Perhaps the first generation of the farms are very well thought out prototypes?  It sounds like Britta Riley, the founder of Windowfarms™ is taking her project to the next level with "fancy" Windowfarms™.  Meanwhile, I'm very happy and content with my farm... luckily my cats are leaving the thing alone.



I started out with these parts...


  
and then sprouted the seedlings in grow pods...





...and once the seedlings were a few inches tall, I transferred them into the bottles.  Easy right?  Go here for more detailed instructions.


Sunday, October 9, 2011

Cat lady

Everyone I know who has cats have too many photos of them.  I am one of them.  But they are such strange animals that I'm intrigued, grossed out, and amused.  Look at them!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Smells like teen spirit... I mean lavender

Those who know me know that I am overly sensitive to smells.  It's sometimes hard to have this "neurosis" and live in NYC, especially in the summer time.  To keep things even more smelly, I work in Midtown West where many men use phone booths and scaffolding as public urinals.  Oh New York... even though you smell, I still love you.  Now that's love right there, folks.

Needless to say, I like my home to smell nice - though "nice" is relative.  I thought a bunch of reed diffusers would be pleasant to have around.  Preferring natural scents, I couldn't find any pre-made diffusers that I really liked.  Many of them were too heavy and had several scents, oils, flowers, herbs - all in one bottle - enough to make my nose ache.  Wanting a simple clean scent I decided to make my own.

When I did some research, I found that I can get the exact simple scent I want for a very low cost {bonus!}.  I also found that I can partake on another one of my obsessions - lavender -!  I know some people dislike lavender and think it smells medicinal, but to me *true* lavender has a subtle clean aroma that just makes me relax and happy.

Sooo... if you want to make your own diffuser with your favorite essential oil, just gather these ingredients and follow these simple steps.

*Remember these bottles I collected from the Dead Horse Bay?  Well, I finally put them to use!  You'll need medium to small bottles that have small top openings.  This is so your essential oil doesn't just dissipate into the air, and instead gets soaked up into your reed sticks.


You will need:
1. Glass bottles
2. Reed sticks
3. Dipropylene Glycol
4. Your favorite essential oil
5. Funnel
6. Paper towels


Pour in about 70-80% Diproplyene Glycol and about 30-20% essential oil into your glass bottle(s).  Stir the mixture up a bit with a reed stick, and put some more sticks in the bottle - you know, enough to have a nice "bouquet" of sticks - and voilá!  Isn't that easy?  Enjoy~!


 

P.S. Thanks for your comments! I very much appreciate it :)
You inspire me to post more...