You’ve seen the house tour, the nursery, the kitchen before the reno (I swear the “after” photos are coming soon!) and family room in progress (on the to-do list: reupholster ottoman, put in skylights, add storage, new fireplace doors)… but I want to show you the two rooms in the home that sealed the deal for me.
They say that when you walk into the right house you just know that it’s “the one”? It was totally like that for me: the light, the windows, the high ceiling, the glass screen planter, the sunken living room… SOLD!
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We now interrupt this never-ending kitchen project for exciting news! We installed a modern mailbox! And it only took about an hour!
This is what our mailbox looked like before the weekend. It’s a pretty standard shape, typical of most freestanding mailboxes you would find in the suburbs. But, it doesn’t really match our style. Since our house is set back a bit and the mailbox is curbside, it’s the first thing you see, so we wanted the new mailbox to make a pretty awesome first impression.
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As you know, I completely gutted my kitchen in October and now it’s almost done. I know, I KNOW *groan* – it’s the project that never ends!!!
Everything is in place… except one big thing: the sliding doors. We completely overlooked them when renovating the kitchen, probably because we knew it was a bigger job than we were ready to tackle alone. Then we got a call from the marketing department at Architectural Digest on behalf of Marvin Windows & Doors – they offered to work with us to replace them! Oh happy day!
Just an example of some of the gorgeous sliding doors from Marvin. Photo courtesy of Marvin Windows & Doors.
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Nothing is weirder for me than writing a post about myself. I applaud lifestyle, fashion and other personal bloggers who do it every day. I also suffer from chronic bitchface (see above. I swear I’m really nice! Say hi if you see me!).
In this edition of Where I Work, I thought it might be fun to go “behind the blog” at the Design Milk Headquarters and share my workspaces with you. I spend a lot of time bringing design to you every day from a variety of places around my home, and this post might give you a glimpse at what happens behind the scenes every day.
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Well, hello there. Our kitchen renovation has been complete now for about a month. We installed some new track lighting and added dimmers, so now all that’s left is for us to start cooking! And that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do. Trying being the key word here, as neither one of us is all that talented when it comes to the kitchen. I can boil a mean pasta, but that’s about it. I told Electrolux that no appliance was going to help me become a better cook, but I’m eating my words now — literally.
Many of you had asked me at the beginning of this project to tell you more about our appliances, so here you go! Our kitchen is equipped with Professional Series Electrolux ICON® appliances, and I’ve just been completely schooled on them all, so I feel like I can adequately talk about their features and my experience with them.
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Watching Mad Men has given me tons of inspiration for my home. I can’t help but constantly find myself nudging my husband and saying “I want one of those chairs!” or “Look at that lamp!” I hope I’m not alone…
Photo via Dr. Television
I fell in love with a sculpture that I believe was in Roger Sterling’s original office from Season 1 (not the crazy Saarinen op art space-age one he’s in now!). Above the fireplace in our living room, there was a bare space that begged for something like this. Jordan and I made a commitment for our new house that we’d make more investments in art instead of buying tons of posters and prints and putting them in frames that cost more than the prints themselves. So, I did some Googling to find something similar and stumbled on Marc Creates Inc. I immediately emailed them to see whether they had some pieces available.
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I am pretty excited because we just installed the very last thing in the kitchen and, technically, it’s complete! What a relief. Now it’s time to get everything photographed so I can share it with you in all its glory. But before that happens, I wanted to show you our tile, which was installed a few weeks ago.
When we were deciding on a backsplash, I had a hard time with it because I wanted something that wasn’t too trendy or too boring that also fit nicely into our mid-century modern house. I thought glass tiles in a stacked pattern would be a great middle ground, so I contacted modwalls for some size and color samples (above).
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Let’s take a break from the kitchen project and talk about something equally as fun – shopping! For the past month, every day is like Christmas at our house. I’m pretty sure that Fab.com has my wallet held hostage and that the UPS and FedEx guys are ready to go on strike. Each day it seems that something arrives on our doorstep, so much so that our giant recycle trash bin has not been enough for all the cardboard shipping boxes.
I thought I’d share a sampling of stuff I recently bought for the house:
From top left, clockwise: Three Emeco 111 Navy Chairs for the kitchen to match my red one (this was a Mr. Design Milk decision), set of eight Fferrone water/wine glasses, a small wine rack for reds to place above the wine fridge, two counter stools for the kitchen island, Jim Flora print, Kumani ottoman (Mr. DM hates this but I love it), cowhide, Alexander Girard wood print, set of 12 graphic napkins from wolfum, two Gus*Modern Bishops tables in Macassar Ebony, and a set of nesting bowls. PHEW!
I also bought a sculpture, but after courting it for six months, it deserves its own post… so stay tuned.
FINALLY!
Maybe you’ve had full overlay doors before with no handles or pulls and you’re familiar with the pain of trying to open them every day. Needless to say, I was getting kind of stabby. But, just when I thought I was going to pull my hair out, they finally arrived and we installed them last weekend. They rock.
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It’s been a while since I shared the progress of our kitchen. Since having a baby, things actually slowed down quite a bit, and then… well, kind of stalled.
The timeline came to a screeching halt when we discovered the flooring we ordered to fill in the gaps between where the old and new cabinets sat was the wrong size… we got 3/8″ instead of 1/2″. However, we tried to make do by putting a cork underlayment underneath the floor boards before gluing them in place. At first, it was perfect, but after a day or two, the boards began to sink down and the cork made them feel spongy. So, we were back to square one. Luckily we were able to return the flooring and purchase new 1/2″ boards. However, the new ones we ordered ended up getting lost in transit and took a few extra weeks to arrive. They’re FINALLY in.
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