a tsunami is a'comin

a tsunami is making it's way here.

canceled drywallers

canceled trip to plumbing store to buy fixtures needed by wednesday....

saw the lines and empty shelves of longs and safeway via facebook and twitter...

note to self: in the future, buy more canned goods.

wishing: i didn't eat a canned tuna last night.

thankful: that we went to costco last week so we at least have bottled water.

hoping: there will be no tsunami.

e ♥ db

i have the hugest crush on david bromstad.

yes, i know he doesn't like my kind (and by "my kind" i mean females) in that way, but i have a huge crush anyway. how bad is my crush? well, i stop short of posters of him on my wall (nolan would just die), and his face isn't on any heart shaped pillows, but i do dvr all color splash episodes on hgtv and i follow him on twitter--he twitpics from new colorsplash sets ALL the time!

i would die a happy girl if i walked into the apartment and he were standing there w/his color splash team ready to make over our apartment!

he has such fun and clever ideas. i mean, he made a jellyfish lantern lamp out of coffee filters and pink party streamers and it looked ah-ma-zing!

this is him, isn't he adorable?

this picture is from a cb2 blog post they did on him...

you can read it here.

now i know nolan's gonna read this and be like "aw man, why did you write a post about the color splash guy???" WHY? because our apartment renovations have been dragging. (boo) and because i wanted to write another post. and because every time i think about what to do with the new apartment 'WWDBD?' comes to mind. what would david bromstad do? (that along w/"what should i do"---which will be another post entirely, with another totally random & totally irrelevant surprise thrown in, just because it makes me smile...like this david bromstad picture does. hahaha)

let there be light

We went to the building management office to discuss our renovation plans with them to see if we needed any permits or things of that nature...we brought up putting in track lighting because we didn't want to have to rely on a million (ok, 2) floor lamps all over the place. They informed us that there is wiring ready for light fixtures built into the ceiling, the old owner may not have been aware of...we just would need to cut through the drywall.
yay! more lighting options! i love lighting. i hate dark rooms.

and scott makes another cameo in our bloggity blog.

i think we'll stick w/track lighting here...this is gonna be our TV wall.
or should i say, Nolan's tv wall.

lighting in the master bedroom.

what does this all mean???
more options!

more things to think about!

and...
more trips to lowes...

don't forget to help us decide on a paint color, by voting!

stale popcorn

hellooooo, welcome to our future home!what's with all the plastic you may ask?
well, it's our first demo of the day!

first job: get rid of the popcorn ceiling!
i don't really care either way. i'd rather not have it but i could live with it. we have it at our current place and i barely notice it. maybe i'm just used to it. but nolan hates it so if we can remove it, he said "get rid of it!!!"

so you wanna see???
follow me!

smooth ceilings!

i do love the new smooth ceilings!
all the plastic reminds me of some kind of creepy sicko crime scene from CSI, no?

don't forget to vote for a paint color!

the color conundrum continues...

it's a whole different ball game when the paint is dry.
when we went back to the apartment the next day to let the drywallers in (more on that later)

we saw our paint swatches in a whole new light.
or so i thought...but now that i look at these pics next to eachother, i'm not so sure...
either way, we changed our minds...

PAINT DAY:

THE NEXT DAY:

hmmm...maybe it was just our imaginations, but we decided the top color we picked looked too dark, and so we're now going with the middle color!
the winner is....benjamin moore's sea urchin!
(.....i think....)
it's amazing what lighting does. that color looks completely different in the other room.

but the blue...oh the blues.
we still can't make up our minds.
upon seeing the dry paint, nolan thinks he now likes quiet moments...

PAINT DAY:

THE NEXT DAY:

so...because we couldn't decide, what did i do?
i painted even bigger swatches!!!
silver marlin? quiet moments? smoke?
smoke on our walls look nothing like the pictures on the internet...

i put a little polling box on the sidebar --->
help us pick!

color conundrum

we start demo tomorrow, so we needed to decide on a paint color ASAP.
blue for the walls, brown for the bathroom...how hard could that be?!?

hard at work...



ok, so we pretty much don't like any of them!
but narrowed it down to 4 that we are ok with...
(sorry for the poor lighting, there are no lights and it was cloudy outside)
opinions? suggestions?
PLEASE HELP US!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyone out there???
nolan likes smoke. i wish smoke was a little lighter. i wonder if you could mix white into it?
i really wanted to like quiet moments...maybe it's the way nolan painted it on the wall..

EDITED: so upon some advice from sherry @ younghouselove, she suggested to stick w/silver marlin or quiet moments to avoid the room potentially looking like a little boy's room (kid's nursery room...not the bathroom...i think)

good idea. (thanks sherry!)

now for the bathroom...
we forgot the light worked in the bathroom so we started painting outside...
we liked 3, 4, & 6.

but in the bathroom w/the light on....

we picked 6 (the top color)

PLEASE HELP US DECIDE!

got our keys!!!

we got our keys and key fobs today!

this is the first time entering as home owners...
please excuse my hobo clothes, we're about to get our paint on, and i didn't want to wear nice clothes...as i did...get paint all over me.

going in!
woo hoo!

now onto the painting....we need help!

it's going down in chinatown

a quick jaunt to chinatown with my moms to pick up the few things needed to make our new pad feng shui friendly...there are tons of interesting things down there!

don't worry nolan, these multi-colored critters won't be invading the apartment.

here i am picking up some coins needed to be placed under our flooring.

there's the sales lady in the back...probably wondering why i was taking pictures.

you know, for a feng shui store, this place is pretty cluttered...

we're gonna be needing one of these:

but i'm on a search for a nicer, preferably plainer and smaller one.

we'll be needing to go back sometime soon...

my grand total for today's purchases:

$8.88

pretty fortuitous number right???

a valentine's night spent at....

LOWES

yes folks, that's where we spent our valentines evening together. no fancy dinner, no brian mcknight concert...just a lovely night at lowes with nolan, myself and mary. mary, our very helpful and knowledgeable appliance specialist (go see her if you wanna buy appliances!). we've been back and forth and back and forth about appliances and pricing for about 2 weeks and we finally bit the bullet and bought them.

(note to self: must take cooking lessons.)

don't i look happy with my receipt?

(like my top? it's jewel numkki)

so what did we get?

samsung side by side fridge.

we really wanted the french door, but we had to be practical.

this guy had some great reviews.

ge profile slide in range

honestly, we picked it cause it matched the microwave

samsung microwave

this is what nolan wanted. i have to admit, it's pretty nice.

all appliance images from lowes.com

and don't worry...valentine's day wasn't just about appliances.

there were pretty flowers...

and cute cupcakes too.

and while at lowes i made him buy me pink kitchenaid kitchen shears ;p

what's your style?

i found this "what's your style" quiz from ethan allen, while perusing one of my favorite sites, young house love. so i thought since we keep bickering about things it would be fun to see what the quiz had to say about our individual styles. Here is the results. Pretty on point.

Nolan

METRO--The verdict is in—your style is Metro. Metro is a great modern space. Chic, comfortable, clean. Do the math. Strong horizontals plus graphic clarity plus a fearless blending of metal, woods, leathers, and wovens; minus the superfluous and the clichéd; equals urban architecture domesticated, a vision for living.A great modern space.

Erica

GLAMOUR---The verdict is in—your style is Glamour. Glamour is the penthouse with a view, the Old Hollywood mansion, the home of the connoisseur. A knowing marriage of fashion with sumptuous comfort. A fearless blending of Art Déco, Chippendale, and Modern. Glamour is shamelessly smart, elegant, and timeless.

what did you get?

our future

This video isn't renovation-related, but it cracks me up and wanted to share it.

It's a video of our future that gets made for you when you ride the Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot. I knew about the video so i told Nolan to make a silly face when they take your picture at the start of the ride.

what sound does a kitchen make?

KA-CHING!
KA-CHING!

KA-CHING!

that my dear friends is the sound of each cabinet piece getting added to the total.

we are seriously spending the most $$ in the room we use the least. all these cabinets for our HUGE collection of 4 bowls and 4 plates. i think i'm seriously going to need to get some cooking lessons because after we buy the cabinets and appliances, i'm going to pull my little sleeping bag in there and hole up in the kitchen.

we found the cabinets we liked. color, style, etc. we found it very quickly and actually agreed without any bickering. home depot has a little sticker price on the showroom slab that gives you a rough estimate of what your cabinets would cost for a 10x10 kitchen. so we figured that our kitchen wasn't much bigger, so the cost would be fairly close.

WE.WERE.SO.WRONG.

we decided that when we met w/our cabinet designer, that we'd start with the most basic layout to see the cost, and then add in features if we could afford it. let's just say that our very basic layout ended up costing almost double what we had anticipated!!! DOUBLE!!! it's triple the price given on that little sticker. i thought i was going to faint. so we're going basic. no fancy drawers, no lazy susans, no pantry pull-out.
but i guess that's ok, because like i said, we only have 4 bowls and 4 plates.

here's our cabinet guy w/our life saving realtor. seriously the best realtor EVER. he's helping us every step of the way. i don't even want to imagine what this whole process would've been like without him.

crazy....

here's a look into our future:
behold the room i will now forever live my life in.

stage one: in its original glory

so i don't think that our unit has been renovated at all since the building was built. everything is old and run down. not to mention this unit was rented out so the last tenants (3 girls--a mother and her 2 teenage daughters) were FILTHY. you should see the showers and the stove. GROSS. you would think with three females, the place would be pretty clean! nope. filthy. gross. disgusting. i don't think they've ever used a cleaning product on the shower or stove ever! i mean, i'm pretty messy myself, but even i was appalled. hahaha.

anyway, on to the tour shall we?
these pictures were taken a few days after the renters moved out and the unit was cleaned.

---the living room---

---the kitchen---

---the master bedroom---

---the masterbath---

the filthy shower!


---the spare bathroom---
such an awkward shape

---the spare room---

---the balcony---

a few hurdles along the way...

nolan really wanted me to document our renovations, i was rather apprehensive about it. what if it turns out hideous? what if we hate it?

oh well...too late now, we're off and running with this bloggity blog so here it goes. from start to finish, this is the story of our new home...

One of the main reasons i'm skeptical about the final outcome is due to the hurdles we've encountered:

1. clash of the titans

we like different things. nolan likes very modern, sleek, minimalist styles. i like cozy, cute, anthropologie-ish styles on one day, blair waldorf-ish rooms the next. either way, we have a hard time agreeing on anything.

2. bachelor pad furniture

we're keeping nolan's current furniture that scream bachelor pad.

black. modern. boconcept furniture.

it may have been ok, except for hurdle number three.

3. feng shui madness

my mother is a crazy feng shui believer/follower. we told her we would try to accommodate some of the 'practices' to make her feel better....we had a feng shui master come in and told us where to hang certain charms or coins but the kicker was the wall colors. i guess the rooms have to be certain colors so our individual chi will flow harmoniously with the area. so the living room has to be blue. (blue?!?! bleh.) and the bedroom has to be either pink, purple, or blue. you could see the horror on nolan's face when he heard those 3 colors. ahahahaha. so of course we picked blue. (blue again? bleh.)

i guess it could be worse.

4. BUDGET BUDGET BUDGET!

good lord things are so stinkin' expensive! i mean a faucet is $300!?!? you've got to be kidding me! will we ever get an ikea in hawaii? the houses here totally need it. there is a HUGE difference between what we love and what we can afford. and can you believe the room that is costing us the most moolah is the room we spend the least amount of time in. the kitchen. ahahaha. we are professional microwavers and own like four plates, and four bowls...yet we have so much cabinets. maybe i'll be like carrie bradshaw and store clothes and shoes in my stove.

5. why does everything close at 4?!?

seriously, aside from home depot & lowes, everything closes super early. it's become really hard to try and find samples and swatches of things when everyone is closed by the time we get off of work!

tomorrow we're off to look at cabinets.

wish us luck!

what have we gotten ourselves into?!?

Hello...Erica & Nolan here!
We will soon be moving down the street to a bigger, better apartment!
But before we can move in, we've decided to gut the place and renovate (not by ourselves of course. if you know us you know we are not tool-minded). We decided to keep this blog to chronicle our renovation adventures...we've gotten ourselves WAY over our head.
stay tuned to see if we can pull this off.