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