Always bring your phone or camera into the public restroom with you. You never know what you might find. This is the ladies’ room at Chavella’s. Love the use of old shutters and the fountain sink with penis-looking faucet.
The Colors of Independence (Day)
Happy Indie Weekend, y’all! Does everyone have a nice long weekend planned? Yeah, enjoy. I’ll be working. 🙁
Museum Admission Tags
The Metropolitan Museum is giving up on their iconic admission tags. When I worked at The Met for whole three years of my life, I saved all of my buttons if I didn’t give them away to visitors as a form of recycling. Admission to The Met is now, as it has always been, “suggested” so you can give a penny and get in. Lots of people don’t realize and pay the full amount. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s a great institution that should be supported if the money is there to give. I just happen to believe that art should be available to everyone and I wish that every museum would have a sliding scale. Hear that MOMA?
So, the tags. This post was meant to be about all the lovely museum admission button art created by folks over the years. Surely if I was making earrings and bracelets out of them (it was the 80’s), everyone else is doing the same. Not so much.
I only found a handful of creations online. Very disappointing. WTF, people?
Coupla Weekend Events
A couple of young dudes artfully captured their trip from the South up to Brooklyn. They now have an indie film company and a screening of “To Exist” tomorrow night at 3rd Ward. As of July 1st, these boys will be leaving Brooklyn to reside in Rockaway, specifically at my house. Yeah, the new tenants! Support them! Free tix. Alls ya need to do is RSVP.
Vintage, sweet treats, jewelry, tees at Rockaway Yard Sale. Sounds like a plan! Here’s the full plan. Hit the beach, hit the concessions, hit the yard sale under the dome that will soon be taken down. Come to my house and help me finish up. Wait…do that first. You can have fun after. Just take the A train to Rockaway.
Transformations
What good is a renovation blog without before and after pictures?
The living room and bedrooms were mostly cosmetic but bathrooms and kitchens were gutted due to wood rot from leaky pipes and drains. I don’t think any of the original plumbing still exists in the house now.
A closet was taken down on the right side to add more width. A partition wall separating the toilet from the tub was also removed, letting the window light hit the rest of the bathroom.
We totally flipped the first floor kitchen around. You’re not even looking at the same area, so technically it’s not really a before and after.
Rented!
It’s been a long and flooded road to get here, nearly a year since buying the house, but I am pleased as punch to let y’all know that my little property will be fully occupied by July 15th. And no, the renovation isn’t finished!
I needed to set a deadline and find out if anyone even wanted to live there. Figured that if I showed it for July 1st, it could look nice and then I’d have a few more weeks to finish up. Only two people called to purchase and a TON of renters called. There were some would-be tenants who didn’t fit the bill and that wasted time, but at the end of the day, I’m loving the tenants who will be moving in. It was also inspiring to see how many young people want to be part of Rockaway’s resurgence, so I’m kind of glad to be hanging on to the house now.
The apartments will be finished by the time they are inhabited. (Fingers crossed) There’s still backyard and basement work, but it will be livable.
First guys move into upstairs on July 1st. Downstairs guy moves in on July 15th. Yes, all guys. The middle aged single-guy next door neighbor will be disappointed. He asked for hot female flight attendants.
So what’s my next project?
Stenciled Stairs
Could have been larger print but these are the stencils I had in the house. The dusty footprints are a nice touch. Dontcha think? Yes, I was working barefoot.
Cabinet Interiors
The kitchen cabinets that remained in place during the entire renovation got a fresh coat of paint on the outside. But ah, the interiors were still nasty. They were skimcoated and primed but that still wasn’t doing the trick.
Why yellow gloss? I had it in the house. It looks soooo much for fabulous than boring ole’ white. And it totally goes with my Mexican theme.
Oddly enough, I came home last night after painting and prepared fajitas for dinner.
Plans for Tonight?
Two awesome events taking place tonight and yes, you can fit both in if you hurry off to the second one.
First off, The English Beat is playing in the backyard of City Winery. FOR FREE. It’s an after work concert that begins at 5:00 pm.
Afterwards, you can head on over to Fourth Arts Block soiree. The annual event is a fundraiser for the 4th Street Cultural District. There’s a fancy pants party up in the penthouse and on the roof of The Standard. Enjoy some cocktails, hors d’oeurves and desserts while dancing, checking out the view and joining in on the silent auction. All for a good cause! Tickets here.
Some Cool Backyard Fences
Yay! It’s finally time to work on the exterior of the house! It only took nearly a year, but whatev. A decision has been made (maybe) that we’ll be making our own fence and not buying stockade. Reason being, we’ll use thicker wood so it holds up longer. We may change our minds by the weekend. Stay tuned.
Just going through some images to see what others have done with their custom fences.
I have a bunch of old shutters that I never got to use for my “Wall O’ Shutters” in the basement but using an interior wood for outdoors, no matter how well it’s painted, won’t look so good after a few months. Maybe that adds to the reclaimed look?
Is this the best effin thing ever?
The Rockaway Donation Game
Forget Angry Birds. Here’s your opportunity to waste time playing interactive games online while doing some good for society. Repair the Rockaways allows you to purchase virtual bricks for building virtual houses. The donations are real and go to Respond and Rebuild, a volunteer group helping with supplies, education and labor.
Via Mother New York.
When Rewiring is a Bitch
Antique light fixtures to me are like shoes to other women. I collect them. It’s easy enough because they don’t take up much space. I have my practical fixtures and my dressy ones. Ya know.
Ninety percent of the time they need to be rewired. And eighty percent of that time, it’s ok. But sometimes a fixture becomes a pain in the arse and it’s always the one I realllllly want to use in a certain spot.
Case in hand is this chandelier I just HAD TO put in the kitchen. It had old cloth wire that I cut and tried to pull out when I spray painted. Didn’t come out. My husband managed to get a few strands out but the new wire just wasn’t going through.
What to do?
Well, I’d love to know what a real lighting person would have done but this scrappy DIY crew (Hubby and Moi) drilled holes close enough to the socket and ran wire on the outside of the arms. The wires were painted the same black and voila (!)…you can’t see them. FYI, the photo below was taken during the process, not after we painted. Just making sure you know that.
Anyone got an easier way?
DIY Industrial Curtain Rod
Here’s a simple and inexpensive way to hang your curtains.
First, a little history as to how I ended up buying my curtain rods at a plumbing supply place.
After rebuilding the rotted window frames, there wasn’t much space inside the molding to hang blinds. There was no way I wanted to cover the window trim. Having spent a fortune on it, I wanted to show it off. So, it had to be inside the molding and the I only had about a 1/2 inch to work with. The other thing was that this is a long window, measuring 88″ across, so most of the non-custom rods were too short.
First choice was the Ikea window panels. Love them! But alas, they would have been too pricey for this project.
I did find some cute curtains at Dee and Dee for like six bucks. Now to hang them.
Rope? I like to use rope to hang shower curtains. I figured why not curtains? Well, because there is still no bar. The rope would just sag in the middle. Tension rod would have been another solution, but I didn’t try that.
When I saw an extra piece of copper pipe in the basement, the light bulb went off. I went to the plumbing supply place to see if they had narrow flanges I can use to hang it, much like a closet rod flange. They did not, so I said “Screw it. Let’s use that punchy hole thing that is used to secure pipes.” Then I saw the price of the copper and decided on electrical conduit instead.
And so here we are. For under twenty bucks, I have some curtains and the rod. It took about 10 minutes to install, including the time it took to cut the rod down to size. If you don’t like the way it looks, rest assured, it’s mostly covered by the fabric anyway. Plus, there’s always spray paint.
Mid Century in Dublin
Hey, if anyone is in the market for a house in Dublin (You never know), my friend’s home is up for sale.
The house is right across the street from my mother in law in Foxrock, an area that my husband does not like to admit he’s from because it’s a bit suburban well heeled. The houses around there are a mostly samey-samey but I’ve always loved going over to 74 Clonkeen for tea so I can drool over their awesome mid-century interiors. And this is from a person who doesn’t get excited over mid-century design! The parents really had superb taste.
I’ll miss going over there. Unless you buy it and invite me over for tea. Just a thought.
Live from Rockaway, it’s…
Just finished the house website! I actually bought the domain for Rockaway House but then it was just sooo much easier to create the site through Weebly, so I said WTH.
Here goes nuthin’. So, I guess this means the house is officially on the market, even though there’s still plenty of work left to do.
Showing this weekend. The fire under my butt has been lit.