our house - Seeing Design

Published January 2, 2012 by Anne Collins Howard

Want Our Apartment?

To walk away from your day-to-day life for 16-months, you need to tie up a lot of loose ends but we’re getting there. Quit job—check. Sell car—check. Find new health insurance—check. Rent apartment? This remains the one major missing piece before we take our honeymoon around the world. The hope is to rent our apartment fully furnished because 1. Putting stuff in storage is a pain. 2. Someone is bound to appreciate all my hard decorating work!

For anyone moving to the New York City area temporarily, who doesn’t want the typical box filled with industrial-grade furniture and craves an inviting, thoughtfully designed space, we want you to have this apartment. Everything in our home was chosen with great love and care (ex. we lived in camping chairs until we found our dream couch. When we couldn’t find the right kitchen island, we built it ourselves.) This furniture doesn’t deserve to be covered up with dropcloth; it deserves to someone who could love it as much as we do (or even be half as obsessed).

Condo Specs:
Three-story brownstone building, circa 1900
1,130 Square-foot condo
2 Bedrooms
1 Office/nursery
1 Full bathroom
Original wide-plank pine hardwood floors
Dine-in kitchen w/ large butcher block island
2 Decorative fireplaces
Backyard w/ patio, outdoor seating, grass, garden, trees, grill & fire pit
Dishwasher and stainless steel appliances
Washer and dryer in the building
For full details, see our apartment listing

Here is the abbreviated house tour but for more photos and full makeover backstory, just click on the room name.

The Living Room
The Kitchen
The Master Bedroom

The Bathroom

The Guest RoomSo if you know anyone—a visiting professor, a businessperson on a long-term project, a couple who’s moved across the country and left it all behind, or anyone who would just love our space, please email me at Anne@SeeingDesign.com

Etc

HoneyTrek.com our house

Published September 15, 2011 by Anne Collins Howard

DIY Window Valance

After a year of thinking about my guest bedroom valance project, it finally came to fruition. Why did it take so long? Because it took me forever to convince Mike that this über-DIY project was feasible. The plan was to build a window valance out of wood, wallpaper it to match our accent wall, and secure it to the inside of the window. Easy? We were about to find out.

Measurements
What helped kick-start this project into action was that we happened to find two pieces of discarded 50” wide x 14” tall wood–dimensions that were basically valance size. The height was perfect and the width just needed to be trimmed down a bit.

To make the window seem larger, we measured so the panel width would extend 3” beyond the window frame on each side, making the total 40” wide. Now it just needed a way to connect to the wall. The answer was create a short table-like structure to sit over the top of the window frame. Five-inch side boards would hopefully act as a base for a sturdy rectangular valance.

Building the Wooden Structure
We broke out the circular saw and cut our three pieces of wood (the front panel, and the two identical five-inch side pieces). We checked to see if they lined up properly then sanded them until they were smooth.

Now we were ready for assembly. We ran a bead of wood glue where the side panels met the front but for the ultimate stability, we screwed four L-brackets on the inside of the valance.

Prepping the wood for wallpaper
We sanded the wooden structure one more time and gave it a coat of wallpaper primer to make sure the paper would adhere nicely to this unconventional surface.

Wallpapering
At first it seemed like we had more than enough wallpaper to cover this tiny valance, but when we matched up the pattern we barely had paper to make it around the wood. With zero wiggle-room, we booked the wallpaper (the process of activating the paste to maximize stickiness), pasted it to the primed wood, and cut the excess with a Xact-o knife–very carefully. After four hours of drying time, it was ready to hang.

Hanging the Valance
This part was a bit of a two-person juggling act, hence the lack of photos. The plan was to connect our valance to the wall with more of the trusty L-brackets, connecting from the inside of the valance to the outside of the window frame. To do this, we first held up the valance, making sure there it was centered and an inch from the ceiling, then we marked the spots where the four L-brackets would be the sturdiest and drilled into the wall.

Voila!
We have a window treatment that carries the bold pattern of our wallpaper around the room and gives our window a polished look! Now, I’ll admit that this project was definitely time consuming but I’m proud to say, it’s not that difficult to do and way cheaper than having a valance made.

Projects

bedroom DIY our house wallpaper window treatments

Published June 27, 2011 by Anne Collins Howard

Bookshelf Runoff

how to choose a bookshelf — Which bookcase should we put here?

Between the expansive blank wall and the stacks of books in our living room, it’s pretty obvious we need a bookshelf. Now the question is . . . which one? Á la our Rug Runoff, I’ve selected a handful of my favorite bookshelves and I’m hoping you can help me pick the one that will work best for our space!

Things to Keep in Mind
Positioned directly across from the front door, this bookcase will essentially be the first thing guests see when they walk into our home (no pressure). That said, it should blend with the room’s decor but make a statement on its own. Plus, it’s got to comfortably fill out this 70”w x 108”h wall with ample breathing room on the sides and enough height to draw the eye up.

The Contenders
Rockwell Bookcase
Without being matchy-matchy, I love that this crisscross-piece from Jayson Home and Garden has a similar look and feel as our bricklayer’s coffee table. At 36.5”w x 84”h, the reclaimed wood and metal unit is one of the taller and narrower options in this group, leaving a good amount of the wall exposed on the sides (not sure if that’s good or bad but it’s something to consider).

Left Bank Bookcase
This option from Vivaterra is Mike’s favorite for its straightforward-industrial look and for me, the exposed rivets and gray-washed wood shelves have a raw Parisian charm that could win me over.

Naturally Beautiful Bookcase
From Wisteria, this 53” wide casegood would practically fill the whole wall but a bookshelf that feels more like a built-in could be a nice effect. . . . With pretty wood spindles and an X-back, it would play on the updated-traditional elements in the room like the sofa and fireplace.

Scala Bookcase
This white and black metal bookshelf may seem too modern for my home but imagine it with bamboo shelves and a silver frame . . . it could work perfectly. Faktura Design makes this piece in a variety of finishes and materials and can even make the 70”h good taller for a couple hundred. I love that these cantilevered shelves act like bookends in the center and have a look like nothing else on the market.

Which bookcase is your favorite for our home? Please cast your vote in the comments below!

Finds

casegoods decorating our house storage

Published July 11, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Plants for Lazy Gardeners

I adore having plants and flowers in the yard but tending to them is not how I’d like to spend my time. So my question this summer has become: How to have a pretty garden with the least amount of effort. And with a bit of research on resilient plants for east coast living, we may have just figured it out.

Before
Our shared-yard had been neglected for over two years but, thankfully, the tenants before us structured a garden with lazy people in mind. They tiered the perimeter of the yard with wood and stone to make nice raised plant beds so even when the garden starts looking pretty chaotic, it still has decent structure. They also made the brilliant choice of buying the most self-sufficient, gorgeous, shade-loving plant: The Hosta. I know this photo looks a little grim but any lush green you see on the ground is all hosta.

With good structure and hearty plants on our mind, we headed to the nursery and started anew.

Hanging Lattice
We love that our former tenants placed lattice along the back wall but they fell a little short when it came to the sides. To cover the not-so-cute chain link fences we put up more lattice (that’s our lovely neighbor Bridget helping us secure the wood) and planted clematis to grow over it. Clematis has exotic, star-shaped flowers and vines that supposedly climb like crazy. So in a year or so, the hope is to see just a hint of lattice and a wall of fabulous foliage.

Amazing Hostas
Knowing the kind of abuse the hostas can take, we naturally bought more. This time we planted Blue Cadet Hosta to get a little more color and height.

Promising Lily Turf
So our garden didn’t turn into a hosta farm, we decided to branch out with a bit of Lily Turf. These spunky grasses will supposedly spread out to make nice groundcover, grow violet-blue flowers in the summer and dark berries in the fall. We are banking on them being fairly independent in the future but for now we are watering them regularly.

Hydrangeas and beyond
In the front left of the yard and along the back wall, we planted white hydrangeas. Tall, wide, and packed with flower clusters, hydrangeas have presence. And in white, they should still provide a little shimmer at night.

I’ll report back at the end of summer with hopefully some progress to share but in the meantime, if anyone has any good gardening tips . . . we are all ears!

Projects

DIY gardening our house

Tag: <span>our house</span>

Want Our Apartment?

DIY Window Valance

Bookshelf Runoff

Plants for Lazy Gardeners