apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Poor Jonathan. No wonder he seems in such a cranky mood.

Whoa, that IS a lot of work! Once you are done you'll feel like it is all worth it. It looks like a great space with tons of potential.
Jonathan - you put that television wherever you want. Anybody calling you cheesy is just a cafone. A 42" Plasma, Fuhgeddaboutit!

Nice place Jonathan.

I find these tiny photos very passive-aggressive on AT's part!

What is a "changing room" anyway?

I think the shelves look good (at least from what i could tell from the horrible picture - whoever took these photos should not give up his dayjob - unless he is a professional photographer). It sounds as though you are just second guessing your decision about the pine, but it can be painted. I would not replace these with pre-mades.

can you give us a floor plan so we can see the layout?

This house will one day be a fabulous place, but meanwhile no wonder you're such a grouch.

What do you care what AT thinks (didn't you just admonish me in another thread to rely on one's own taste as long as it's good? Put the TV wherever you want. I'd opt to paint the bookshelves, they look well worth salvaging.

and post some pictures of the alleged baby. I can't believe you have actually spawned another human being. good grief.

:)

It looks like my formatting for italics didn't work, and the whole process made me forget an outer paren.

Ouf.

Let's all bring Jonathan tea pots when he has his housewarming...

Seriously, what is a changing room?

And.....I love the 42" plasma!!

I'd be interested in seeing the floorplan also. This looks like it will be an incredible place when its done.

or we could all bring him chia pets

I almost choked on my sandwich.

Chia pets....much better!

The changing room is now done. The view you see is from the bedroom - you open pocket doors and then are in the changing rooms. The wall to your left and right are all built in closets and drawers, and the doorway is a large mirror that I had attached to a swinging wood block so the mirror itself actually opens as a door.

The Japanese garden now involves the following debate: should I hang little lights every ten feet from above the fence, or "up lights" that will come from beds of bamboo? This is what I lie awake thinking about. That is, when I'm not lying there swearing out loud about how much i hate myself.

I will send around a full set of before and after pictures. You folks will probably get a kick out of it.

up lights. duh.

Are you kidding?
That's a wonderful house.
It's not for the weak of heart, wallet, or intimidated by contractors, but boy oh boy what could be done with it!
You can count on a Japanese iron tea-set for your garden when you'll invite me for a housewarming party.

A bathroom with 10'ceiling! Two(at least) fireplaces! Original double doors and solid millwork trim!
Jonathan, surely you jest.

Changing Room - hello - changing room - what is a changing room.......thank you

If you would have told me how much money a good contractor makes a year ago, I never, ever, ever would have believed you. It's just ludicrous.

Honestly I am enjoying this whole thing. There are two things that sort of torture me: the first is the horrible feeling that I could be making better choices, and I'm not. The second is that we are adjacent to a very popular Park Slope restaurant and they are going to ruin the peace and tranquility of my Japanese garden - since they are right over the wall.

When you see the full set of pictures you will see that I actually broke down the wall in my Bedroom to put in a balcony (I had rough, uneven slate on the floor of it). The balcony overlooks the restaurant. So my plan is, if they get too loud, to drunkenly stumble to the balcony and pee over the fence onto the diners below.

Jackie: a changing room is a small room where the walls are flanked by built in drawers and poles - just a walk in closet but a bit bigger.

Beware lest you find a tuna head in your bed.

Thank you kind sir. I'd never heard the expression. So its basically a dressing room? Nice that you'll have one. One of my dreams.

I give you credit. This is a huge undertaking. And I know we would all love to see the floorplan so we can sort of follow along as you go.

Ok, no chia pet for you.

Convention calls it a dressing room.

Run your choices on this thread, I'm sure there will be many enthusiastic participants, eager to discuss and advice.

I can swipe notes with you, having renovated and sold a similar brownstone in Bay Ridge just in January (click on my signature, go to "Brownstone refurbished" album-that's the apartment I created in basement, from what was once a cat-piss pit with rotten columns that almost got me sued when one fell on a contractor guy).


I'll take a look in my landscaping books, there was one by an English bloke about lighting a landscaped patio- and I'll post the title. But, generally, the best approach is a combination of different lights, so you can play the mood.

Of course, if I wanted the balcony, I'd do one over the serene garden, but that's only because I lacked the restaurant to urinate on from above...

Tat, I will send Maxwell a full set of pictures early in the week with a floorplan and how it's coming. Broadly speaking it has been a struggle to put in a modern feel in a very anchored structure (e.g., a victorian townhouse). for example, i tried nelson bubble lamps in the grand parlor floor and it looked ridiculous. So I ended up calling a Savorski distributor and getting big high-lead content chandeliers (note to AT people: always call distributors and negotiate for a better price rather than buy from stores).

In the kitchen floor i was able to be a bit more progressive and put smoked glass walls up along the staircase, etc. anyway you can take a morbid look next week.

Duh. A dressing room! For a second I was thinking it was baby changing room. Shuddered at the thought a baby could make such a mess that would require a whole room for this activity, but figured maybe it took after Dad's proclivity towards public urination.

I thought it was a room where you changed your shoes when you come inside, before entering the rest of the house.

Turns out it's just a snooty word for a closet.

My snootiness is limitless, New Tenant, and I am upset you have a boyfriend from New Jersey. You can do better. You're gorgeous I can FEEL IT!

I have wall mounted shoe holders in the hallway when you come in.

Hang in there, Jonathan. Renos are worse than they say they are and everybody says they suck.

I've lived through many (daughter of architect) and have the bad luck to suffer through most of them only to move to new digs within the year. Ack.

It is wonderful once the work is done, though.

"I have wall mounted shoe holders in the hallway when you come in"

well, la di da

Sorry - Not gorgeous - but passable. And I am very attached to my boyfriend, who puts up with me despite my constant anti-NJ remarks.

...AND she already has white shelves in her bedroom.
Back to your abode Jonathan the snooty one.

The crystal chandelier: I hope you got this Swarovski:
http://www.boydlighting.com/products.html?prod_id=K-0061&search_division=KENTFIELD

La di da my ass the shoe holders are from Ikea (the Sandness line). The key was getting the contractor to fix them against the wall...somehow they look better that way. I suppose if you are attached to your boyfriend you are not so interested in a self-loathing narcisstic neurotic with a resemblance to quasimodo

I suppose that since you are married with un bebe, that is a rhetorical question.

Isn't self-loathing narcisst an oxymoron?

OK, then. Well, I still think the bookshelves can be salvaged. I'm just saying to prime the hell out of them. And I think that if you use a really good satin-finish alkyd (oil paint) that it will still be a very nice surface but with the gravity and solidity and architectural groundedness that you just don't get in plastic-ish ones. Those might give a perfectly fine furniture vibe, but for built-ins, I think wood is nice, so keep them. But there may be something about them that you hate, that I just can't really see in that picture.

I think they look fine from what I can see. But then again, my monitor here at home is a Sony VAIO with COUNTLESS burned-in horizontal black lines that make crazy when I'm trying to look at pictures.

curtis (and others?) - i'm wondering, would he have to spray the shelves to get a really smooth, nice finish? i agree that latex is out, that he'll have to use oil-based - but is there any way to get a decent finish with a brush/foam brush/roller?

I think a red Murano chandelier would look great in a high-ceilinged, all-white room.

Nothing creative to add--just that I love love this site

pphillipp -
It all depends on what you call decent. I think that when you paint shelves with a proper paint brush in the direction of the grain, it seems like painted wood, which is a very historically established normal kind of thing to do.

Because then the brush-strokes imitate and create even more "grain". I have no problem at all with that.

And I guess some people have gotten fairly satisfying results with rollers, but I think that most foam brushes (although they're a much smoother surface than regulat paint rollers) would probably disintegrate with the stuff that's in alkyd oil paints, really, but I'm not a chemist.

thanks, curtis.

actually, this weekend i was at a friend's house in brooklyn which he just got through renovating, top to bottom. there were two sets of built-in bookshelves, both of which were painted wood.

the finish led me to believe they were rolled - which is what my friend assumed, as well. i would have to say that, were they mine, i wouldn't opt for the finish which he got - they just seemed kind of rough.

if i were to do it, i still think i'd either opt for some sort of melamine-y finish, or have them sanded and sprayed - several coats, oil-based, of coruse.