A New Apartment Calls for an Inspiration Board! (Part 1: Paint)

I love inspiration boards. They're such a great way to collect your ideas into one place and be able to get an idea of what does and does not work together before you make any big decisions or investments.

I'm currently in the process of picking out paint chips for the apartment. Sweet hubs is being quite kind and allowing me to decorate the apartment (with the exception of his office area) - which makes me oh so happy!

The building we're moving into was built in the early sixties and still maintains a good bit of that flair. They're currently renovating the common spaces, and while sweet hubs and I were apartment hunting, we were able to view some of the other apartment buildings by the same management company which are also under or nearly finished with their renovations. Let me just say that the end result is gorgeous.

But I digress... our apartment has got some great vintage features, but also has a few less than desirable traits which were products of the late seventies / early eighties (euro kitchen cabinets - yuck).

Some of the fantastic features that I love are:

Large Living Room with lots of light.  (Living room, viewing from the foyer.)

Large sunken living room with adorable wrought iron railings on each side of the steps.
 (Reverse view of the living room.)

Nicely preserved vintage bathroom.  

Awesome original built-in drawers and cabinets in the hallway next to the bathroom.

I love the idea of picking out two darker colors for the living room and bedroom, since they are much larger rooms, and then painting the other rooms lighter variations of the same colors. That way it will all feel cohesive but each room will still be slightly different.

So far, here are the first round of paint chip color families that I'm looking at.  They are all in the blue/green/gray family.  I'm sure I'll change my mind over the next two weeks, but at least this is a good starting point.

The bedroom is fairly large, so it can handle a darker color.  I plan on doing all of the trim throughout the apartment bright white so everything will look very crisp, calming and cool.

BEDROOM:

"Bon Voyage" or "Bayside"

Since the bathroom is located just outside of the bedroom, these colors are in the same family, just obviously much lighter shades.  Also, the bathroom isn't very large, so I want to keep the color in there bright and as light as possible.

BATHROOM:

"Rhythmic Blue" or "Ice Folly"

The living room is quite large, so I'm looking at a darker color for in here as well.

LIVING ROOM:

"Aspen Aura" or "Garland"

The foyer is another large space, which leads into the living room, so I'd like to stay in the same family as the living room, just go with a lighter shade.  The kitchen is also off of the foyer, so I'm going to do a lighter shade than the foyer for the kitchen.  Also, the kitchen cabinets are a "euro"style cabinet, so I want something that will take down their beige color, which a cooler light green shade will do.

FOYER & KITCHEN:

"Country Mist" for the kitchen, "Marina Isle" for the foyer.

The office, which will be sweet hubs home base for work, will be a light blue-ish gray color, per his request.

OFFICE:

"Misty Surf"

We spent this past weekend packing and on Friday we will receive our keys to the apartment, so I'll have another design post very soon!

Goodbye Red Hook, Hello Kensington!

Well, its official - sweet hubs and I are giving up our cute 1 bedroom apartment in Red Hook and hiking it over to the other side of the BQE (The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for those of you not down with the NYC native lingo) to beautiful Kensington.

While I'm sad to be leaving the familiarity of Red Hook, as well as our cute apartment, I'm thrilled to be moving back closer to Prospect Park and having A LOT more space as well as being on a train line again, rather than having to take a bus to the train.  I'm also pretty stoked that we will have A POOL!  Yes, that's right - our building has a pool.

Anyhow, we've simply outgrown our sweet little Red Hook nest. (Speaking of, if anyone's interested in moving to Red Hook and you're looking for a cute and affordable 1 bedroom apartment, shoot me an email and I'll give you our landlord's contact info!)

So that's our big news for today. Now, we must begin packing up our apartment for our August 1st move date.

Here are some photos of Kensington, Brooklyn, courtesy of multiple photographers on Flickr.

Lost Blog Post: Introduction to Letterpress at The Arm

Last month, I took a letterpressing class at The Arm.  I came home afterwards and wrote a blog post, but I suppose in all of my excitement, I apparently forgot to press "POST"... so this poor little neglected blog post has been sitting in the "DRAFTS" section of my blog.

Anyhow, here it is, from June 13th, 2010:

Today I fulfilled one of the items from my "Expanding My Horizons" list that I created about a month ago. I attended an Introduction to Letterpress class at The Arm in Williamsburg.

There are several studios in the New York City area which offer workshops and classes on letterpressing, but I decided to go with The Arm for several reasons.  A) It's easy to get to.  B) It's got a great reputation and C) Once you take the intro class, then you're allowed to book time to print there if you've been given the a-ok.

I thought it was funny that all of the students in my class were girls.  I guess us gals just love stationary!  The instructor, Dan, was awesome.  He comes from a long line of printers, which is really cool.  He was a very good and very patient teacher.  While in the class, we learned basics of printing, from the parts of the press to how to operate it. We were then allowed to play around with wood lettering, metal lettering and two different types of presses.

Overall, it was an amazing class and I really enjoyed it. I definitely need to get back and practice once I have some more free time and eventually take the advanced class. One other thing I learned: I really enjoy operating heavy machinery!

A Sweet Surprise from My Sweet Hubs

I woke up this morning to a package sitting on my kitchen table labeled "Surprise"... of course I jumped right in and ripped that sucker open and was incredibly stoked to see what my surprise was:

A Grenkol Domino Lamp!

Photo courtesy of Ty Cole, Grenkol and the Grenkol Etsy Shop.

A few months back, I'd written about mine and sweet hubs friend Ty's side project, a furniture design company called Grenkol (see the previous post here). I've been coveting a domino lamp from them since I saw the first prototype - I love the simple, industrial feel to it. Not to mention, our crazy kitten will definitely NOT be able to knock this sucker down - it weighs about 25lbs since its made of concrete.

I can't wait to find the perfect place in our apartment for it!

Thank you, sweet hubs (and Ty for making such a gorgeous lamp)!

Holy Heatwave, Batman!

Yes, its officially a heat wave in the northeast.  HOT HOT HOT!  I'm so glad to be sitting in the dark, air conditioned nest that is my office.  It's divine.  I am NOT looking forward to getting out of work and slowly dredging my way back to Brooklyn in the sweaty smelly nastiness that is the subways of NYC in the summertime.

Ah well.  I can't complain too much - at least I get 8 hours of air conditioned heaven a day.

Another consolation is that I'm going to get to make a pit stop to hang out and eat dinner with my fabulous friend Christina and her pal, Kate.  I've never met Kate, but its always nice making new friends.

Bigger post tomorrow, I promise.

It's a Girl!

Just a little teaser of what has happened so far this weekend while in Virginia...

Sweet hubs and I adopted a sister for our cat, Madame Martha!

My mom and I went to the pet store today to buy some cat food and this little three month old furball caught my eye... and I couldn't step away from her.

I couldn't stop thinking about her, so sweet hubs and I went back after dinner to see her again, and we ended up adopting her.  She's very spunky but very sweet.  I'm very excited!

Welcome to the Brown Family, little Abigail!

Planes, automobiles and boats! Time for some summer vacation plans.

Last night, sweet hubs and I booked our first vacation of the summer/early fall.  It's not really a vacation, it's for our friends Wes and Ariana's wedding, but we're still treating it as a mini-vacation.  So off to Treasure Island, Florida we will go for Labor Day weekend.

The hotel we've booked is super cute - I can't wait to stay there.  I have a feeling I'll do an interior design post after the trip.  Until then, you'll have to wait and see.

This coming weekend is Independence Day, and due to needing a car inspection as well as the need to escape the NYC summer, we'll be going down to Virginia to visit my family.  I believe we're going to go out on the lake in a big ol' pontoon boat while we're there, so for a few hours I'll be in heaven.

I love boats.

Our next trip to book will be finalizing our plans for a week long trip to Costa Rica in mid-September with mine and sweet hubs friend, Rob Knight and Digital Photography Adventures! I'm so excited!  It's my first trip out of the US (aside from a trip to see my Canadian gal pal, Angela who used to live in Toronto, back in 2004.)

Anyhow, I'm super stoked that I've got so much travel coming up!  Also, my other gal, Christina, is getting hitched in a few short weeks.

So much to look forward to!

What are ya'll's summer plans?

Photo from Costa Rica courtesy of Rob Knight and Digital Photography Adventures

Happy Father's Day!

I wish I could be spending the day with my step-dad today, but he's on a flight to France for work.

Even though we can't spend the day together, I'll be thinking of him all day long.

He's the best.

So here's to you, John, pops extraordinaire! I love you very much!

xo

Court

The Bryant Park Hotel (Review)

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of my mom visiting to celebrate her birthday and a belated Mother's day and then my friend Jaime coming to visit. It was a ton of fun.

When my mom came, she decided that we should live it up and stay in a fancy hotel in the city one night, in celebration of her birthday and belated Mother's Day.  

I managed to get us an awesome rate at the very "fashion centric" The Bryant Park Hotel, which is one of the main hotels that models, designers and celebrities stay in during Fashion Week in New York, since its directly across from and overlooking Bryant Park.  We originally booked a regular room, but because of a shortage of the type of room we booked, the management kindly offered to upgrade us to a 1 bedroom "Bryant Park Suite". It was so amazingly luxurious. I loved it. I'd stay there again in a heartbeat.

The hotel itself is very minimal design-wise, which is always incredibly appealing to me.  It was recently remodeled, so everything feels new and fresh.  For those of you visiting NYC and seeking a "sexy" hotel to stay in, this also fits the bill.  I'll let you discover why on your own, but let's just say that the Bryant Park Hotel offers certain discreet amenities that frisky couples will enjoy taking part in.

So let's talk about the room suite (I love saying that!) we had. Like the rest of the hotel, the design is minimal with lots of clean lines. The bathroom was EXTREMELY luxurious with it's marble floors, rain shower, DEEP DEEP soaking tub and Molton Brown soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc.

On top of an amazing night's sleep and wonderfully relaxing bath, the hotel is SO QUIET! I find this to be a rarity when it comes to hotels, especially New York hotels.

If I was a real reviewer, I'd absolutely give the Bryant Park Hotel five stars.

A little tip for those interested in staying there: I follow them on Twitter and they had posted a tweet saying to send them an email to inquire about special Twitter rates... and they've done it numerous times since I booked mine, so give it a try! What can it hurt?

Here are a few gorgeous photos of the suite we got to stay in, courtesy of Oyster.com:

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.

• Bicycle Race by Queen

More Queen music on iLike

Summertime is a time for riding bicycles. When its hot as hell and you can't cool down, if you just ride a bike and get some speed going, you're bound to cool down from the breeze. At least it always works for me.

I have a perfectly good bicycle downstairs in the common area of my apartment building, which I haven't ridden in over a year for some reason, but I'm always looking for one that I'll LOVE. The one that I have is fine and in good working order, just not really attractive or all that awesome, nor does it fit my personality style-wise.

Today, I found one I LOVE. Too bad its a bit out of my price range.

But a gal can drool, can't she?

Here are some of my favorites. The company that makes them is called Adeline Adeline and they're located here in NYC. They even carry all kinds of awesome accessories from basic baskets (which I adore!) to vintage style seats and bells.

Anyone have one? Do you love it?