A Chic Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival!

  

I stumbled across this incredible Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival via CWB Architects.  This project entailed a complete structural and mechanical gut renovation of this four story, 3200 sq. ft. row house and extension.

The designer?  Jennifer Eisenstadt Design and Decoration, LLC.  Why have I not heard of her before?  Check out this incredibly chic home (I believe this might be her home.)

I am completely speechless....

Keep a look out for her use of modern and vintage light fixtures.  I believe this and the kitchen's fixture might be Lindsey Adelman's bubble light which I posted about here.  I am in love!

Pocket doors, brass fixtures, modern lighting, oh my!

For real? A leopard print runner!! Brilliantly done.

Black and white graphic wallpaper and mirrored furniture - I love it.  Do you notice the ruffle trim on the curtains?  Such a nice feminine detail.  And, the brass doorknobs?  I love the dark walls in the adjourning room.  I just wish I could see more of this bedroom.  

How chic!

The marble veining in the shower, the vanity's lucite legs, hexagonal floor and wall tiles and the brass hardware are all so wonderful!

I am so using balloon shades in our next house.  Remember this post?

So tastefully done.

Do you notice how glossy the trim is?

This is probably her office, no?  What an amazing space to work in!

And, just when you thought you were done with the surprises - she throws this into the mix!  Holy Cow!  She is incredible!  The mix of the chinoiserie wallpaper with the inlaid wooden chevron floor - crazy good!

I love the primary colors and the kilim rug!  

Oh my goodness!!  So amazing!

Okay, how incredible is this home?  I can tell you that I will be studying each and every one of these pictures for a long time.  I haven't felt this inspired in a while. 

Can some magazine publish her space so I can get all the sources, please??

Jennifer Eisenstadt is my new hero!

Jenny Wolf Interiors

I love pinterest.  Who doesn't?  I stumbled across Jenny Wolf interiors while pinning and I hopped over to look at her portfolio - I am so glad I did.  I really like her style.  She grew up in the South and credits her style to her Southern roots.  Anyway, I like what I saw and thought I'd share.

Pretty, huh?  

Also, I realized I never posted my pinterest account on my blog before.  If you want to follow my boards, you can find me here. 

Custom Kitchen Cabinets

So, by now I am sure you get the point that we were on a mission to make our kitchen more functional and organized during our time off. We customized our pantry {more about that here} and customized our kitchen drawers {more about that here}. The next and last item on our agenda was to make an easy to access space for our pots and pans. Up until now they were crammed in to the back of a corner cabinet and you were likely to be injured if you attempted to get one out. After much searching on the Internet we really loved the fancy pull out drawers that a lot of the high end kitchens have. Which got Talon's wheels to spinning and the idea of making our own custom pull out drawers evolved....

This is a bottom cabinet and used to hold unnecessary kitchen items {ex: crock pot - could totally be re-located to a less easier to reach location since we do not use it on a daily basis}. So, it was a prime candidate for the mini-makeover.

This is how Talon said we did it {my portion was all moral support}: We measured the cabinet opening and determined the location of the trays. We then glued and tacked in some support risers for the slides {which we purchased at Home Depot} to be screwed into. We then had to determine the height that the slide needed to be, leveled it, then screwed them in {this had to be done for both sides and both drawers}. Up next it was time to build the drawers themselves. We measured the distance between the slides to determine the drawer width. The MDF that we were using was cut down to the appropriate width. We also had to cut strips that equal the depth that we wanted the drawers to be. Once everything was glued and nailed together all we had to do was mount them on the slides.

This has by far been the greatest thing we have done in our kitchen. It's no longer a fight to get a pot or a pan for cooking. We simply open the cabinet and pull out a drawer. The slides that we used allow the trays to extend all the way out of the cabinet making it even easier to grab things from the back. That wraps up our kitchen organization/customization craziness but we are already brewing other ideas for the future!  

Organize Your Drawers.

Remember yesterday's post where I listed all the things we wanted to do during our time off over Christmas and New Years? One of those things was 'Drawer Organization.' We were referencing our kitchen drawers. Specifically, we had three drawers in mind. Utensil, silverware and one that was empty and providing no function for our kitchen. The utensil and silverware drawers contained plastic trays similar to this....

We've always hated those things. They get dirty and slide all over the drawer. So we removed them and we were left with blank slates...

 We quickly customized them to look like this....

Here's a run down on how we (aka Talon) did it. First we purchased 1/2 inch mdf. It's about $26.00 for a 4x8 sheet. We then measured the depths of the drawers and ripped strips out of the plywood on the table saw to that depth. The best part was that we got to customize them however we wanted. For example, length and width for every slot was our decision. Once we decided on the size of each insert we measured them and cut the ripped strips to the desired length. Per Talon, this was extremely easy and I can vouch that it took him less than an hour to complete the inserts.  

Here is the utensil drawer with all of our kitchen gadgets placed back in it. What used to feel like a junk drawer feels like an organized and easy to access space. Everything seems to fit so much better and with the built in dividers we are able to use every inch of the drawer. Where with the plastic inserts we were limited.

We didn't stop there. We still needed something to do with that empty drawer that really had no purpose. We decided it would be best utilized if it held all of our cutting knifes.  It would also get rid of that gigantic knife block holder. Three cheers for that.  

 Talon claimed this was a little bit trickier than the others. Here's how he did it. Measured the depth of the drawer and determined the position of the knife block. He then glued several strips of the mdf together to add up to slightly less than the depth of the drawer. Using the miter saw, ripped out slots for the knife blades to rest in. Then, using a piece of scrap, glue on an extra piece to support the knife handles, which keeps the front of the knife from lifting out of the slot. It was all then nailed to the drawer with a nail gun (Tal's Tip: Use the appropriate length nail and only in strategic positions to avoid splitting the mdf (it can be done on 1/2 inch) and/or a blowout). 

What do you think? Aren't they so fancy? We've loved all of our custom drawers so far!

Pantry Makeover

Talon and I had 10 full days off of work. It was glorious! Of course, several of those days were filled with Christmas activities but I had a big plans for the others....

Yep,a Christmas vacation 'to do' list. Have I mentioned that I have no idea how to relax? Literally, I can't sit still. If I do, I go straight to sleep. Lucky for me...Tal was on board for the majority of the list. In case you have trouble reading here is a quick run down. 1. Pantry {More about that in a minute} 2. Go to Movies {Had to have fun stuff to look forward to! Plus we never do this because it is SO darn expensive.} 3. Clean Oven {The inside of course. Just one of those things we never get around to doing}. 4. Wash Duvet {Easy task. I love to check things off a list} 5. Organize Attic {Not so easy task but was a great time to do it since we would be putting up Christmas decor} 6. Starbucks Date {So fun} 7. Clothes Shopping {This was for Tal - I have no problem making time to clothes shop for myself:)} 8. Paint Office {More on that later} 9. Stencil Office {More on that later} 10. Fish Scale Art {More on that later} 11. Ping Pong {Nothing better than a little competition to spice the week up} 12. Drawer Organization {Again, more on this later in the week}How's that for a Christmas Vacation? It was SO much fun though. Talon and I love doing projects together...nothing better than quality time spent covered in dust and paint:) So, first on the list was our pantry. Not to long ago we built a custom spice rack for the back of our pantry door. More about that here. It has been so wonderful that we wanted to do some more updates in the ol' pantry. See those ugly wire shelves....

We wanted to get rid of them and that is what we planned on doing. Here is how....First up, removing all of the wire shelves and hardware. We plan to craigslist them to cover some of the cost of the new shelves.  

Once done, we were left with lots and lots of holes to deal with. 

We used Spackling to patch all of the holes. It's purple when you apply and turns white once ready to be sanded down. Making it very easy to use.

After the holes were patched I gave it a nice coat of paint to pretty it up. Luckily, I was already painting the office (remember that was on our to do list too) and the color was only a hair darker than what our kitchen is so I was able to use that and it blends very nicely!  Once all the prep work was done we were ready to tackle the big stuff...the shelves themselves. We purchased and sanded pine plywood ($26, 4x8 sheet), 6ft 1x6 select pine for facing and 3 1x2 select pine for the shelving cleats. Once we found the studs in the pantry we then determined appropriate shelf depth. We then cut the cleats to the appropriate length. Pre-drilled and countersinked the cleats to the pantry wall with 3" drywall screws. The pantry shelves were cut out of the sanded pine plywood to the appropriate depth and width and nailed in place with a nail gun. 

We then measured and ripped down 1x6s to the appropriate width for the facing. They were then nailed in place with the nail gun. All seams were caulked and wood filler was used on the joints. Allowed to dry and then it was all sanded....

After a fresh coat of white paint....they were ready to hold all of our daily necessities!

No more falling through the cracks of the wire shelf. We can utilize the entire space and it glorious!

We've been collecting storage containers from IKEA to help organize this space.The labels are hand written so they can be removed and modified easily depending on what is being stored in each piece.

Is it weird that when anyone comes over I want to scream "look how awesome our pantry is!"??? Yep, we love it that much. Between the spice rack and all the added shelf space it's perfect!

Total cost for this pantry makeover (shelves only) was around $50.00 (excluding things we already had like paint, wood filler, nails and the fact that we only had to use 1/2 the sheet of plywood). We think it was well worth the time and money spent since the pantry is something we utilize every single day. Anything to make life a little easier!