#even with my mixed feelings on their newer stuff. seeing the front bottoms live would be a transcendent fucking experience for me

[grassbreads]

vibrating bc I just realized it'd be very feasible to see one of my favorite bands live for the first time later this year

[therake-1996-blog]

Pure

So, I decided to post the first chapter of my story, Pure, and see how well it’s received. It’s the first story I’ve completed in full. I hope you like it!

Chapter 1

Nice To Meet You

  My name is Eden Kae James, I’m seventeen, and I live in a

small, sleepy town called Plymouth in Ohio, with a population

of 1,857. My parents died when I was four, so I live with my

aunt and uncle, Lorraine and David Archibald.

       There’s nothing all that special about me. I maintain a B

average in school, and I don’t do sports—because god help me if

I ever tried—and I have a few people I’d call close friends, but

that’s about it.

       I’m just painfully ordinary.

       As I sit in fourth period algebra II, spinning my pencil

absent-mindedly around on my desk, our teacher is giving a

lesson on polynomial functions. The Plymouth-Shiloh Local

School District in Richland County has two newer buildings as

opposed to the old ones that had been around since my

grandmother was in school and before even that. The middle and

high school are conjoined by the back and front hallways, a

single solitary hall consisting of the middle and high schools.

This building was constructed in 2005. The elementary school

across the parking lot was built in 2010, five years later.

 The schools both have newer, better equipment than one

would expect a small town school district would have. Each

classroom has a SmartBoard and just this year we got Google

notebooks. There are two carts of fifty, so each teacher has to

share, but at least we have them.

I take a break from spinning my pencil to glance idly up at

the SmartBoard, my eyes looking at the numbers and letters on

the screen, but my brain not pulling them in.

Each classroom has bright blue counters and storage

cabinets on one side of the room, two whiteboards, one for

general messages and the other for actual lessons…though, we

don’t use the whiteboards much anymore, and has one wall

painted, either blue to match the cabinets, or brown. In this

particular classroom, the concrete wall to the west is painted

brown, while the rest are white. The carpet underneath our feet

is indigo, with specks of brown and red here and there.

As I’m staring blankly at the board, my friend Phoebe

pokes me in the back with her pen. I turn and give her a look.

       Phoebe Dover is absolutely gorgeous; long pin straight

blonde hair, pale blue eyes, a round face with a small nose,

tanned skin and full, pink lips. Next to her, I look like a troll.

She smiles mischievously and points over to our other friend,

Ramir Abboud. He’s a foreign exchange student from Egypt and

is hosted by Phoebe’s parents. He has the common dark skin of

someone from the Middle East, short black hair and deep brown

eyes, sharp features and an impossibly deep voice.

       Turning my gaze from him, I shrug my shoulders at

Phoebe, non-verbally asking what she’s on about. She holds up

her index finger and opens an app on her phone, fiddles with it,

and then there’s a sudden, loud, FRAAAAAP sound from

Ramir’s pocket.

       Our entire class freezes, then erupts in laughter.

       Ramir stiffens, red lighting up his cheeks and he ducks his

head, turning his eyes over to Phoebe, who is about to fall out of

her seat with laughter. “I’ll kill you.” He mouths. I giggle.

“Alright, Ramir, give me your phone.” Our teacher, Mrs. Davis,

says as she walks down the aisle to him, holding her aged hand

out. Grumbling, Ramir fishes his Samsung out of his pocket and

grudgingly hands it to her. “You can get this back after school.

Everyone! Settle down!”

       As the class quiets, Phoebe lightly smacks me and winks. I

shake my head and turn back around, lest I get in trouble, too.    

       “What the hell, Pheebs?” Ramir stomps up to us after the

bell rings, looking furious.

“Oh, well, you know how I asked to borrow your phone because

I forgot Olivia’s number?”

“Yeah?”

“Well I actually installed this app that lets you play fart sounds

on it when you connect with another phone that has the same

app,”

“You’re awful!” Ramir childishly stomps his foot and sticks his

bottom lip out, but Phoebe just smiles charmingly.

“Oh, come on, Ramir it was a little funny.”

“For you! Eden, help me out?” I shrug my shoulders and offer a

small smile that asks, ‘What do you want me to do?’, and he

huffs, turning his back on us and stomping away.

       As I adjust my old Jansport backpack on my left shoulder,

Phoebe closes her locker with that high-school hallway

slamming noise and turns to me. “So, are you coming to lunch?”

I roll my eyes in my head as I think.

“Well, we do have that bio test tomorrow. Maybe I should skip

and study for that,”

“Oh, come on, Eden, you have all night to study,” She slumps

her shoulders dramatically and shoots me a pleading look.

“Come on, eat with us. You’ve been sitting in the library all

week studying for that stupid test.”

“Mm…”

The truth is, I don’t like how noisy the cafeteria gets during

lunch. Plymouth High School only has about 250 students, but

since we share a building with the middle school it seems much

bigger. Plymouth shares a school district with the villages of

Shiloh and Rome—both being a blink-and-you-miss-it type

village. And, over half the junior and senior classes are at

Pioneer, a vocational school in Shelby about fifteen minutes

away. I had thought about going there, but decided I’d stay at

Plymouth. Pioneer is way too big for someone like me.

“Well?” Phoebe asks. I sigh, won over.

“Okay, I’ll go with you.”

“Ee! Okay! Put your stuff away and let’s go before the line gets

too long!” I give her a small, exasperated smile.

“Okay. Calm down.”

       We walk down the hallway, passing the teal blue rows of

lockers and giggling students. Phoebe is the girl with the clear,

loud voice, the girl who always finds a way to make even the

most boring of situations fun and exciting. She’s a sweet girl

with a big heart, and has no problem attracting people to her,

and she and I have been friends since kindergarten, even though

she’s the beautiful sociable blonde and I’m the introverted

brunette. You know, typical school stereotypes.

       But here in Plymouth, pretty much everybody gets along.

We still have our cliques, but everyone ventures out of them and

mingles with each other; jocks, goths, nerds, and preps, all of us

know each other somehow or someway. A lot of us are actually

related. Plus Phoebe and I have been neighbors ever since my

mom and dad died.

       My friend loops her arm around my shoulders as we get

closer toward the cafeteria, as I keep getting bumped.

       When we finally manage to get out of the line—it ran from

the door into the kitchen all the way to the series of long tables

by the entrance to the cafeteria—we find where our other three

friends, Luke, Olivia, and Carson are sitting and begin eating.

This room is about the same size of our gym, with three

mammoth TV’s that never get turned on mounted to the walls

where the windows and walls meet. Along the far wall and

covering half the other two, are huge windows that stretch from

the floor to the ceiling, letting in lots of natural light. There are

several circular tables scattered here and there, along with the

three rows of long tables. We sit at the circular table closest to

the a la cart line.

       Luke, who is Phoebe’s cousin—see I told you we’re all

related—actually just turned seventeen. He was allowed to skip

first grade and come up into our grade. He has caramel colored

hair and wide honey brown eyes, a proud nose and a slightly

wider than normal mouth. His skin is medium colored, like

Phoebe’s when she’s not tan, and is five foot nine with a narrow

build. He’s the smart kid of our group.

       Olivia is the pixie girl of our school. She is four foot eight,

extremely petite, has an insanely round baby face and large

bright grey eyes. Her dark hair is cut short, 1920s style, and she

has skin the color of peaches. She always smells like cinnamon,

and is very artsy.

       Carson is a football player. He’s six foot even and is very

muscular for an eighteen-year-old. His eyes match the color of

his skin; chocolate, and his black hair is shaved close to his

scalp with a circular pattern shaved into it. He’s also Phoebe’s

boyfriend.

       As I pour ranch over my garden salad, Carson throws a

piece of paper across the table at me, hitting me off my head.

“Hey,” I whine, snatching it up and beaming it as hard as I can

back at him. He easily smacks it away; it falls to the linoleum

floor, but no one picks it up.

“Where have you been the last week?” He asks, eyeing me.

“I’ve been studying,”

“Studying,” Carson repeats the word, trying to imitate my voice

and failing miserably. “No one studies for a full week for a

dumb biology test. You don’t like us anymore!” Clearly teasing

me, he dramatically throws his head into his hands and shakes

his shoulders as if he’s sobbing. I roll my eyes. Phoebe lightly

smacks his arm.

“Shut up and eat your food.” She says with a smile.

       “Eden just doesn’t like all the noise in here,” Olivia says,

her light and airy voice dancing across the table. I nod silently,

bringing a forkful of salad to my mouth; the lettuce falls off. As

I stab it again, Luke nods.

“Understandable. I wish they’d let us take our lunches to the

library.”

“If they let us do that, then the library would be full,” Phoebe

says. She smothers her chicken nuggets in barbeque sauce, then

takes the leftover sauce and mixes her corn with it.

“Eww, Pheebs, what are you even?” Carson makes a face, but

Phoebe shrugs her narrow shoulders and begins eating.

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

       As we continue eating, my head suddenly feels light, and I

sway a bit in my seat. “Eden?” Phoebe gently touches my arm,

and as I regain myself, I take a deep breath. Everyone else looks

at me with worried expressions. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened.” The

truth is, the past couple of weeks this has been happening. My

mind suddenly spins and my vision blurs, and I lose all sense of

where I am. It gets worse with noise. So along with just

generally not liking loud places, I’ve stayed in the library

because of that.

       I’ve also been having a recurring dream. I don’t know if it

would qualify as a nightmare, but when I wake up my heart is

racing and I can’t breathe. It’s like someone had been sitting on

my chest.

       I take another deep breath, and Olivia says, “Maybe you

should go to the nurse.”

“No,” I reply. “It’s nothing. I’m probably just getting a cold or

something.” She gives me a look, but doesn’t say anything else.

We return to eating, and soon lunch is over.

         Once two-forty-five rolls around, the final bell rings. Ever

since my head spun at lunch, I’ve gotten a migraine. Light and

sound kills me, and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open.

Purposely ignoring everyone, I make my way out to the parking

lot where my 2004 Ford F-150 truck is parked and climb in,

resting my forehead against the steering wheel once the door is

shut.

       Man…this came out of nowhere. After a minute I turn the

truck on and switch it into reverse, leaving the parking lot and

heading for home.

My aunt Lorraine and uncle David live out near 598 going

toward Mansfield, but still in the Plymouth school district. Our

house is in the middle of nowhere, but that’s how we like it.

Lorraine is the sister of my mother, who died alongside my

father when I was four. The final report said that they died

during a home invasion gone wrong, but Lorraine always said

she didn’t believe it considering nothing was stolen. Until my

parents’ deaths, I lived with them in Baltimore, Maryland, where

my father was born and raised. I don’t remember much about

them, except that my mother had a beautiful voice and would

sing to me every night, and that my father would craft me little

birdhouses to put outside my window so I could watch the birds.

But sadly, that’s all I can remember.

I glance at Phoebe’s house out of the corner of my eye as I

pull into my driveway, pulling off to the side so Lorraine and

David can park in the garage when they get home. Our house is

a Victorian, built in 1818 from what Lorraine told me. Phoebe’s

house, which is right across the gravel road, is newer, 1980s, I

think.

As I gather my things and climb out of my truck, a strange

shadow distracts me, and I trip.

“Ah!” I squeal as I tumble to the ground, hitting my knee

on the sharp rocks underneath me. “Ah, damn it!” I twist my

body so I’m sitting on my bum and look at my knee, looking

around for the shadow I just saw. Nothing. I moan quietly, and

look down to my injured knee. My pants ripped when I fell,

allowing the rocks to dig into my skin and draw blood. Damn

it…I liked these jeans.

Sighing to myself, I slowly pull myself to my feet and dust

myself off, bending over to gather my things. That’s me, I guess.

I’m literally the clumsiest girl on Earth.

[endlessarchite]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[truereviewpage]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[statusreview]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://ssmattress.tumblr.com/

[vincentbnaughton]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

[vernsbrandt34-blog]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we've thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they're happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I'm too excited and it's not a good look. But you know I can't contain myself so I'm just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room's extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we're adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week's podcast, we talked about how we demo'd the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn't fate, I'm not sure what is.

There's one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It's so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they're virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they're going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house's interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I'd like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I'm not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there's lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we're adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It's just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that's the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I'm not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you're keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you'll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they're not staying white… so the one below hasn't been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they're our bathroom vanities) but it's going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It'll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn't frosted, it's just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We've been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they're different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won't match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John's voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean's crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It's very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn't white at all. It's a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON'T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT'S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It's gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We're headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that's really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they're warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we've done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you're interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

[thotyssey]

On Point With: DJ Tikka Masala

A fierce feminist, gifted musician and popular DJ, this India-born triple-threat is at home on a lit dancefloor, alone in a quiet studio, or performing for a White House gala event. With lots of exciting gigs and projects coming up, now is the time to spice up your life with DJ Tikka Masala!

Thotyssey: Hi Tikka! So, the damn Grammys are coming up this weekend already... any hopes or predictions?

DJ Tikka Masala: “Lemonade” feels like it's going to win--because Beyonce doesn't know it, but she's the queen of the dyke bar. Ha! I'm sure she knows it. Is Beyonce your biggest request in the booth these days? It changes week to week, but Beyonce has saved my life many times when the dance floor seemed to be getting bored of me. Beyonce, Rihanna, Nicki, Prince and dancehall classics. Also, Michael Jackson is a unifying force.

That he is! So, we can get back to music in a bit, but first thing's first: where's your hometown?

I was born in Kolkata India, but I grew up in Franklin Township and in Princeton, NJ. Wow, you've been around. What was the first music you grew up loving? I grew up studying Indian classical vocal music. My family in India is a music family--they build harmoniums. 

Then in my early teens, I picked up violin and guitar. My parents had a lot of old Bollywood around, and were really strict about the music I was allowed to listen to before my teen years. Lots of Indian music, mostly stuff before the 80's. I wasn't allowed to watch MTV or listen to pop music; they thought all that was garbage, and would get in the way of serious musical study. And now I'm a DJ [laughs]! Classic. But I also work as a composer, so it's all there. Best of both worlds! 

How did you eventually discover pop music?

Well, when my folks moved to Princeton, we landed in a town with arguably the best record store in the country. I had a mixtape penpal relationship with a friend from camp who I was head over heels in love with. That made me fix the parents' old record player and just start exploring cheap (and amazing) albums from all eras--for the purpose of making really good tapes for my friend, out of songs she'd definitely never heard, or just picking songs everyone seems to know but doesn't remember the artist. I don't know how to explain the methodology there, the but the tapes had stories weaving through thematically for sure. 

That went on for 2-3 years, I think. I became a good selector. We're still tight. Oh lord, kiddies these days will never know the power of the thematic mix tape! When did you start DJing? 2004, after moving here from the Bay Area, where I met an awesome global music producer and DJ named Cheb I Sabbah. I came here for grad school, but if I had chosen to stay out there I would have been working with him. [From my blog, here is] a letter to my [late] mentor.

That's very beautiful! It sounds like he put you on a very important path. When you’re spinning at clubs, can you easily move between Western pop and Indian/Eastern genres, or when you go one way is hard to get back to the other?

I always have both things going on at the same time inside of me, even though I'm making choices about what the people in front of me want to hear. I do this for 18-30 hours a week, so I understand well how to balance my needs with what keeps a room together. 

I do throwbacks and Top 40 for Henrietta Hudson, where I mostly work, so I'm current with new stuff and also grounded in vintage.

People also hire me specifically for Bollywood, sometimes. There's a party called Sholay that I work for sometimes, that’s strictly South Asian music. 

Also, I got to DJ the White House because of the Bollywood. They called me in 2010 to DJ their Diwali party, which was a trip. The Obama administration was special. Trump wouldn't even know what Diwali was.

Amazing! God, how much do you miss Obama and Biden? A lot. They changed the cultural landscape of this country. After 9-11, America really needed them.

Do you have any hope that we're gonna get through these next four years with anything good intact? I think this change is begging people to care in active ways that can feel inspiring at times. I am concerned for the well-being of everyone this administration deems to be unworthy, though: elders, disabled folks, immigrant folks, people of color, queers, women, children and poor folks. Artists, too. I'm worried for a lot of the people who keep showing up for me on the dancefloor, for sure. It's definitely a time that calls for strength in all of us. I notice that you are very observant of people on your floors, and you seem to regard them with a lot of love. Is DJing a way of connecting to people for you? Oh, definitely. I love being in a room full of people enjoying something together. it's unifying and inspiring to find common ground in music. It's very easy to feel inspired by the results when I'm doing my job well. When did you first start DJing in queer spaces? My first gigs in New York were in queer spaces; I started off working for the burlesque and circus communities. First residency was Murray Hill's Amateur Burlesque night at Galapagos Art Space when it was in Williamsburg. Eventually, I started my own queer dance party called That's My Jam. Now I'm a resident DJ at Henrietta Hudson, the last dyke bar in Manhattan. I've worked in queer space all along.

Lots of people have different opinions about this, but what's your view regarding why there aren't more lesbian bars in the city now?

I never went into a lesbian bar (in New York) before working for Hens for a private event. I think queer space is decentralized now, because of social acceptance and online dating--and a lot of bars were capitalizing on a niche audience for a long time there. It happens with South Asian community parties with no competition, too. 

I think what's amazing about dyke bars, though--more important than being about queerness right now--is that they are women-ran spaces, where lots of women get paid to work on a team together. Every penny that gets spent at a dyke bar is supporting other women's lives. That's not something people necessarily think about when they are figuring out what to do with their friends on a given night. Most queer events aimed at women don't take economics of labor into account, and the bottom line is that, when you fill a space with queers, the people making the most money at the end of the night are not usually queers or women for that matter. 

I've stuck to working for women-owned nightlife entities for a long while now, preceding working at the dyke bar. I think it's important to pay women, and pay attention to what your crowd is actually supporting. That's a very good point, and one that's often forgotten. 

So speaking of Henrietta, you spin the "Homotown" party there on Thursday nights. How would you describe that night to the uninitiated?

It feels like a family. There's music for many generations there. You'll see long-time regulars, tourists, people celebrating anniversaries and birthdays. There are singles who are looking for love, couples coming in on dates, people needing a place to land after a rough week, and, really, folks from all over the world and many different economic situations showing up. 

The musical selection is inspired by what I imagine, in three-four decades of local popular taste, the five boroughs sounds like. Since it's a Thursday night, we know it's a consistently populist and local audience.

A newer party you're spinning Wednesday nights is down at Friends & Lovers in Brooklyn, “Cheers Queers.” You focus on dancehall, reggae and R&B there. What kind of audiences are coming to this night? This night is actually a super-quiet thing right now. The bar is owned by a woman--it's in my neighborhood. That event is about to make a transition to being a monthly Saturday early party. So, early in March the schedule is going to change with that one, stay tuned. 

It's R&B, Dancehall, and just really good songs from all over the world. That bar is allergic to Top 40, and it works well for Brooklyn. I love it there, and my favorite bartender and dear friend Justen Jilsson works with me, which is always a very special nightlife dynamic: When the DJ and the bartender really love and understand each other, the tone of the whole room shifts.

And on Saturday, February 11th, you're spinning Horrorchata's Be Cute party at Littlefield! How often do you get to interact with the Brooklyn nightlifers?

A lot. The drag queen community and I have always had a lovely relationship. I support their work so hard. I see them doing their femme labor, and creating these magical spaces that defy the negativity of the society that surrounds them, and I really feel blessed to be a dyke and a feminist who fits in perfectly with all these brave queens. They are feminists too, also fighting hard to be seen and heard in a society that doesn't always respect or value their work enough.

Cheers to queens and all feminists in 2017! So, tell me about your compositions... what sort of music are you creating?

Well, I've been working as a composer for LAVA dance company, which is a feminist geology-based acrobatic/modern/circus/hybrid space. Sara East Johnson, the director there, pulled me in a few years ago when their company members started showing up at my parties and getting their lives. A lot of professional dancers have always showed up for me, but this group pulled me in and just invited me to make compositions for them, and over the years it's accumulated to multiple scores. 

It's electronic music, samples, instrumental compositions, and really specific assignments tied to choreography concepts. I love them so much, I literally moved to the same street as them a few years ago. It's a community that understands me, and vice versa. We have a 15-year retrospective show in early June, right around my birthday. It's very exciting. 

They are the strongest women I've ever met. We're like Frida and Diego now: same street, different houses.

Is it a challenge at all to balance original composition with DJ gigs? They are two completely different worlds. One is very solitary, the other is very social. The balance is actually really good for me, because I'm definitely a creative person that needs to generate work to feel good about my life. 

I love sitting in a room alone full of instruments, just as much as I love being in a packed club full of women getting their lives together. It's all symphonic in it's own way; I always feel like a conductor or medium.

The past year, I've also been keeping track of all the posts from the DJ booth at [my blog] The Dyke Bar, so there's a running log of all the stories I've seen there. I'm sure that's going to start feeding in, too. Folks have asked me to publish, but there's something else I have in mind. My background is in cinema studies and ethnographic filmmaking: Tisch brought me to New York for grad school, so I'm seeing a lot of cycle-completing.

Do you have a favorite DJing story so far?

[This one.] It's about women. Also, the night after Trump got elected, a high speed motorcyclist and I got to know each other. There are so many good stories, it's hard to pick. And I’m sure there will be many more to come! So, what else is on the horizon? Well, LAVA is having their 15-year retrospective in June, and I'm a part of that. Setting up a new monthly at Friends and Lovers, that's a thing. And an art show in Spring, venue TBA, but in collaboration with a group called AOT Projects Salon, with a paper version of the stories from the Dyke Bar I've been collecting, and audio connected to the writing. Sounds like a very busy and creative time for you! Okay, in closing: what is one thing that people might not get about being a DJ, but should? Many of us are actually introverts/shy, and not the party animals you might assume. A lot of the DJs I know, who are actually good at what they do, are also some of the best listeners/therapists. I mean, I actively listen for six hours at a time when I'm DJ-ing. The doctor is in! Thank you Tikka, for all that you do!

DJ Tikka Masala spins the “Homotown” party at Henrietta Hudson Thursday nights (10pm). She also spins “Cheers Queers” at Friends & Lovers, which is currently weekly Wednesdays (6pm), but should convert to monthly Saturdays in March (TBA). Click here for a full list of upcoming appearances. Follow Tikka on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Soundcloud.

On Point Archives

[endlessarchite]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[endlessarchite]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[endlessarchite]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

The post Exciting Developments At The Duplex appeared first on Young House Love.

Exciting Developments At The Duplex published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[truereviewpage]

Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – just mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two different street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the entire duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with just enough contrast from the Sherwin Williams Pure White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it just feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely simple state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we’re adding!), just FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (just to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a perfect fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that isn’t fate, I’m not sure what is.

There’s one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally completely closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the entire staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was just a tiny doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It’s so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we removed from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they’re virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally just some trim pieces need to be added, but they’re going to be a perfect fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we wanted them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I’m not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there’s lots of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we’re adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It’s just two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will help the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that’s the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I’m not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you’re keeping track.

Almost all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you’ll see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they’re not staying white… so the one below hasn’t been painted yet). But it was really excited to see this view start to come together. The pretty paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is always the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & cheap upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (almost all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and nice solid wood doors are so exciting to finally see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they’re our bathroom vanities) but it’s going to be such a nice space in the end. It feels like the perfect size, and we love how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those nice double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more fun details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass isn’t frosted, it’s just covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I love the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they’re different base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they won’t match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We definitely want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew started painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It’s very neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, guys. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – isn’t white at all. It’s a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DON’T LOOK AMAZING YET BECAUSE IT’S JUST ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It’s gonna be great. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We’re headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that’s really left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they’re warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we’ve done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you’re interested in investing in vacation rentals – or just houses in general.

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