Kitchen Shelves!

The open shelves were installed today. They are looking great! I'll be loading then up with practical dishes, vintage cookware and a too-large collection of cake stands.

Hanging Art

This weekend some talented and helpful friends came over to start hanging artwork in the house.  It is probably one of the biggest steps in making a house feel like a home.  It was also really fun to see our art in a new context and hang it in new places.

Here is the view from the front entrance of the house.

Light Times

There are some highs and lows in the lighting situation.  First the highs

these lights i wanted to save from the house

i cleaned up the glass and bought a replacement fixture to go with them.  

so moved

Tuesday was moving day.  lucky for us all it was about 95 degrees with 95% humidity - GROSS

the movers were not fans of our 4 flights of stairs.  They arrived at 9 am and complaints of the stairs promptly commenced at 9:23 am.  I stopped listening after a while.  there's only so many times i can say, "I'm sorry" for the structure of a building i didn't even build.  ALSO i lived there for 5 years so i know exactly how many stairs there are.

2 hours into loading

7 Difficult and Tedious Steps to Paint Baseboards in a Room with Carpet

For our epic weekend of painting, i was primarily in charge of baseboards.  Most pressing was painting the baseboards in our bedroom, because we wanted that room most ready for move-in. The whole task was exhausting, back-straining and took HOURS to complete. But i eventually found a technique that worked for me.

The real best way to paint baseboards in a room with carpet is to do it BEFORE the carpet goes in. But if like me, you are a mild idiot at times, and need to do it AFTER your lovely new carpet has been installed, or even if you are painting in a room that already has carpet i'm here to say i tried a variety of techniques and this one is the winner.

First the different techniques i tried

Prior to Moving In

here's a nice little photo dump before we move in - this is the calm before the box-filled storm.

The project isn't finished - i mean, is any house ever really FINISHED, but our contractor isn't done with everything - however it's done enough for us to move in TODAY!

they put paper down for the movers - we also still have to repaint that wall to the right of the door - it needed more evening out after the painters had gotten to it. 

Painting Progess

We spent the weekend painting, and i mean the WHOLE weekend - 11 hours Saturday and 9 hours Sunday.  Fortunatrely we had some helpers to make it all easier.

Teamwork in my office

Ewa working hard - and even came back Sunday to do MORE

Moving advice

Hi folks, Jon the husband here.

After only 147 months of planning, looking, crying, eating, building, complaining, painting and packing - moving day is finally here!

Our house is almost ready, and by almost ready I mean the toothpicks and silly putty have dried. The well is dug, the lumber is baked, and the neighbors are hungover in the wrong backyard. We thought it would never happen, but we are moving into our new (121 year-old) house.

Moving from one home to another can be challenging. Besides the basic physical labor needed to move the Silverson House of Antiques and Tootsie Roll Pops, there are some hidden aggravations. Packing is hard enough without extra "fun"waiting for us. For example: the museum of interesting urine smells left by the previous owner has extended summer hours. See this -

All of our fantastic possessions have to be out of the condo this week, so despite the whack-a-mole game that is our our office wall, we are organizing best we can to at least have a bedroom finished. Kate and her friends did a great job of keeping baseboard paint off the carpet, I had hissy fits in the living room trying to fix the A/C, which apparently is the Russian word for "furnace".

So my big advice - before moving into a house, live in a dank alley for a few years to get used to it. After years of eating garbage from dumpsters and showering in mud, anything will seem like a palace.


All the challenges aside, the house is coming along nicely. Like a boat designed by the Astors, nothing could go wrong. It's unsinkable!



- Paint fumes

Mini update

here is a little update - to keep y'all in the loop.  Things are chaos here with the finishing of projects and the packing of EVERYTHING.  Here are a few quick pics to show you what i mean - with the promise of some real blog posts to come.

testing some spray paint on kitchen brackets - don't worry, this is the primer :)