So here are a few images from the old upstairs, followed by the corresponding rooms as they are now. We are much closer to done up here, though the decorating still leaves much to be desired. Maybe if I weren't spending so much time checking out other people's houses for Domino, I'd have time to deal with my own. Or maybe that's just an excuse. (more likely!)

The old master bedroom (now the nursery)

And here it is now...

The second bedroom upstairs, which was tiny, but did have brightly painted yellow floors...

...has been slightly shifted around and is now partially the master bedroom:

and, most exciting, the master bathroom. A huge bonus, as this is the first place I've lived in my adult life where the bathroom is right off of the bedroom!

We're still looking for a cool mirror to put over the sink. Any good ideas of where we should be looking?

Oh and finally, the stairwell, which we moved from one side of the house to the middle. Here's the old hallway and stairs:

And now, the new version. Clearly the orange that we painted as whim in the old place has won a permanent spot in our hearts and interior.

SO there you have it. Now I am onto the fun world of paint colors and wallpaper patterns, rugs and lamps. I never thought I'd get this far, while at the same time I thought I'd be finished by now. But is one ever finished? Who's to say? It's been a blast doing this blog, and I have to say that you've all helped me get through some trying moments. Check out my other site, thisisauthentic.com, for updates and more information than you are most likely to want about my goings on, etc. Plus feel free to e mail me from there with any brilliant ideas you may have for what I need to be doing, deco-wise, to this sweet little house.

And special thanks to my husband Josh for co-directing the whole shebang,  Mark Rist for being the best contractor you ever could want on a project, Carl Hribar for being the wise architect in the house, my parents for being such great and understanding neighbors, my regular commenters, for helping me feel less alone in the world, and my brand new daughter for being the best kid ever.

Keep the faith... and I'll catch you all later!

Continuing on with the before and after-ish photos... feel free to offer up any decorating suggestions as we still have miles to go in that department.

The living room used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Actually, that photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, before the dining room table was built (see the top leaning against the wall on the left.) But this was the only decent photo that I've taken from this angle in over a month, so it'll have to do. Excuse all of the bags-- we were packing up to leave for a bit. Bye bye to the wood stove in the middle, the linoleum floors, the broken pull out couch. Hello wood walls (which will be white, eventually) a bigger stove, little windows on the left hand wall and a big new door made from the same wood as the floors. Still to come are the new (old) couch, a rug maybe, and other stuff to make the room into a real room.

The old dining room looked like this (and you can see the stairs in their old incarnation)

And now is more like this:

Again, a slightly older photo as we now have the big table in place. And a cuter door mat from Crate and Barrel. But you get the idea.

Here's a great photo that Josh took of the whole downstairs space just a few days ago. It gives almost no information, but it does convey the mood of the space really well:

Again, imagine the walls either solid white or a whitewash, and consider the chairs for a minute... do you guys think that the chairs work? we were thinking it might be better with higher backed seating. But I'm not sure (as usual.) Decisions, decisions...

Now for the guest room... I only have this really uninspiring "before" photo of the room-- we'd already gotten rid of the mattress and the room is so small. But here it is:

This is my favorite photo of that room, taken maybe two weeks later, once the demo had started.

And here's the room now.. bed's not made, but you get the idea.

I love the cedar planks as the walls... we were going to whitewash them, but now I'm not so sure about that. And the raised ceiling does so much to make the room feel larger. As does a second window on the right hand wall.

Upstairs comes next....

As I begin to wind up this never-ending saga of my home renovation, I thought it might be cool to put up a few before and after photos, just so that we can all feel some kind of satisfaction for a job well done. Of course, it's not really before and after, more like before and close-to-done, but you get the idea. I'm starting my own blog on my also-yet-to-be-finished website, thisisauthentic.com. You can keep in touch with me there, send me e mails to keep me posted with your lives, etc.

OK, here are a few pictures.... First off, the front of the house in September 2006:

and here's the place now, a year and 3 months later:

hmmmmmm.... kind of looks worse due to the complete lack of landscaping, doesn't it? But many improvements have been made: new shingles that will become a beautiful silver grey in a year or so, a more solid screen porch with an entrance on the side, closer to the driveway, no satellite dish on the top of the place as we don't even have a TV, lovely exterior lighting plus the same big old pine tree that somehow survived all of last winter's basement digging.

Now for the inside. Here's the old kitchen:

Cute, nice white paint, old gas stove that kicked ass, ceiling so low I had to watch my head in the corner, linoleum floors, rained on the inside when it rained on the outside. Here's the kitchen now:

It's probably only 20 sq ft bigger, yet it feels massive compared to the old room. Under the counter fridge/freezer and no washer/dryer probably are the biggest help. Plus a slightly higher ceiling and a big double window where once there was a solid wood door. Eventually, the walls will be painted white as well, which should make it even brighter. Oh and we added a pantry, which really expands our storage potential!

As for the downstairs bathroom, here it is back in the day:

and here it is now:

It's the most modern room in the house, with tiled floors (and one wall!) as well as a shower stall with a glass door to replace the tiny broken claw foot tub (that had bricks piled underneath instead of feet...) The kholer hatbox toilet started us off, so we found lots of round elements to go with, like the mirror and the knob for the shower door, as well as the little cabinet that stands next to the toilet, hiding all but the most photogenic of the toiletries. One day, we're hoping to plaster the walls, so that there will be no exposed sheetrock on the ground floor of the house. With a tiny new child in our life, who knows when that'll happen...

More before/after to come in the next entry...

Just an aside while I try to get a few before/after shots together to show you as I round up this little story... My good friend Jill Platner gave us the most amazing housewarming gift the other day in the form of a set of the incredible napkin rings and a silver salt dish she's just started to make. Look at how beautiful they are:

I think they are going to look amazing on our new dining room table. The organic shapes will work really nicely with the old wood. Now we just have to find napkins to go inside them (shouldn't be a problem!) You can find Jill's new housewares line on her website by clicking here. (full disclosure, I took many of the photographs on this site and Josh's company Helicopter designed it) You can also check out a bit more about Jill and what she does in the current issue of Domino!

I am a consummate list maker, Josh is always drawing diagrams of things he wants to build, and I can only imagine that our daughter, when she gets big enough to hold things in her hands, will love to write on whatever she can. Which is why we were so happy to discover (in an old issue of Martha Stewart Living*) a recipe for making any color of paint work as a chalkboard. We chose a chocolate brown, which compliments both the orange stairs, and the natural wood that is all over the place in the ground floor. Josh mixed it all up and a few hours later we had a surface for all of our scribbling!

Here's how we did it:

1) start with a flat finish latex paint in any shade (we used chocolate brown from Fine Paints of Europe) Next add 2 cups of unsanded tile grout and mix thoroughly with a paint stirrer, making sure to break up the clumps.

2) paint your primed wall (or other surface) with a roller or sponge paintbrush going over the same spot to ensure full even coverage.

3) smooth area with 150 grit sandpaper and wipe off dust (we didn't actually do this, but I bet it's a good idea... I just don't have the patience)

4) to condition: rub the side of a piece of chalk over the entire surface and then wipe away the residue with a barely damp sponge.

You'll get a bit of chalk residue on the wall, but we really loved the way it looked, plus we have a chalkboard of a beautiful deep brown hue that one doesn't usually see. It's great for kids because they learn that they can draw on the brown (or whatever color) wall as opposed to the white walls in the rest of the house.

*By the way, the person who hipped us to the old issue of MSL is a designer named Robin Rosenthal, who makes the cutest posters for kids... you can check them out here.

My husband Josh is a bit of a closet shop-a-holic. He gets annoyed with me and my reasonably harmless eBay addiction (I collect needlepoint pillows, which I'm planning to pile on the bed in the guest room and which cost on average $10 each) while subscribing to the e-newsletter of First Dibs, an antique and vintage furniture site. Mind you, I have never allowed myself to visit this site, as I worry about what might become of my bank account if I were to actually see first hand all of the fabulous finds available therein, but that's neither here nor there. Let us just say, about a week and a half ago, while scrolling down the regular e mail, Josh stumbled upon the couch of our dreams:

Perfect for so many reasons:

Looks really cool.

Is old (1940's) and from France

Made out of leather

Great color that compliments our wood floors & goes with any pillow you can throw on it

A sofabed (perfect for summer beach house) but only 6 feet long (perfect for our small living room)

No one else is going to have one like it

Josh befriended the owner of the Chicago area antiques store who was selling the couch, asked him all of the proper questions (how comfortable, what condition is it in, is the mattress new, etc) The two men are now e mail buddies, and the couch is ours. It's making it's way from the mid west to the east coast right this very minute, and should hopefully be snugly in front of our (working?) fireplace in the next week or so.

Oh and you should all check out this Chicago spot for yourselves... he has incredible stuff, and ships all over the place. It's called Antiques on Old Plank Road. And if you want to buy something, tell 'em Josh's wife sent you!

Imagine our surprise on Friday night, when we arrived at the house, to find our dining room table built and ready for us to use. We'd had the top made from extra floor boards months ago, and it's been leaning against the wall opposite the stairs since then, mocking us, challenging Josh to come up with some kind of brilliant design for its legs. Many many drawings were made. Every time my father came over to visit, he would give us hell, threatening to take matters into his own hands. Finally, we decided to use some of the wood that was piled up in the back yard and designed an apron using beams that held up the old base of the house and legs from wood we'd salvaged from our baby room reno in the city. The bottom crossbar is made from leftover wormy chestnut (the kitchen counters are made of this) Here's the drawing that we  ended up with... nice to have a husband who is fluent in computer rendering, right?

Now we can have dinner for 8 in comfort!

But we do need to finish the table, or risk ruining the wood and getting splinters every time we sit down. Here are our thoughts, feel free to make comments as we need some suggestions. Imagine that the walls are going to be painted white, while the floors and ceilings will stay their natural color. We're thinking either cover the whole thing with some brightly colored glossy paint a la the orange stairs, stain it all a dark color, close to black, where you can still see the grain of the wood, but it all becomes a bit more uniform, or leave it basically as is, and just treat it with some kind of natural polyurethane type finish. hard to decide... all choices have their merits. I'd be very curious to see what you all think.

SO here's an issue that won't be solved (sadly) before this blog shuts it's doors. (But hopefully before it gets warm out again!)

We built and alcove for the period wood stove that we purchased from the Good Time Stove people up in New England. Here's a photo of it from October:

Love the stove. Excited to use it to warm up the house in the cold months (ie now.) Already waited forever for the special piece to connect the old stove with the modern stove pipe. But when we enthusiastically made the alcove, we weren't quite paranoid enough about the fire safety issues. So, before we hooked everything up and built a chimney, etc, we went overboard and changed the wood borders to stone, thus ensuring that nothing surrounding the stove is at all flammable. We also made a double heat shield (it already came with one for the rear) that protects the three closed sides of the stove, so that even the brick walls of the alcove won't get too hot. With all of that extra protection in place, we're now ready to connect the stove to the outside world, and to have some nice cozy fires in the place.

Here's what it looks like now:

When it comes to fire, you can't be too careful, plus the stone affords us a nice little shelf up top that we can put photos of our daughter, and tiny vases, and sand dollars, and whatever other little things we find along the way. They cut through the roof last week, so hopefully they are completing the chimney as I type this. I cannot tell you how excited I am to put that first log on the fireplace...

What seems like ages ago (could it be over a year now? I have no idea...) I went to the opening of the new Matter store on Broome Street in Manhattan, where I saw the incredible bubble chandelier made by the supremely talented designer  Lindsey Adelman. I am lucky to count her among my acquaintances, so when I spoke with her about how much I loved her work, she offered to make a custom version for our house. Instead of having the multiple globes, our light would have just one oversized orb that would fit perfectly in our stairwell.

The result finally made it's way out to the house, and here's what it looks like in it's new home. It makes me want to hang out on the stairs all evening long.

and here's a closer view:

It is really exciting to have a piece like this, made especially for us, in our first real home. I must admit to being in love with our lighting fixtures (or as in love as one can be with inanimate objects) in general and this one in particular. It makes these long winter nights a bit less depressing.

So I thought I'd show you guys what the light fixtures look like without Josh standing there holding them in place. Here's the porch light that we found for a song at Ikea:

It's a whole wicker story... nothing we'd planned on, but as we got a bunch of hand-me-down furniture, we figured may as well have a light that matches.

As for the exterior light... here's the beautiful Manufactum light (by Bolich) in place:

I think it looks really great, especially in the white. And now, here's a sort of blurry-but-you-get-the-idea photo of the two lights in action at night:

The exterior light makes the entrance much easier to navigate at night, so thanks town of Southampton, for that regulation. I also love the way the porch glows red when the light is on. I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember that Feng Shui says you're supposed to have red at the entrance of your home. WHich we've clearly done in spades. I should look into that...

Oh happy day... the inspector came back and approved our electrical work (after disapproving the first time for lack of exterior lighting.) Our timing was perfect-- the electrician was just putting up the outdoor light as the inspector showed up. We are now one step closer to getting a certificate of occupancy (affectionately known as a C of O) and being officially good to go. Of course, we've been using the house for months now, but it's still just camping out as far as the law is concerned.

Now all we need to deal with is the wood stove and we're good. (famous last words...)

The nice thing about having wooden walls is that you can put hooks up to your heart's delight... Both Josh and I are huge fans of Julia Child, so we decided to turn this corner into a little homage to the lady and her kitchen. We just found some old super simple brass hooks, screwed them in and presto! Easy access to all of our high use kitchen items!

Also great news! The electricians are here, so I'll be able to show you what all of our light fixtures look like in place before too long. Stay tuned!

Here's to a happy 2008 for us all!

This is a photo of the sky that my husband took today and I just loved. Being able to just walk outside and experience these beautiful moments are why we've gone through this never-ending renovation-- It's so important to cherish them. It is these moments that make life worth living-- so important not to forget that. May we all have many of these times in the next year, and in the many that follow!