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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Midcentury Apartment Door Hardware

restoring midcentury door hardware


I finally got around to a small project that I'd been neglecting for some time: The entryway door. It's not that I was blissfully unaware of how bad it looked, but you know, other things. Anyway, here's a shot that I took on my first viewing of this home before we bought it. 

Monday, September 21, 2015

Replacing a Kitchen Sink False Front with a Tip-Out Tray

kitchen sink tip-out tray

Does your sink have one of those fake panels that looks like a drawer front but doesn't open? Some cabinetry lines use this space for a tip-out tray, where you can store sponges and scrubbers. But if your kitchen sink base doesn't have one, you can easily retrofit it.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

FSBO: How to Get a Good Appraisal


When I set out to sell my Brooklyn apartment FSBO in 2013, I was expecting a challenge with the appraisal. Though the real estate market in NYC had fully recovered from the wake of the housing bubble of 2008 and prices were back up, lender appraisals were not keeping up with fair market values. I knew that I had to take charge of the process to ensure that the appraiser assigned by my buyer's lender would have all the information I needed them to have at their fingertips.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Adding Shelves to Organize an Antique Cupboard

shabby chic cupboard

Inspired by Daniel at Manhattan Nest, who added shelves to his antique hutch with great result, I was inspired to make some long-needed changes to the cupboard in our cottage. The scope of the job seemed fairly straightforward - I simply needed to add a shelf to both the top and bottom sections of our hutch. In fact, getting the shelf in the top to fit the interior properly took more "tries" than I anticipated. Hopefully you can avoid my mistakes.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Bathroom Design: Encaustic Tiles Have Real Art Deco Appeal


Marrakech Design

I'm drooling over encaustic tiles lately. Over at Sweeten Blog, Pepper and Marshall share their bathroom reveal and the tile they chose for their Washington Heights art deco era home.