Apartment Renovations

I know it's July, and we started in June. Lazy? Maybe. But here's what we accomplished:

1) Painting the walls. Alicia and I had to cover up cheap, peeling paint. Worse yet, the color was awful. It took two coats of primer and two coats of paint to get the walls looking good. If you're doing the math, that's 4 coats of paint for three rooms, which comes to 12 coats of paint. It still hurts to think about. And I haven't even mentioned painting the ceilings. But, the finished job is worth all the effort.

In the bedroom, we picked a turquoise. It paired well with my pictures of scuba diving, and complemented the Hopen furniture. Here's the best picture I could get that shows it:



In the kitchen, we painted orange. If you know Alicia, you know she likes, nay, loves orange. Plus, the black bookcase and black drawer would look great. Here's a picture that best captures the orange:



The living room color is the most complicated. It seems to change color depending on the light. Right now, it's dusk and we've just turned on the lights. The wall color is practically green. In full daylight, it looks closer to a mustard yellow. But, in most photos, the wall looks tan. Here's a picture that tries to capture the color:



Ugg, that picture above still doesn't look great. You'll just have to come to New York and experience it yourself!

2) Floors: As you can see in this picture taken before we started working, the floors sucked.



It isn't obvious, because the couch I'm working on is covering LARGE spots of blackened floor. But if you look closely at the floor at the bottom of the picture, you can see what I mean.

Here's the new floor:



It is the 69 cents per sqft flooring from Ikea, of course. You know, the stuff they put on the stairs and advertise that thousands of people walk on it every day. It is click laminate flooring. Here's a close view of the grain.



All fake, of course. It feels great though. There is no area of this apartment that I'm afraid to eat off of at this point. No, I don't plan on eating off the floor... but with flooring this new, I could.

For more about my work laying the flooring, check out Alicia's Blog.

3) Lighting: Here's the biggie:



Before we moved in, Alicia and I would sit in the garden looking up at this apartment at night. We'd say, "Wow, their kitchen looks awful. The light looks like it's from a scary movie." The light I replaced was a circular florescent bulb that flickered. It gave off a gross white sterile light. It was simply gross.

But those Ikea track lights do the trick. The kitchen feels fantastic, and the lights only cost $15.00 (on sale from $50!).

I added this light to the entryway:



I even installed a remote switch next to the door. The main advantage here is that the light switch for the main light is behind the big black bookcase. With the light above hanging in the entry way, we can turn the light on as soon as we get home.



Of course I had to mention the globe lights above. They are a silly way to light an apartment, but the look cool. Plus, I'm young. I can do this now.

Lastly, there's the hanging light above the dining table:



We picked this lamp specifically for how well it would match the dining table. I don't care what you think... I love it.

4) Garden:



Do you see all that grass? I grew that. From seed. Yup. All those pots? Alicia grew those.

We've done much, much more to this apartment, from the art to the technology wiring. But these are the major improvements to the apartment.