shelves!

Finally, I got some shelves up in my work area. Again, like my curtain rod, this took a lot of emotional preparation to drill into my wall. I purchased this set of shelving from Bed Bath and Beyond(BBB). I dealt with a Paul(Asian man) at the BBB between 18th and 19th street. He screwed my order up a little, but he did everything he could to fix it. You may be saying that that's what he should do, and you'd be right. But, you'd be surprised how many times I've come into contact with incompetent people when it comes to doing what they should do. Anyway, these shelves required me drilling eight holes into my concrete wall. So, as soon as I prepared myself to permanently damage my walls, I drilled away. In the end this shelving system is quite easy to install. It requires one secured steel plate that gets drilled into the wall and the rest all hangs off of that anchored piece. And, the great thing about this system through BBB is that they will cut the shelves in almost anyway you'd want them too. Well, any simple straight cut. No fancy designs and what not. If you look closely to my shelves, you'll see that there is a part of the wall that sticks out. I actually took the proper measurements and had the store cut the shelves to fit around this piece of the wall for a built-in feel. And, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well it came out. And, as you can see, I've made part of the shelving my desk to hold my laptop, art supplies, and even my scanner. And, my personal DVD player that doubles as my tiny TV for when I don't need my larger TV on. Hells yeah, I hooked cable up to that bad boy!! Anyway, I got the idea of the integration from this design company ip20. I got the idea from their Japanese site. Of course, I could not afford their actual pieces(which are way too cool!), so I just used them for inspiration. So, if you can afford the actual shelves, good for you. But, if you can't and need built in shelving, I would recommend Bed Bath and Beyond. Just make sure you have all of your exact measurements that you need. If you can draw out what you want, even better. Happy shelving! I'm presently working on a kitchen set as well.

Sears.com SUCKS!!

I started this summer with my old 5000BTU air conditioner that I brought over from my old place. It was fine for my small room in my old place. But, now I'm in a studio and its larger than my old room. So, I attempted to order a new ac unit. I did my research and even joined ConsumerReport online. I decided on Kenmore because I've always liked the brand. Because I'm in NYC and do not have easy access to a vehicle I decided to order online. So, I called up Sears.com to place an order. I felt good. I was excited about my order. I waited about a week and the unit was on its way. I even took a day off to wait for the delivery. The door bell clinked as it does and there it was......... a mess. The picture you see with this post is of the box my ac unit came in. The box looked as if it had been rolled down a hill. Parts of the box were ripped and the foam inside would be showing through. Even part of the ac unit itself. And, the box appeared to have been opened and resealed again with plastic straps. Of course, I returned this package thinking that it was mistreated in transit. And, I reordered the same ac unit. I got worked up again and took another day to wait for my delivery. I opened the door and there it was. Another mess of a package. The UPS delivery person told me that this was how they receive the package. Of course, that's what he says. But, honestly, I don't see how UPS could do so much damage to a box. So, I assumed that it was on Sears side. On top of horrible damaged goods the persons on the phone at Sears were incompetent as well. Not all, but I did have troubles with returning my order due to missing bar codes and Sears employees claiming to reissue a call tag and really not. Which meant I waited to be notified about a pick up and had to call Sears again to find out what was happening. It was just a big mess and it took more than a month to deal with this whole situation. And, at the end, I was back to where I started. I don't know about other items, but I would not order ac unites from Sears.com. It's just an awful shopping experience. So, my little ac unit is still working hard to keep the place bearable. I've decided to go with GE and deal with a local appliance store where I've purchased other items before. So, its supposed to arrive in a few days. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully, I'll have a new AC...... by the end of summer.

my turf

So, here's something that's a little weird. I had started with just a little rug. Then, a longer runner, but it was never enough room. When I came in the door and had someone following me, it was never enough room for more than one person to come in and take off their shoes without having the other wait in the doorway. SO, I had to figure out a way to fix this problem. I figured that the first person in would have to step to the side in order to be out of the way to get another person in. I didn't want shoes stepping on my too delicate bamboo floors, so I knew I had to cover the floors. As I was contemplating my options, I remembered how nice and clean it was at this one hotel we stayed at in Japan. And, how they had a whole section just to take off your shoes at their entrances. I really dug this idea, so I researched my options on how to create this idea in my tiny apartment. I didn't want a plush rug. I wanted a tight clean flat covering that would separate my entrance area from the rest of my studio. I quickly came up with this company named FLOR. They sell floor coverings by the square. I was thinking of a brown or a tan to sort of work with the whole "Japanese" idea and to work with the rest of my place. Then, I came across this texture. Its a grass green and it has flickers of other colors in it to calm the intense green down. So, it comes across like grass. I knew that this option was either a hit or miss. And, that it would be a risk. But, sometimes I get these little surges of energy to go for the risk and this was one of those times. So, this is my front yard. And, I must say, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Now I enter my apartment, scoot to the side, and place my shoes or flip flops on the edge of my lawn. And, it reminds me a little of my short time spent in Japan. Always a good thing.

cushions...

And, I've finally got some cushions for my bench. I got these from a weekend bus trip to Ikea. Yep, the free bus. Not all of us have access to a vehicle. So, I ventured out there with my girlfriend and a friend. Enjoyed some Ikea food. And, spent a day walking around in that gigantic store. Here's one of the items I picked up. Yep, I'm doing my apartment slowly, but surely. I had been looking for a long cushion to fit the whole length of the bench, but haven't seen anything that works or is cheap enough. So, I went with these. I'm sure these will deflate soon, but they'll do for now. I think they were $3 or $5 each. Can't beat that. Anyway, almost to where I can have visitors. :)

like butta....

So, this is what I've been doing my drilling with. I had a cordless drill before. I thought that would take care of all my drilling needs. But, I was wrong. And, I always liked the cordless. Cordless phone, wireless internet, wireless remote, wireless gaming controllers, and so on. But, when it comes to drills, the wired ones are better. Unless you can drop some serious cash on a serious wireless set up with extra batteries, the single purchase of a nice wired drill is the way to go. There's never a weak drill due to low battery charge. You just plug it in and you're good to go. For me, I needed to drill into concrete. So, I was looking for a hammer drill. A hammer drill "hammers" the drill bit as it drills in order to break down the concrete it is drilling through. You can drill into concrete using a regular drill with a masonry drill bit, but it takes a lot longer. This is the DeWalt hammer drill. It's has settings to switch from hammer drill to regular drill. And, the power to twist your arm if you're not careful. That's what the extra handle it for. :) Grant it, this drill was probably overkill for what I needed it for. But, it's like driving a Diablo in a 55mph zone. There's really no need for it, but its nice to have the power there. So, my drill made drilling into concrete as if it were drywall. Nice!(two thumbs up) So, now I'm drilling everything into my walls. I've put up my massive curtain rod(pictured below) and my shelves(pics to come). Oh, and for those that are thinking of drilling into concrete, use anchors. It's just a cleaner safer way to go. Happy drilling!!

got rod

Aaand, finally another piece to the puzzle. I waited a while to get a curtain rod because I knew it would require drilling into concrete. My cousin tried hanging a picture in his concrete wall and knocked out a chunk of wall. That made me pause on attempting anything with my own wall. I invested in a hammer drill and a masonry bit. Yeah, that might have been overkill, but anything to not knock out chunks of my wall. So, I got myself mentally prepared to puncture my wall and started drilling. Of course, there were problems. The drill just seemed to stop penetrating and just spin. I got scared that I might have hit a pipe or some other structure, so I stopped. I'm new to this masonry drilling, so I didn't want to push too much and screw anything up. So, after some research and frustration, I decided to go full throttle and push the drill as hard as it would go. And, to my pleasant surprise, the drill did its job and ate through the cement. I just needed to put my weight behind it. So, now, I have my fat curtain rod up. I love this fat rod from West Elm. It really grounds the window. Now, I have to get curtains with grommets. Fat metal grommets. Nice!

extension

As a lot of people on the island of Manhattan, I'm a bit short on counter space in my kitchen. I had been thinking of purchasing one of those wooden boards that fit over the sink opening, but never knew which one to get. Then, one day it hit me. When my counter people delivered my counter, they left me the cut out pieces from my sink and my stove. I don't know why it never occurred to me earlier. Maybe, because the piece was roughly cut. Anyway, so, I sanded the letters off of it and filed the rough edge off. And, now it adds plenty of counter space when I'm preparing my extravagant three course meals...... okay, grilled ham and cheese.
And, for those interested in doing this to your left over counter cut outs or a slab of material you like, here's what I did to make the extra counter sit better on the counter. I just placed some felt pads on each corner. Make sure they're far apart enough to sit on the sides of the sink. And, there you go. Got yourself a nice little counter extension.




Before

After (the lines and letters that you see are now gone)

night light...

Here's a view of my work space late at night when my girlfriend is tucked in for the night. I try to keep the light low as to not shed too much light on the living space. Yah, that's studio living for ya. Well, it will be better after I actually decide on a wall and get it installed. But, for now, got to keep the lights low. Its not too bad because I'm usually not drawing that late at night. I probably should be, but I'm usually on the computer. That's the DVD player my girlfriend picked up for me for my birthday sitting on the corner of the table. I've actually hooked up my cable box to it, so now I can watch TV on it. Which helps keep the light even more contained to my work corner. Nice!

Jawbone!

Whew, I haven't posted any items for a while. I guess I haven't really had anything else to pick up for the apartment for a while. All the stuff left are large items. But, I did pick up this little item. Not so much for the apartment, but just a item that I was very pleased with. My Sony headset that came with my phone started dropping out on me and soon became useless. So, I had to hunt down a headset. I had looked at the bluetooth headsets before, but the performance was shaky for the price. But, this time I did some research and found this new headset with some really nice functions. Well, one main feature. That is the noise cancelling function. I was skeptical, but it really is quite amazing. But, the headset does need to be making contact with your cheek. So, if you rock huge side burns, this headset may not work for you. But, other than that, you should be very happy with the performance of this headset. You can order it straight from Jawbone.com.

rigged up!

So, finally, I got this drawer installed. As I mentioned in my earlier posts of 2006, I had no option but to get a small oven installed in a larger Ikea cabinet. This left me with a space under the oven. For the longest time, I just used it as a storage space to stick things in. But, it just seemed unsightly and sort of bootleg. I always liked the Ikea drawers and wondered if I could install one in the space. Because there had to be a brace built to hold the oven in place, the widest Ikea drawer would not fit. I had to go with the next size down, but this was too narrow for the space. So, I had to install extra blocks of wood to attach the rails to. Even up to the last minute of installing the rails to the extra wood pieces, I still wasn't sure if everything would fit. Then, I dropped the drawer in and I heard that wonderful clicking sound. I was just so happy. I finally installed it. Right now, I have the medal front on the drawer. I might replace it with a wood front to match the rest of the cabinets. Or, maybe, I can find a stainless steel front that would fit. But, for now, I like the metal front. Next step is to spackle and paint to give it a finished look.

love it!

MmmmMmm, I love this product. I planned a great meal for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day this year. We're both foodies and I thought it would be nice. If the meal came out as well as I had planned, it would have been really nice. But, only one dish out of a four course meal came out like I had planned. We were full and it wasn't horrid. My girlfriend was very nice and appreciated my effort. Haha, I'm sure she would have liked the full effect more. But, out of the process of gathering all the ingredients and gearing my kitchen up for a actual cooked meal from scratch, I picked this little item up. Its a pepper grinder. Didn't think much of it when I bought it. Just thought it was the simplest looking one of them all. Cleanest and most simple lines. But, this thing is great. It only requires a one hand operation. You don't even have to stop shovelling the food into your face to operate it. Pump it with your thumb and you have the great taste of freshly ground pepper added to any dish. It was bought specifically for adding pepper to a authentic Italian pasta dish, but it didn't really make a difference. Now, I use it to add fresh ground pepper to anything that it makes sense on. If you don't use fresh ground pepper, you have to try it. It just adds that little punch of flavor. Anyway, it looks great and it serves a great function. Can't beat it.....well for the price. I know there are electric ones too. I haven't graduated to that level yet. :) Till then, enjoy!

fresh!

I was never one to really get into sweet scented soaps or things of that nature. But, my girlfriend is. And, I've noticed that she always smells great. One day we went to Bath and Body Works. The store she frequents for her body scrubs and lotions. We've gone a many times before and I never picked up anything. Just didn't see the purpose of buying scented soaps or lotions when the normal ones worked just as well or better. But, one day there was a sale. Three for the price of one type of sale. I'm a sucker for a deal, so I picked up a few. One of which was this one that is pictured here. I didn't expect too much out of these soaps, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how this soap smelled. It has a very light uplifting citrus scent. Puts a smile on your face type of smell. There are other soaps that have a soapy or a heavy smell that may be pleasant, but not light and uplifting. I have to say this was one of if not the most pleasant scented soaps I have ever used. Once I have used up my stash of scented soaps that I picked up for a deal, I will definitely hunt this one down again. Plus, the self foaming soaps are great. Use less soap and get that nice lathered feel right away. Nice!

grout!

Not much going on with the apartment lately. Little things here and there. This is one of them. I was very presently surprised one day to receive a notice that my apartment was one of the apartments that needed to be regrouted. I was especially pleased with this because I had been frustrated with the condition of the grout and borders around my bathtub. So, I made the call and scheduled to have this done. I didn't expect much because of my past dealings with the maintenance crew in my building. But, to my surprise, the grout looked great. Well, at least it looked great to me in my limited idea of what grout should look like. It just looked cleaner. Here I have two pictures. One of the tiles around my tub, which has been regrouted. And, the other is of the tiles on the other side of the bathroom that have not been regrouted. The one on the bottom is the one that has not been updated. It's hard to tell the difference here, but it's actually a very noticeable difference. The old grout appears a bit yellow and is cracked and chipping off at some points. I'm actually trying to get the maintenance crew to regrout the whole bathroom so it matches. So, That'll be my next battle.

Free stuff!

Well.... close to free. These are my latest additions to my place. Its been hard to find furniture for my place since I have all these wacky ideas of what I want to do with it. So, as I am figuring out a way to make these wacky ideas become reality, I've taken in furniture temperarily. Of course, I wouldn't want to pay too much for temperary(which will probably still stay around for a while) furniture . So, I went trolling around on Craigslist. That is were the bench was found. Listed price $75. June haggled it down to $50. Nice! Especially, when anything bench like that I've seen has been more into the $200 range. And, I had been looking for a table for a long time too. But, everything that I like is $500 and above. There was one I really liked that was $960. Sigh, just too much for my blood at this stage. BUT, I was checking my apartment building's community email group and someone was offering a table for free. Yep, free! Just needed to go by and pick it up. I was looking for squarish table, but this white round table would do for the time being. It's an Ikea item. And, it was in a very good condition. Plus, the folks giving it away were very nice. They even helped me take it apart. And, the table and bench actually helped me set the color tone for my kitchen. It actually hit me when I was at the Chocolate Bar with June. Basically, the Chocolate Bar's colors. Dark brown, orange, white, and a lighter brown. Something in there. So, I've owned my place for a year and have lived in it for less than half of that time, but its still a work in progress. Whew, its a long process...

Oops, I done it again...

So, I got myself another game system. Well, actually, my wonderful girlfriend got it for me for Christmas. I wonder how she knew? But, I keep telling myself that I shouldn't pick another gaming system up because I end up not using them as much as I should to get my money's worth. BUT, I had been thinking about picking up the DS for a while. Over a year. Then, they came out with the DSlite. That made it even more portable, which made it more buyable. :) So, as time went on, the idea of picking one up just made its way into my little brain more frequently. I did a little research and found that its really got some good games. Not just shoot em up kill em games. But, more in the direction of just fun strategy games. Games that make you think and work the mind a little. Don't get me wrong, I like myself a good shoot em up game as much as the next gaming nerd. I splattered my fair share of heads with a snipper riffle and ripped out a good amount of skulls with their spines still attached as well when I had to work off some frustration. But, that can get old after a while. And, I'm getting old and my mind could use some working out. :P So, I am very happy with the DSlite. Plus, the games are more affordable than the PSPs. So, now, I have Brain Age and Mario Kart so far. Love them both. By the way, I have a 34 year old brain. That's down from a 52 yr old brain. June is down in her low 20s. :) Anyway, the DSlite has been a good buy so far. I would highly recommend it. Now, I just have to figure out how to do get things done and play games at the same time......

NYC tree

With the hectic pace of getting things done for the Christmas holiday, I really hadn't had time to do any kind of decorating. I overheard my girlfriend mention that she wouldn't mind a small tree, and this image of a tiny tree emmediately popped into my head. You know, those tiny cheesy trees that some take-out places have sitting on their counters. But, I didn't know where to find them. As I was running around one day picking up a few last items, a tiny tree sitting on top of a cash register in a 99 cent store caught my eye. It was absolutely perfect! Exactly what I had pictured in my mind. It even came with decorations(tho we added a couple of our own) and even lights! The perfect size for my tiny NYC apartment. So, I ran into the 99 cent store and snatched up my 06 Christmas tree for $10. I couldn't wait to see my girlfriend's reaction. She loved it! We hurriedly took it out of the box and put it together. It was truly perfect. It now sits on my TV shelf. It has turned out better than I could imagine. Merry Christmas to all who read this and a Happy and Healthy New Year!!

SOFA!!!

Finally!! My sofa arrived! It's been 8 long weeks since I placed my order. Why so long? It would have been delivered a week later if I went with the original color, but I decided to go with one of the optional colors. So, they have to put in the request and have the sofa made. It's a pricey(to me) sofa, so I figured I might as well get it the color I want. It was actually between this Tetris Flannel(brown) and a white color. I really liked the white, but thought it would get dark patches very quickly. So, I went with the darker color. I can't say that I'm totally happy with how dark the sofa is, but it is really growing on me. Like a fungus.... :) And, it wasn't as comfortable as the one in the store. But, I think the comfort will come with time. It's already starting. :) I was nervous up to the last minute because they told me that I would have to remove my front door to get the sofa in my apartment. And, I had no idea how I was going to do that. When it arrived, I was so very happy to find that removing the door was not necessary. They brought it in, screwed the legs on, and it was sitting in my apartment. After 8 weeks, here it was. As I had hoped, it has defined the area quite well. Now, everything will start to take shape off of the sofa. It sets the height, position, and color that other items should be. But, for now, I need to take some time and enjoy the sofa. Woohoo!! Sofaaaa!!

bathmat

So, the other day we were finishing up some Christmas shopping and just stopping into some shops to check out possible apartment items. We happened across this bathmat. Plush, worked with the colors I wanted in my bathroom, and it resembled the pattern of the mushroom on the Super Mario series. I wanted it emediately, but thought it would be too much. We were at West Elm. Checked out the price tag and realized that it wasn't too horrible. So, I carried it around for a bit just making sure I wanted it. After a few more rounds of the store, we checked out. To my surprise, I was charged less that half of what was on the price tag. Don't you love when that happens? I got a great bathmat for about $10. Nice!!

recycle!

Whew, it's been a while. I haven't done much on my apartment for a bit. Kind of taking it easy and saving some money for some larger items in the apartment. But, one evening my girlfriend and I watched a couple of inspirational movies. "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and "An Inconvenient Truth". I'm no activist by any definition and have no desire to be. But, I would like to do what I can in my everyday life to not add to the cancerous effect that we have on this little marble we live on. So, I decided to start recycling. BUT, my place is SO small. So, how can I have some recycling bins and not take up too much space and also not have exposed cans of soda to attract pests? Of course, bins with lids. But, do I want blue bins for the obvious recycling appeal or do I want a different color that flows better with the rest of my kitchen. My girlfriend mentioned whit bins and it just sounded right, so the color was set. Now where to find this item? As usual, Ikea is the first place to look. At first they had great recycling blue bins for under the sink use. Then, we happened across these white bins in the kids section. They're actually diaper storage bins. But, they were perfect! The right size to fit perfectly into a tucked away corner and they had lids that snapped on. Plus, the bins were small enough to work with the usual bags you get from any restuarant or grocery store. And, that was the start of my "recycling center". :)

organize!

Just took another trip to Ikea! Love that place. This time, I picked this little item up. It's a wire organizer. Since my place is limited in space, I do not have space to use my drafting table as just drawing area. I have to use it as my "office". So, I have to try to make things as efficient as possible and as clean as possible. This organizer will give me a place to tuck wires and place chargers. And, not have them sitting on the table top or hanging off the side. It's a good buy at $13. And, its tight enough to the table that it won't hit your knees. Nice!

I also picked up these hooks. I was actually looking for these round knob like hooks, but it seems that they were out of them. And, I had been waiting a while to find hooks for my bathroom. So, I settled on these. They're not horrible, but not ideal. They're basically blunt hooks. Very simple and clean design. They do serve their purpose. I staggered the placement for a little funkier feel.......well, at least not a normal feel. Yep, I still have the old holes that belong to the previous hook system.

And, I placed three hooks lower and off to the side on the door to hold my laundry bag and whatever else needs to be placed lower.