it's been weeks since we took over the other apartment, did the walk-through, and took these before pictures, but i'm just now getting around to posting any.
this little beauty is the front entryway. all that crap in the lower right corner and behind the radiator? the tenants'. we've replaced the door hardware with satin nickel levers and deadbolts that match what we have in the part of the house where we've been living, but the door doesn't close unless you pull up really hard on it. that's a project for george one of these days. upon tearing up the carpet and padding, we also discovered that the tenants' dog had dug so hard at the floor inside the door that there's a gap of one to two inches all along that door. we've bought a threshold to patch it until we replace or cover the floors. the biggest improvement was just getting the carpet and padding out of there--while they were there, you really couldn't breathe in the foyer without a respirator.
from the front entry, you go up some steps to a landing, from which you can either go up to the second floor or down to the back door.
all that crap on the steps? the tenants'. he came back for the club. my husband broke the glass in this door a couple of weeks ago; it was painted shut and he really, really wanted it open. he's replaced it and removed all of the carpet and padding.
on that landing, there is one pretty thing: a stained-glass window.
i think it's really lovely, and the special bonus: no window covering needed to get privacy in the city.
once you run the first-floor gauntlet of horrors, you reach the pleasant second floor. on the immediate left is a door to the steps to the third floor. the first real room, though, is my long-awaited craft storage and organization room.
doesn't look like much now, but check out that natural light. and that framing out to the left is a decent-sized closet. there are two large windows behind the photographer. just outside this door, visible in the center, is the family room, and just beyond that is a large room in which i can work--work on work and work on projects. i cannot wait. but back to this room. we've already torn out the carpet and padding in here, and i think he's gotten rid of the debris (tenants left an odd piece of furniture, the hangers you see, and an empty sake jug in the closet, as well as some random office supplies). i need to tear out the plaster in the closet, but i'll be moving stuff into this room this weekend. i cannot wait.
the new family room is a gem.
get a load of that fireplace! there's some nastiness where the hearth should have been--plywood and a two-by-four--but it's lovely. i'd like to try to strip it, but that's a low priority. through that huge doorway is my study. (yes, we will be replacing all the kitschy faux-old lighting fixtures.) the dyson is ours. i would marry dyson if i weren't already married. all of the rest of the crap in all of these photos belonged to the tenants. they left nearly everything.
anyway, the mirror over the fireplace is in fabulous shape, as is all of the detailing. it's not an enormous room, but it's as big as the room we're currently using for that purpose, and we won't be trying to make it serve four purposes (study for two people + family room + dogs' room). there's also a large bay window in the front, but my pics of that are both really dark.
there's a small bay bump-out with a smaller stained-glass window in my study.
i like the window, but mostly i love the fact that i'm going to have space. (don't worry--my husband gets his, too.)
the next room, going back into the hallway, is a functional but run-down bathroom.
oh, yeah, and the extra laundry machines. haven't figured out how to get rid of them yet, but we want that space for storage to supplement the linen closet you can't see in this photo but that's to the left of the laundry. can you tell we're a bit greedy for space right now, after having been so cramped for so long?
and that brings us to the kitchen. brace yourself.
at first, it doesn't look so bad, right? well...there are the floors
(don't you mop floors before you move out of an apartment?) and then there's the refrigerator (i won't show you the top--ew).
but the piece de resistance? the oven. mm--what's that baking in there?
any guesses? mm.
our tour continues from the second to the third floor, our master suite to be. on the left is our walk-in closet,
where i've done a lot of demo on the walls, which were peeling and sagging badly.
straight ahead is the master bedroom, which is ginormous.
this is looking from one of the gables, which will become my dressing area, back into the main part of the room, where our bed and dressers will be. (our dogs LOVE the apartment. they get so excited when it's time to go work up there.) this is looking from the main part back at that dressing nook.
the corner in the center of the frame will probably be where the dressers go; i'd love to find a midcentury vanity to put in the dressing nook with a little chair, for putting on makeup and stockings and the like. i've demoed walls up here and we've removed all of the carpeting and padding on this floor, too. we need to get the light fixtures down and replace it with one that works (and isn't so ugly). finally, george's perk: a reading nook, where we'll put a chair, a lamp, and a little reading table.
that's zuzu supervising; most of the time she was good, but it's hard to get labs to stay in one place, as well as to get them to stop picking things up in their mouths. we've left them downstairs for the worst of the taking-stuff-off-the-walls parts since that day.
finally, there's the room that will some day become our master bath--undoubtedly the last project on the list.
for now, it's a work area.
and that concludes our tour of the wonderful house, getting more wonderful every day. y'all come back now!
now it looks like this: 
we're going green, you know, and a hole in the floor uses 100 percent less water than a flushing toilet. why go halfway?
this is the reading nook in the master bedroom that i loved tearing apart so much. ha. i thought *that* was tearing apart? i hadn't seen anything yet. check it out now: 
that's insulation (hooray!!!) peeking out of the access panel in the eaves over there, and the radiator (see that little baseboard heater?) has moved from behind where our headboard will be over to the little reading nook. it's going to be so pretty and cozy--i can't wait. and see this corner? 
it looks like this now: 
(yes, that's plywood keeping us from plummeting through to the first floor.)
there's now a big old gap for our tv and components: 
and here 
is the same wall on the other side, where our carpenters are building us some shelves specially sized for doovdes: 
and here in my study 
sits a still-huge pile of furniture. see at the bottom there where there's a big yellow wood dresser? 
that's where bethie's shower gift is, along with my bulky and super-bulky yarns, other finished objects, and gift wrapping. yeah. i'm going to be able to get to that. in time to finish the gift before the shower. this saturday. yeah. that's happening.
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