NJoy - hoboken house tour

This post has been a long time in the making, the House Tour already was on October 28th, just one day before Sandy hit and flooded the town and probably some of the houses and apartments we have seen. Unfortunately most of my photos didn't come out so great but I had to share the ones from my favorite garden. It was such a quiet and romantic place, what added to the feeling were the (fake) church ruins. Absolutely love the  chandeliers with the candles, I can imagine how nice it must be to sit in this garden in the summer by candle light. They even have a small pool (hot tub) in their garden. Seeing beautiful gardens makes me want to start working on our backyard. We will hopefully start next spring but I have to plan everything beforehand with a friend this winter. The inside of the house was gorgeous as well but it was too dark inside to take decent photos without a tripod...

Have a great weekend!

PS.  Fun fact: The owners had finished their kitchen remodel just two days before the House Tour. Crazy!

 

 

liebster award

During this month I had the honor to be nominated for the Liebster Blog Award, not just once but twice. It's not so much an award that you can show off to your friends, instead it is a great way to connect with fellow bloggers and also to discover new blogs.

In order to qualify for the Liebster Blog Award, I have to: 

- answer the 11 questions asked of me
- post 11 random things about myself
- nominate 11 more up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers 
  (not  always easy to tell the number of followers)
- notify them and link them to my post
- create 11 new questions for these bloggers to answer
- tag backs are not allowed

First I want to answer Alex's questions from the blog Around Minetta who already nominated me in the beginning of November. 

1. What's your favorite cocktail? 

The St-Germain Cocktail (Champagne, St. Germain & Club Soda) or Gin Fizz

2. Three words that define you? 

Optimistic pessimist, dreamer

3. Job of your dreams? 

Having my own furniture/accessories store where I sell goodies I find during my world travels

4. The 3 songs most played in your ipod?

Somebody that I used to know – Gotye

Debaser – Pixies

Next Year – Foo Fighters

5. Favorite celebration of the year?

Christmas

6. Best tv show ever?

The Muppet Show

7. Best place for living?

Our house or wherever P is living

8. Dream destination for travel?

Peru – hiking Machu Picchu, as well as exploring more if the country

9. What's the last movie you've watched in theater?

Premium Rush

10. Do you buy books or take them from the library?

I buy but I have the application form for getting a library card at home.

11. Why did you started to blog?

To document making our house our home

Next up are Tina's questions, who blogs at Tina & Design. She also nominated me two weeks ago. (Man I am slow...)

1.Why did you choose the shoes you are wearing?

They are comfortable, which holds true for most of my shoes…

2.What is your favourite colour?

Orange and Gray

3.What sunny destination do you like best?

Hawaii (Kauai)

4.If you could rethink your career path would you have chosen differently?

I think I would only tweak some minor issues but still choose the same field

5.If you were to eat out tonight what kind of food would you choose?

Pasta, I can eat pasta every day

6.Would you rather swim or run?

Swim! Because I hate to run. Could never pick up jogging as a sport.

7.Do you prefer country music or rock n roll?

Rock’n Roll, Baby!

8.Do you have kids?

No (not yet?)

9.How would your best friend describe you in one sentence?

A good listener

10.Where were you born?

Hamburg, Germany

11.Are you a party animal or party vegetable?

I am a little bit of both, depending on the mood. 

11 random facts about me
1. I love licorice
2. I am (almost) always cold
3. I love to read 
4. Although I am an early riser, I am not a (happy) morning person
5. I am not wearing a watch, when years ago I could not function without one
6. I am bad with names but good with remembering faces
7. I have quite a boot collection at home
8. I like to ride my bike
9. I am scared in the dark
10. I love lists, especially crossing things off of them
11. I am allergic to apples and peaches

Now my 11 nominees

All were taking the BYW Boot Camp class with me. Not sure how many readers they have because sometimes it is not that obvious. In one case I know that the writer of the blog has more than 200 followers but I nominated her anyways. Always the rebel ;) I think everybody deserves some love!

Dwelling in Style
Feather and Nest 
Musings of a pale girl in the Sunshine State
Fluxi on Tour 
It's so Suburban
Raincoast Cottage
Chuzai Living
Jennifer Eastman
Insta Design 
Girly Obsessions
Swish and Swoon 

Here are my 11 questions. Don't feel obligated to participate but of course I would love to see you spread the love as well...

1. What is your favorite time of day?
2. Sunshine or rain?
3. What was the last thing you ate today?
4. Pet peeve?
5. Cat or dog?
6. What is your favorite season?
7. Where did your last vacation take you?
8. What book could you read over and over?
9. What languages do you speak?
10. Favorite band/singer?
11. Why did you start blogging?

PS. This post will be nominated for the longest blog post ever on my blog ;)

week forty seven

Hope you all had a great (long!!!) weekend! I sure enjoyed mine. Why can't every weekend be three or four days long?

Thanksgiving we spent with friends and the rest of the weekend we hung out at home. I prepped some posts for the upcoming weeks and even started writing down lots of ideas for posts. If I would turn every idea into a post I will be set for next year ;) Saturday night I pinned together the fabric pieces for my current upholstery project and will be sewing it together next weekend with the help of a friends mother, like last time I still don't trust my sewing skills. Can't wait to see the finished chair. Yesterday was P's birthday, I took him out for brunch at Satis around lunch time. It is always hard to find a present for him because he usually gets everything he wants himself but this time I found a great one, a portable record player. He left all his records and the record player back in Germany when we moved to the US but that didn't stop him from buying more records in the past years. Now he can finally listen to them...

We also prepped our bathrooms for the upcoming demolition and renovation. All the pieces for each bathroom are piled neatly near each room and we even managed to put together the IKEA vanities. Even our bathtub is here, we had some trouble getting the right one delivered. First they delivered the wrong one, second time around they only picked up the wrong tub and didn't swap it for the right one but the third time was the charm. Looking forward to a hot bubble bath soon!

Have a great start into week 48!

target loot

Last Saturday after spending time at Home Depot and Lowes to find the right toilets for our bathrooms we passed by a Target and of course I made P stop so I could check out the home section. A while back I had seen the urchin from the Nate Berkus Line at Target on Young House Love and thought that I needed to have one myself. I have to admit I didn't have the slightest clue who Nate Berkus was before reading about him on YHL. Guess you can blame that on being ignorant about day time TV...I also spotted these mustard or as the label says curry colored towels and grabbed two hand towels and two bath towels. They will look great in any of our soon to be black and white bathrooms. That Target location even had a bunch of left overs from The Curiosity Shoppe collaboration and I had to buy this cute little pillow, which was only $5 at the store. (Erin you guessed correctly!) 

Do you like to shop at Target? What was the last item you got?

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

PS. I was not bribed by Target for this post. I just genuinely like to shop there ;)

 

week forty six

Another week has passed...I thought I would be catching up on all my little projects during that week but my cold really knocked me out on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I stayed home from work and basically slept all day. On Saturday we solved our toilet dilemma and purchased two at Lowes. After shopping at Lowes and a quick stop at Target (see preview of my loot in the last photo) we ate lunch at Five Guys. It was my first food in days and a burger with fries never tasted so good. And I discovered soda fountain heaven there, they have a soda machine that can mix I don't know how many different kinds. I wish I could have tried them all, my stomach could only handle Diet Coke Lime and Peach Fanta. Yum! When we got home I was ready for another nap and the rest of the weekend we only relaxed at home. Now I finally started to feel like myself again, I was already getting annoyed with myself for being so whiny the last two weeks...

This week will be a very short work week for a lot of us because Thursday is Thanksgiving and Friday I have a day off. Four day weekend! Hooray! Hope you all have a great start into the new week!

bathroom inspirations

As I mentioned sometime before we are planning to redo our guest bathroom and our powder room and now the time is almost here. We will be starting the Monday after Thanksgiving. First food induced coma followed by construction crazies. Of course before even planning to redo our bathrooms I had pinned away pretty bathroom images on Pinterest. We both love white subway tile and knew we wanted to use it again in the downstairs bathrooms. Our bathroom upstairs also has subway tile in the shower and the floor is black hexagon tile. I never showed any photos of the finished bathroom and will definitely snap photos of that bath as well. Consider upcoming December to be bathroom month on my blog…

ooh_food / remodelista 

Jason Gnewikow & Jeff Madalena via design sponge / micasa via desire to inspire

The powder room is a tiny little space that we only use to clean and store our painting supplies as well as storing our stash of toilet paper. I think that room only got a cleaning once right when we moved into the house in April 2010…Oops! We will be tiling the wall behind the sink with white subway tile from floor to ceiling. The tile is left over from a previous project. We already owned the light fixture and have already purchased the sink & cabinet, faucet and the black and white hexagon tile for the floor.

Of course the guest bath will get white subway tile around the bathtub as well and for the floor we have chosen white penny rounds. I think the white on white will look great with black grout. We also chose the same style sink/cabinet combination from IKEA, just a little wider. Both bathrooms are very small and we needed sinks that aren’t too deep and the Lillangen series fit the bill. The storage underneath is also a big plus! We already own the light fixture, mirror and towel rack and use it in the bathroom.  The tub is ordered, we actually just ordered it last night. Both of us fell in love with a tub we saw at one of the apartments at OHNY but we found out that the price for it is way out of our league. After that we had a hard time finding the right tub for the right price. Bathtub and shower fixtures are also already purchased. The only things missing now are new toilets and that’s another thing we have a hard time deciding because we wanted to use the same model we used in the upstairs bathroom but that one is sadly discontinued and we haven’t made a final decision yet. Why do I always get hung up on the smaller details? It’s just a toilet, right? Once the bathrooms have received their new tile I can make a decision about paint color, I have to see it in order to get a better feel. Right now I am not sure if I would go dark or light on the paint. I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

PS. Before, during and after shots will follow! :)

week forty five

Last Monday was my first day back at the office. Usually I take the Path into the city but on Monday it was not running yet because the tunnels had flooded during Sandy so I had to take a bus to work. Well hundreds of others had the same idea and I had to wait for 2.5 hours to get on a bus and the bus ride took me another 2 hours. All in all it took me 4.5 hours to get to work. Crazy! I left the house before 7am and made it to the office sometime after 11am and ready for lunch. On my way back I tried the ferry to Hoboken and had planned to walk home from there, which would take about 30-40 minutes through the cold and dark but luckily a bunch of cabs was waiting for the ferry passengers and I happily splurged on a cap ride home. Tuesday one line of the Path system was back up and running which brought my commute time down considerably but I still leave the house one hour earlier than usual...

The rest of the week was mainly work and trying to get rid of my cold, which basically involved get up in the morning, work, go home and go back to bed. On Saturday I stayed in bed all day and only got up for a shower and some food. Yesterday I slept in and started to catch up on writing this blog and working on smaller things on my to-do list. Hopefully this week I will be able to catch up on all the things I missed out on during the last two weeks...Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Here is to week 46!

wednesday favorites - cups & mugs

As I mentioned before in this post I am a big fan of tea, especially now that the temperatures dropped and it is getting chillier by the day. Tea just warms me up from the inside. I have a big fat cold and have been sipping tea all day long yesterday and thought I'd share a little round up of cups/mugs I would love to sip my tea from...

What is your go to cold remedy that makes you feel better?

1. Tunnel Vision Mug - Fishs Eddy 2. Double Wall Ceramic Traveler - Starbucks 

3. Mod Dot Mug - Jonathan Adler 4. Chalkboard Mug - Bubble and Mimi 

5. Mr. and Mrs. Muse Mug - Jonathan Adler 6. Harlequin Thermo Mug - Ferm Living 

7. Räsymatto Mug - Marimekko

week forty four

This past week felt like the longest and most surreal in my life. I don't even know how to explain the different emotions I went through, mostly feeling with everybody who lost their homes, livelihoods or their lives. Monday night around 10pm we lost our power and went to bed early, the next morning we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood as we didn't have any power and wanted to pass the time. We live right on the border to Hoboken, NJ and I was shocked to see it flooded so badly. The third photo shows the street I normally walk or bike down every morning to catch my train to the city. 

Wednesday P and I drove to his office near the Jersey Shore to see if it sustained any damage. Everything was fine there but as in so many areas there was no power. In the afternoon we stopped by a friend who had gotten his power restored to warm up, he kindly let us hang out at his place on Thursday and Friday during the day as well. Thursday night friends who live only a block away invited us for dinner after seeing on Facebook that we were sitting in the cold and dark. The power of social media is really amazing in a situation like this! We have received so many words of encouragements, offers to stay with friends etc. Thank you all for your kind words and offers to stay with you! 

Friday night, after being without power for four days, shortly before Midnight power in our street had been restored, I can't say how happy I was when I heard our cable TV receiver turn on and also feeling guilty about it because so many were still in the dark and cold. My office in Chelsea was closed all week and today will be the first time I am going back to work. Not sure how crazy the traffic into New York will be and therefore will be trying to catch a very early bus...

If you want to help those in need after the hurricane please donate to the American Red Cross, Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund or any other organization to your liking. 

smashing pumpkins

I hope you had a happy Halloween! I had prepped this post last weekend but didn't schedule it. Even though I am a day late now I still wanted to share it with you anyways. Couldn't resist giving the post this title because I was going to see the Smashing Pumpkins in concert last night at the newly opened Barclay's Center in Brooklyn but given the circumstances it has been postponed...

This year I tried myself on decorating with pumpkins for the first time and since pumpkin carving seemed to be too difficult for a first timer like myself I spray painted one of my pumpkins. I saw a neon pink pumpkin online that I liked but I didn't feel that it would work great on our stoop so I spray painted mine yellow. Unfortunately it looks like a pumpkin you could possibly buy at the store but I still like my tiny pumpkins. Colorwise they looked great with the orange door. When I bought them I thought they looked like a pretty good size but compared to our plant they seem minuscule. Note for next year buy a huge pumpkin and get some carving gear...

 

 

Here is a little round up of painted pumpkins ideas. Especially like black chalkboard paint one because you can also draw a scary face, your house number or a pattern on it with chalk, the ideas a limitless...

1. Sweet Paul magazine photo by Lida Pugliese 2. Better Homes + Gardens 

3. Country Living photo by Quentin Bacon 4. Better Homes + Gardens 

5. Country Living photo by Dana Gallagher 6. Country Living photo by Burcu Avsar