To Do List

To me, springtime means walking for fitness, shedding the ugly wardrobe of winter in exchange for some cute new frocks, and home remodeling/redecorating projects!

This year, I have a lot of them in mind so I thought I better start a list lest I forget some of them!

Here's my spring project line up - SO excited!

1. The kitchen is getting a DIY makeover, from top to bottom.  I'm super excited that one of my favorite blogs, The Lettered Cottage, has done all of the work already and details it all in pics and written instructions!  Our kitchen is going to have a similar transformation as this one!

2. A fireplace and "custom" bookcases, a la Candace Olsen and Divine Design.  We have the same long layout as this home and I think that a similar design project would really add to the value of our home. And Matty agreed!

3. The bedroom.  Ugh. This is the spot that gives me the most angst because it is small and it's awkward; that's why I need to find a way to open it up and turn it into an inviting space that utilizes clever design to make the most of it! I know that we need a headboard, that's for sure.  But we also need storage in a major way, and two appropriately sized night stands.  I really, really, really want one of these but I don't know if Matty will go for it.  I'm thinking not.

4. Redecorating of the main living space.  Right now, I'm rockin' a shabby chic/French country meets Country Living cottage look (NOT a 'country' look, mind you - you'll find none of that here).  Lately, however, I've fallen more in love with Hollywood Regency styles and, gasp!, contemporary design!  I really want to incorporate more contemporary designs with my antiques and Arts and Crafts styles.  My furniture is very eclectic, so I've got a lot of room to work.  I need to re-cushion some of my chairs and maybe even reupholster an entire chair, and strip and paint a dresser... in addition to buying a new storage piece to house even more stuff!

Here are the pieces I'm going to work on:

I Want This House

Scarlet Johansson sure knows how to live.

Take time to go through all of the pics - her wall paper choices are just stunning.

sick sick sick

I'm sick.
I am really sick.
I haven't been this sick since I was a kid.

It started on the plane ride home from London.
Thank goodness I had an aisle seat because I ran from it 8 times.
It continued at home, where I've been in bed since 2 pm Monday.

It's now 3 pm Tuesday.

In the past 24 hours, I missed out on a romantic belated Valentine's Day with my hubby.
I walked into a home full of roses, cards, and an invitation to a fancy meal and
had to ignore them all and take to my bed instead.

The only consolation is spending time with my constant companion who hasn't left my side.

I sure love this kitten

Snowzilla and Pauly D

Last night, Matty and I ventured out into the Snowpacolypse for some food and drink.  We wound up at the Gaslight, where we enjoyed the Texan Chicken BLT, their fabulous mac-n-cheese, and the mango chicken salad with avocado (note: if you're gonna serve a mango salad, then the mango should be ripe, otherwise, it's a waste. Other than the mango, however, the salad was terrific - best chicken I've had in ages).   

The place was mobbed and of course, as happens in the restaurant biz when there is the least sign of weather, most of the wait staffed called out (which, assuming most people who work there live in Hoboken, is appalling) but the one waiter who was there, ran that show like Jay Z: he crushed the crush and in no time at all, we were watered, fed, and put out to pasture.

On our way home, we remarked that it has been a good night to be out and about: there's just something about a snow storm that makes me want to be out in it, somewhere public and communal.


As we rounded the corner of Madison onto First, something caught my eye in front of Mad One Jack's, a salon.  It appeared to be a snowman! Fun, right?  I had to take a closer look and man, am I glad I did.

It wasn't just any old snowman, it was PAULY D! Snowman style!  

I had to get in on the photo op!

I even got a photo of the artist with her work:

Funny, she looks a little like Celine!

We ended the night back at 79 Monroe, 

happy to have spent an evening making the most of city living,

grateful to have such a great home to return to:

Read This !

No, not this post, necessarily - I mean read this book: Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believe.

I've been listening to this book on my way to and from work and I'm spellbound by the writer's ability to craft a tale. I first read Wally Lamb back in the day when he published his first book, She's Come Undone, and enjoyed it.

But it was no The Hour I First Believed.

What I adore about this story is that it's a work of historical fiction - contemporary historical fiction: its fictional characters (Caelum and Maureen Quirk) are, according to the NY Times Book Review, living in the midst of:

"major events (the Columbine High School shootings, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina) and weighty issues (motherhood, marriage, alienation, psychological trauma, drug addiction, chaos theory, prison reform, grief, the connection between ancestry and identity — to name just a few)".

I can't begin to do this book justice with my words, so go here and read about it from someone who talks books for a living.

Tomorrow, I'll talk more about why I'm so attached to this book.

Days Like This

Why do I feel so angry today?

Why, on this day, this evening?

I've watched enough television 

and have read enough to know that

most often when one feels anger, 

it's not anger at all one feels, 

it's fear.

Lately, I've become a total thanatophobic

and it's beginning to define my waking moments:

I'm afraid I'm going to die,

I'm afraid Angelica Pinkerton is going to die,

I'm not afraid Matt's going to die but

 I'm afraid death is on its way.

Maybe that's why I'm so angry.

Picture Me Here

todd richesin for HouseBeautiful
Originally uploaded by chapman_interiors

I sure can.

Whether it's the turquoise couch, the red wood of the buffet or the carefully chosen and deliberately placed tureen that draws me to this space is irrelevant because it's the space as a whole that I want to reside within.

I love how the wooden slats add depth to the walls and how the four lights are symmetrically grouped yet do not overwhelm the small space they share.

The muted toile of the pillows works to unify the space, a buffer that segues the bright diagonal pattern of the chair into the multicolored patches of the quilt and allows the pinstriping of the couch skirt to tie the whole look together.

In our next home, I hope to capture the essence of our life in a well designed, inventing space that is its visual reality. It won't be easy for me since I'm more of a talent than a genius: it will be an effort of painstaking patience, deliberation, and detachment.

I look forward to it: what better way to face the hours, and the hours after the hours...