The downstairs bathroom is still in a state of demolition, but I can see things starting to take shape! Evan and I are both off work for the next 6 days (!), and we’re hoping to get a lot of work done on the house.

My mother and I have been passing this antique mirror back and forth for the past 10 years (we both tend to be a little…fickle *cough* when it comes to, well, everything), and I’m reclaiming it now for the bathroom. I don’t mind that the silver has deteriorated so much—it looks nice, and frankly, I’d rather see less of myself in the mornings than more. Real-life retouching!

We also decided to buy the smaller ÅNN sink from IKEA rather than the one we’d been planning on. I’d been wishing for quite some time that I could buy the small one, but until recently it wasn’t available in North America. Weirdly, IKEA still does not have it on their US or Canadian websites or catalogs, nor is it on display in Paramus. Employees don’t even seem to know about it, but they have it in stock! I actually found out that it was available totally by accident—the IKEA guy was looking up the larger sink for me, and I saw the small one in the stock list while I was peeking over his shoulder.

We’ve also ordered our toilet, and we have a junk guy coming early next week to haul away all of our construction debris. So exciting! I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s looking like this bathroom is going to come together a lot more quickly than the other one did. PHEW!

You know how some people get all crazy about shoes, even ones they don’t plan to buy? I’m kind of like that about pendant lamps, I think. These are the ones I’m ogling right now…

Caravaggio pendants by Cecilie Manz, $195–$895

Random lights by Bertjan Pot for Moooi, $610–$2,151
(Who wants to attempt a DIY with an inflatable beach ball, liquid starch, and some cotton string?)

Alabax lamp and Lewis pendant from Schoolhouse Electric, $119 & $99

Stripe Bowl pendant from West Elm, $129

(Yeah, I still call my mother Mommy. Want to make something of it?!)

This is my kitchen (well, one half of it). It was the first room in the house that we “finished” (I put that in quotes because of course it’s never really done) before we moved in. We spent very little money on it (about $1000, not including appliances) even though it needed to be redone top to bottom, and while there are some things I’d eventually like to change about it (larger sink, a dishwasher, a place to sit, and more natural/found/repurposed materials), it’s one of my favorite rooms in the house.

The most important thing to me in the design of a kitchen is that it doesn’t look like the materials were chosen to achieve a certain level of status or perceived value (e.g. the granite/cherry/stainless triumvirate of horror) [EDIT: please see my comment from 1:59pm for clarification]. I disagree strongly with the recent trend in spending huge amounts of money on kitchens, and with the emphasis that those in the real estate business put on the importance of making kitchens into showcases for extravagance. A kitchen is a necessity in a home, not a luxury, and pretending its contents need to be expensive and new in order for the kitchen to be both beautiful and functional is, well, sick and sad.

That said, these are some of the simple, non-stuffy, non-showy kitchens that are inspiring me right now.

(Mette Antero Kjær’s kitchen; from this great home tour)

(from inspace)

(from Wary-Meyers)

(from Marie Claire Maison)

(from Marie Claire Maison)

(from Marie Claire Maison)

(from Marie Claire Maison)

I have a whole bunch of emails from people asking me about Newburgh, and it’s taking me so long to get through them all. I’m so sorry! I promise I’ll get to all of your questions soon (maybe I need to put a Newburgh FAQ on here?), but in the mean time, I thought this article from the NY Daily News might be of interest to those of you considering moving up here. (DO IT!) It gives a pretty accurate description of what the City of Newburgh is like, what we’re all about, and where we’re heading going forward.

Please note: The prices in the article tend to be on the higher end of the deals that can be found here. You can still get a great house in Newburgh for less than $200,000 (sometimes much less).

(photo from newburghonhudson.com)

Strong housing stock, picturesque waterfront help Hudson Valley’s Newburgh
BY JULIA VITULLO-MARTIN
Wednesday, October 15th 2008, 11:58 AM

Can an impoverished post-industrial city cast off its decades-long legacy of slumlords, crime and drugs while developing its waterfront and restoring its once historic neighborhoods?

The leaders of Newburgh, N.Y., a small city 70 miles north of Manhattan, are convinced it can. While at it, they also plan on drawing New York City residential pioneers looking for a more affordable lifestyle in an emerging city with a housing stock in need of some love and care.

>> Read more

Today I turn 33 years old. I think this photo is a pretty good representation of the past year—and also an accurate prediction of the year to come.

Demolition is now underway in our small (about 5′x5′) second bathroom! First some before pictures…

Yes, the light from that fixture is just about as flattering as you’re imagining it is! Picture, if you will, the entire room painted a pale, mental hospital corridor green. Nice, yes? That’s what it was like when we bought the house. Adam painted it white so I wouldn’t have to suffer excessively while getting ready in the mornings. (At the time, I thought it would be “a few months” before we got around to renovating this bathroom. HAH. Two and a half years later…)

I feel sort of bad for the toilet. It’s stamped 1958 inside, which means it’s been doing its job for 50 years! It’s cute, too, but it’s woefully inefficient and really does need to be replaced.

The sink (not cute) was hanging off the wall and dripping excessively, so we actually got rid of it a couple of weeks ago. You’ll have to survive without photos. Don’t you love all of the drill-holes in the tile?! I assume someone was test-drilling for studs—through tile. Nice!

The tub is staying. It’s deep and it’s cast iron, and I like the corner style. We’ll have it refinished, though, since it’s presently coated with a combination of water stains, rust rings, and latex paint. (And no, we’re not keeping that tile!!! Seriously, who picks out things like that? Nobody likes mauve-tinged gray-beige.)

I love this little window! It’s one of my favorite things in the house. It’s staying, of course.

Ugh. Disgusting, I know. There’s more here, if you must.

Demo photos to come…

Oh, I’m SO busy! Lots to tell you about (our downstairs bathroom is half-demolished!), but it will have to wait a bit. For now, have a look at some of these new/newish things from IKEA. We’re going there tomorrow morning to pick up some supplies for Thanksgiving, and I’ll keep my eye out for all of this as well…

ELIAS dining chair, $69.99
ÅNGE lounge chair, $129.00

I’m a sucker for anything with black steel legs, and these chairs are no exception. If I could possibly justify bringing home MORE chairs (um, I can’t), these would be at the top of my list. Beautiful designs, great materials. If you buy them, think of me.

365+ LUNTA pendant lamp, $39.99
ANTIFONI work lamp, $24.99

I posted about the LUNTA pendant a while back, but check it out in gray!! Pretty. And twenty-five smackers for that Tolomeo-esque work lamp?! That’s just crazy-cheap. It comes in silver, too, but I like the black better. I wish they made a wall-mount version. Hmmm.

365+ BRASA pendant lamps, $49.99

These are 18″ in diameter, but there’s an even bigger 24″ version! Yes, you do have to buy the cord set separately for $20, but that’s still a massive bargain. I suddenly feel like I need at least 6 or 7 more dining tables to accommodate all of the various pendant lamps I want to bring home with me.

KALLT light chain, $8.99 for 3 cones

If these don’t make you happy looking at them, you’re obviously a horrible person who doesn’t deserve to own them anyway. Can I point out that they are made of painted wood, not plastic? Personally, I’m already picturing them in multitudinal quantities all over my house. I wonder if it’s possible to just buy single-color sets. Again, hmmm.

For several years now, I’ve been buying (despite the $24 price tag), using, and loving Diorshow Mascara. I loved it, that is, until I didn’t anymore. At some point, either the formula changed, or it started to conflict with my body—it was flaking, clumping, smearing, and generally doing all of the things you don’t want your mascara to do.

Sadness. I take my mascara seriously—my lashes are naturally quite long, but I like to make them FAT and DARK and TRUE BLACK. Also, because my lashes are long, I need a mascara that will dry quickly and hold the curl (yes, I use a lash curler, and so should you) all day long. I don’t like anything that looks “natural”, but I also don’t like my mascara to look clumpy. It was hard to find just the right one, and I was so disappointed when Diorshow stopped loving me (and vice versa).

Enter Max Factor Volume Couture mascara. Hello! I love it, and it costs about 7 bucks. It’s perfect. Okay, so the description does lie on one count—it most certainly does not “wash off easily”. I still have to use an oil-based eye makeup remover (recommendations?), but I think that’s probably the case with any long-wearing mascara. I don’t expect it to wash off with just my face wash.

Anyway, it’s a great mascara, and I highly recommend it.

Dior still makes the best eyeshadows, though! Smoking Black applied with a small, flat angled brush and a drop of water makes a better, longer-lasting eyeliner than any pencil out there.

“Entire coachloads of off-duty gas fitters from Bolton will risk death to get on the stage to try to either shake his hand, or to hug him, or to kiss him, or whatever. Almost as though they feel that, you know, some kind of ritual communion with Morrissey will enable them to contact a part of their emotions that they normally feel distanced from.”
—Michael Bracewell

Does anyone know who that is in the video giving the above quote? Thanks, Suzanne!

I’ve watched this mini-doc a number of times now, and it never fails to get me choked up.

p.s. Classic Morrissey moment at 2:55.

We finally finished the pantry yesterday!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a great “before” photo, but what our pantry looked like in early 2006 (photo taken while we were putting in the kitchen floor). We didn’t have time to nicely renovate it before we moved in, so my mother and I slapped a coat of pale blue paint on everything so it would at least be clean and usable (and not gross yellow-gold, the most depressing color on Earth). When we started renovating the upstairs bathroom (which is directly above the pantry), though, it quickly became clear that we were going to have to demolish the pantry.

As readers of this blog are aware, that bathroom renovation took over a year. GULP. That’s a long time to go without a pantry, especially when you have no other closets on the main floor of your house.

When we ripped down the old shelving and pipe enclosure, the walls pretty much fell apart. Our choices at that point were to repair the plaster (which, frankly, would have been a nightmare in such a tiny space, given the extent of the damage), cover everything with drywall, or cover the damaged walls with another material. Not being fans of the “perfect”/new look of drywall, we chose option #3. We used inexpensive tongue-and-groove bead board, and built a new pipe enclosure out of planks of wood. The ceiling was also repaired using wood planks, and plain moldings were attached to cover any gaps. I built simple shelves using wood cleats and boards. After caulking well and applying several coats of white paint (BM Simply White, satin finish), I have to say that the pantry truly looks original to the house. That was our goal, so I’m very happy. I dislike “fake old” renovations (like sheets of paneling embossed to resemble bead board, yuck—the real thing isn’t much more expensive, and not very difficult to install), and anything “perfect”/new would look really out of place in our house, so this was a great solution.

I covered the bottom and sides of the shelves with Bindweed wallpaper from Ferm Living that I had leftover from the bathroom renovation. I lined the top of the shelves with cork.

I wanted to make the most of the tiny 3×3′ space, so I was very pleased to discover this Elfa Door & Wall Rack. It fits perfectly into the niche between the door jamb and the pipe enclosure. It’s amazing how much it holds, and I have enough space to add two more baskets. I always seem to wind up with 20 bottles of cleansers even though I try to keep things simple, and this beats stuffing them all under the kitchen sink.

We were able to just barely (with the help of a jigsaw!) squeeze this old kitchen cabinet in under the shelving. My friend Patty gave it to me when we bought the house—I think it came from her aunt’s house in Pittsburgh. It’s homemade from scrap lumber, and the old layers of paint are pretty perfect. I don’t like faux “antiqued” finishes, but this is the real thing. Turquoise isn’t a color I would choose on my own, but I love the burst of color it gives the pantry. It’s also just the right size to hold the vacuum cleaner (!) and some ugly things like spare Brita filters and shoe polish.

I feel a little silly for even posting a photo of this, but I have to acknowledge my little folding step stool. The top shelf of the pantry (not shown) is too high for me to reach, but there’s no space to store a stool. I was SO EXCITED (this is my life, folks) to find this tiny, sturdy, foldable step stool. I think I might name it, I love it so much. (p.s. The floor paint color is BM Toucan Black, the same color I used on my stairs and pocket doors.)

Bye-bye…

See these piles of manuscripts? They are a pretty good representation of the number of unresolved, undesigned, book covers I’m working on right now. Three times a year, there’s a big crunch as we get our covers ready for the next seasonal catalog (summer 2009 is being designed right now). It’s kind of an awful feeling for a couple of weeks, and then there’s a (brief) period of relief before everything comes back with requests for changes and reworking.

A couple of my titles are giving me grief right now—things I thought would come together quickly, but somehow nothing looks right. That tends to happen more with the books I enjoyed during the reading stage of the process. I’m always amazed when the comps finally DO start flowing—where were all those ideas before, and why didn’t they come to me sooner?

Yeah, it’s coming home with me this weekend. (And no, I don’t have Monday off!)

FYI: You can now add Door Sixteen to your Blog Network on Facebook.

Hmmm. I was planning on white painted floors, but what about black? (If you have other examples, I’d love to see!)

A matte stain looks especially good…

(emmas designblogg)

But glossy is nice, too!

(Oak Mangagement)

(Design*Sponge)

Bruno and Fritz are discovering the benefits of having a warm, furry brother nearby as the temperature continues to dip lower and lower.

Sunday was a wonderful, sweet day. I got to see Nicole for the second time this year (!), which was great in itself, but spending time with her in our Upsate New York hometown, Rhinebeck, was truly the icing on the (belated birthday) cake.

We had a post-birthday (hers, not mine) lunch at Terrapin (ooooooh, roasted garlic soup!), marveled over how different our little town is from when we both moved away 15 years ago, and even spent some time in our favorite cemetery. Cemeteries were, of course, the “photo shoot” location of choice for Young Suburban Goths in the early ’90s, and Nicole and I were no exception!

Our lipstick might not be as dark as it once was, but our hair is just as black as ever. Our waitress even did us the honor of asking if our hair is real! You could not write a better script—well, she could have asked if we were sisters…

And we didn’t see a single person from high school. A perfect day, indeed!

I’m posting this second photo (even though I have buttery croissant-face) just because Nicole looks so beautiful in it!

I’m telling you, if I had owned these clothes when I was 17, I would have worn them every single day. Opaque black tights? Check. Calf-height, flat-soled boots? Check. Oversized, belted plaid flannel shirt dress that’s kind of unflattering (but who cares because it was cheap)? Check, check, check! Seriously, this is all sooooo Anna-in-1992, and it’s making me really, really happy.

I hope I never grow up and start buying clothes at Ann Taylor.

Also, if you don’t already own a pair of gray boots, I highly recommend these.

Oh, and another thing: I was just marveling this morning over the difference in the quality of opaque tights in 2008 vs. 1992. I clearly remember getting maybe 4 wears out of a pair of tights back then before they started to fall apart, usually beginning with the seams in the crotch area. (Do you remember this, Nicole?) These days, I can own a pair of tights for years without getting so much as a hole in the toe. Nice! Of course, these advancements in quality would mean that I could never achieve that naturally-ripped-and-held-together-with-safety-pins effect I used to love so much, but I think I’m over that particular look by now.

This has nothing to do with anything, but in order to celebrate finally getting caught up with my blogroll (I was a full week behind!), I’m going to just sit and look at Rupert the orphaned baby deer for a little while. Awww. He looks like Fritz!

Read Rupert’s story and see more photos here.

* * *

Update: Sad news about sweet Rupert. :(

(via Dlisted)

I’m still alive, I’m just really busy. The kind of busy where your stomach hurts because you don’t know how you’re going to get everything done on time. During my commute (at least when I’m not reading manuscripts), I’m thinking about details for our downstairs bathroom renovation. Some inspiration photos are above! Our plumber came by on Friday to put together an estimate for the work—hopefully it won’t be too bad, since the job is far more straightforward than what we did upstairs.

We got all of the beadboard up in the pantry over the weekend, and Evan primed everything. This weekend I’ll caulk and paint, and hopefully we’ll have time to install the shelving. Everything takes longer than you think it’s going to, that’s a rule! I haven’t even had a chance to take photos, because by the time we take a break, it’s already too dark. Sigh.

While I’m trying to get myself caught up, go have a look at the progress my friend Adam has made in his house. WOW!! He is going to have some amazing before-and-after photos when he’s all finished. I’m so proud of him!