But getting it wasn’t exactly easy. I always thought that if you wanted to buy something, you could just go to the store, purchase it and take it home. But for some reason something so deceivingly simple as buying a TV took a whole day and trips to 4 stores, including 1 very hellish experience waiting for a full hour at Best Buy with 2 overstimulated and whiny children, only to be told that the 3 models we were interested in were sold out at the store.

And something really odd happened in the buying process. We didn’t really know what brand, what size, what model, but as we were staring back at the wall of TVs, first looking at 37 inches, and then 40 inches, we kept looking at bigger and bigger TVs trying to convince ourselves that maybe what we really needed was a huge 47 incher or the newest LED technology and this, that and the other new thing – hell, we just didn’t know it yet! But eventually we did come back to earth and kept focused on our goals: to replace the old, hand me down tube TV that, as massive in size as it was, was really only a 28″ TV.

After a very frustrating and unsatisfying morning, we ended up with a most pleasant, last minute decision at PC Richard at the end of the day and was assisted by my new best friend, the PC Richard TV sales guy. He and I joked around, traded small talk and got along famously. When the TV of our choice looked like it was out of stock yet again, he whispered that he’d make us a deal and sell us a brand new model of the Samsung 40 inch TV that wasn’t yet on the sales floor. And magically, our TV appeared.

We took it home and despite the speedbump along the way (oh, you know, where our car died on us driving home from Long Island), we had our new TV.

Now, the funny thing about kids is that sometimes they don’t really like change. As Mark got down to unpacking and setting up the new TV (which, by the way, is plenty huge in our living room and any bigger would have entered into the realm of the ridiculous – what the HELL were we thinking? 47 inches? Psshwtt.), the kids were skeptical. “We don’t like this new TV, we like the old one!”, “Are we going to be able to watch the same shows on this TV? ‘Cause the old TV has all our favorite shows!”. We assured them they’d be able to watch all their favorite shows and as proof turned the TV on.

The other funny thing about these newfangled LCD HD TVs is that if you don’t have an HD cable box, the picture, especially on some channels, looks like…you know, crap. Well, we don’t have an HD cable box, but after a day or so, you kind of get used to it and you think to yourself, eh, I could live with this. Yes! We ARE that cheap that we are unwilling to shell out the extra $12.95 a month for digital cable after buying a $900 TV! Pathetic!

So the most stressful part of this whole TV buying ordeal was getting rid of our old massive set. I don’t know. These are the kinds of things that stress me out and make me anxious. We put an ad out on Cragislist and our local Yahoo group for a free TV. I was skeptical that anyone was willing to take away a massively heavy old-school TV and I worried that we’d have this thing, that was now sitting on the floor in front of the window, here forever. But we got 2 serious inquiries. The first inquiry completely flaked and was a no-show (HATE that), so we went to our next guy. He came the next day, was punctual, and seemed thankful to cart the TV away. “My kids are driving me crazy!”, he said. “They need their own TV for their video games!”. Cool.

Our TV taker was Korean (it’s clear from the name on his email). He was older than us, maybe by 10 or so years. Apparently this is the conversation that went down between him and Mark in the elevator as Mark helped him take the TV down to his car.

TV taker: “Oh, your wife is Asian? Korean, huh?”

TV taker: “Korean women cook good!”

Mark: “I do all the cooking.”

TV taker: “Wha?” (pause) But…Korean women cook good. Hmmm.”

TV taker: “Does she speak Korean?” (pause, then answers the question to himself) “Probaby not…”

Awesome! TV taker for the win!

It’s quiet now. I am thankful that Tuesdays are one of the the days that our babysitter comes in. I’m thankful for our neighbors for walking Mia to school this morning so I didn’t have to haul both kids out in the rain. Thanks to all who voiced concerns and emailed. Mark made it safe and sound up there and is with his sister and uncle. Not surprisingly, it’s hard going through hospital red tape to get any kind of answers, but there might be some small signs of hope. Even so, his dad has a long way to go even if he comes out of this and the unknown of what is happening now or the near future is daunting.

I slept for a good 9 hours with the help of codeine-laced cough syrup and I’m feeling a bit better though the rib injury will probably take some time to heal – that is the thing that is most bothersome right now. I did go to the doctor yesterday and I’m going on another round of antibiotics so hopefully the coughing will cease sometime soon and make it tolerable.

I woke up to sounds of the girls fighting over something. That is not new, but they went to sleep last night without any fuss and worked on some drawings the first thing this morning. Believe it or not, it is now hard to tell Mia and Claudine’s drawings apart. What I am observing is that little Claudine is copying Mia’s drawing style and her people have evolved again. She is also drawing other objects like flowers, birthday cakes, butterflies and cats. The first 2 drawings are Claudine’s (and the figures with the funny feet are actually mermaids. See? They have fish tails and the second girl is on a swing surrounded by flowers). The last drawing is Mia’s. She is reading and writing up a storm now, putting signs all over the house…

No, not that kind of dwell (though truth be told, I do tend to dwell on things. Just a little bit). I’ve gotten so many questions about some of the placemats and table linens that I’ve used in our photos, as well as that beautiful bird duvet that is on our bed, that I thought a proper post was in order. It is all by Dwell Studio.

I’ve been a Dwell fan for a long time, going back to the days when I used to write about their baby bedding when I was running babygadget.net. They expanded their line of products impressively since those days, designing everything from bags to rugs to stationery, along with their gorgeous bedding and table linens. I was very lucky recently to receive a package of their latest tableware designs, a collection of striking geometrics that just happen to be in the same color scheme as our own company (see how it all coordinates so well with the blog?). Lucky, yes? Thank you Dwell, for sending us our first set of cloth napkins and placemats (yes, I do realize how blasphemous it is that we are the age that we are and have never owned cloth napkins).

By the way, if you live in NYC, the Dwell sample sales in Soho are the absolute best. Be on the look out for them!

Oh right…there was a baby sleeping in that room. But with real estate so precious in NYC, it seemed like that 3rd bedroom (technically an “office” since there is no built-in closet) was wasted space when the only thing that room was used for was night time sleep. The room used to be an office BC (before Claudine), but I always preferred to work on the couch (and still do) so it was a no brainer to turn the office into a nursery when I was pregnant the second time. This time around, we were ridiculously excited to turn the room back into an office. The girls like to sleep in the same room, we get to consolidate all our business crap in one space, and Mia’s old bed in the office provides a place with privacy for house guests. Everybody wins!

No more digging around closets or hauling boxes out from underneath beds to see how many labels we have left for brownies. We can just glance over at the shelves to see when we’re getting low. This is HUGE. There were more than a few times when we put ourselves in stressful situations because packaging supplies weren’t in one consolidated place for easy inventory taking. Boxes of ribbons, cello bags and shipping boxes filled every nook and available space in scattered areas around the apartment. For a neat freak who’s a bit obsessed with having everything organized, this was most definitely a “grin and bear it” situation, but packing boxes are now organized by size in the cabinets, tissue and wrapping papers are stored flat in drawers, and ribbons are stored, by color, in rows. But the best part? We can now avoid scenarios like this at 10pm at night:

Mark: “Oh crap, I need a box from Claudine’s room.”
Me: “But she’s tossing and turning, you’re going to wake her up.”
Mark: “Yeah, but I’m packing this order up and need the box now.”
Me: (grimaces).
Mark: “Turn the TV down. I’m going in.” (tip toes really quietly over to the door. Opens the door as slowly and quietly as is humanly possible. Tries to make as little rustling noise as he can while trying to find the appropriate size shipping box behind the crib).

Go to either ending 1 or 2:

Ending 1: Mark silently runs out of the room, closes the door and in victory yells in a whisper, “woohoo! I got it!”
Ending 2: Claudine raises a sleepy head and looks directly at Mark while he’s looking for a box. Mark looks up, sees this and panics. He grabs the box and rushes out of the room. “Argh!!!! she saw me!”.

So you know the NEW bunkbed I just got for the girls? Turns out Mia has been biting the wood safety rails on the top bunk of her bed. There are 2 places where the wood has been gnawed like it’s been chewed on by a rat. Tonight we discovered that there are half a dozen scrape marks on the top of the white lacquer end piece on the foot of the bed. Needless to say I was pissed. I’m not buying a new bed just to have the kid destroy it, but it brings to light an oral fixation that she’s had since she was a toddler, only it’s getting worse. Now I’m thinking it’s behavioral – a nervous habit – and needs to be addressed appropriately…but how? Maybe the start of a new school with a lot of kids has been a little more stressful than she lets on. I don’t know. Mia was never a thumbsucker or a binky obsessed pacifier addict, but she did start developing the habit of biting her nails and perpetually having a finger in her mouth about a year ago. You may think that the main reason I give the girls their Louise Brooks inspired haircuts is because it’s cute, but the real reason I keep it short with bangs is so that she doesn’t chew on her hair. Since school has begun, I’ve seen her coming out of the classroom with ties and ribbon from her various shirts and dresses stuffed in her mouth. One day she was even spotted chewing on paper. What is that? How do you stop it? Anybody deal with this before?

(On a totally different note, that wonderful triangle bunting on the window was sent by Mia’s new pen pal Pauline, from Germany, whose mom runs the shop Line + Liv and has this wonderful blog. Pauline wanted to write to Mia after seeing her photos on this blog…and we’re so glad you did! Mia’s letter and packet will be coming soon.)

Rainy. A little chilly. I wore a scarf, hat and boots. Today was Mia’s first day of full-day Kindergarten. No half-day business which I understand is necessary to ease kids in, but it leaves you with as much time to come home, empty the dishwasher and that’s it. Back you go to pick up the kid. Not to be overshadowed by Mia’s big transition into school, Claudine had a milestone of her own today. It was her first day of her one day a week drop off playgroup – not quite daycare, not quite a preschool. Run by an energetic and *magical* Brazilian woman in the garden floor of a brownstone, this was the first time that Claudine would be dropped off anywhere…and we were somewhat dreading it as she tends to be very clingy with us. I could tell that she’s getting better about new situations since earlier this year. The old Claudine wouldn’t even want to come through the doorway for a good 15 minutes and then when she did, she would sit on my lap for a good while longer before becoming even the least bit comfortable with making her way around a room. Today she walked in on her own and immediately went to the fish tank to see if the yellow fish she named “Beef” on her second visit to the playgroup 4 months ago was still there. It was. As comfortable as she was when we got there, she ended up crying and screaming when we left. My baby. The teacher emailed us to say that she cried for awhile but then was ok. When Mark picked her up and got home, she was all smiles and told me all about her time with her new teacher and friends. We’ll see how next week goes.

So I almost didn’t realize today was sept 11 until way after breakfast, which is odd, but telling. I don’t want to say that the heaviness of the day is fading, but as each year goes by, it is fading just a little bit. But just like any other seminal event in your life, the feelings and memories just burn and I spent a bit of time in our new chair in the bedroom looking out the window thinking about them. As a native New Yorker, I was almost pissed that I wasn’t here when it happened. I don’t travel a whole lot so it was ironic that it happened on the few times that I traveled that year. But being in a foreign country on a business trip and not being able to speak the language and dealing with these emotions was probably the loneliest I ever felt in my life. Our client thought it would be best to “distract” us from the news by planning all these trips and tours within the country (we were in Venezuela) while we waited for a flight home. And so we were shuttled on these small airplanes and helicopters with no airport security whatsoever which is probably the most ironic thing about the whole trip. Who wanted to get on a plane at that time except to go home? All I wanted to do was watch CNN, and then when I couldn’t find any more news in English on the TV in my hotel room, I watched endless episodes of Friends dubbed in Spanish. Funny, huh? I found it immensely comforting to watch a show that I knew so well, set in NYC even if it was a fictitious NY. So as cheeseball as that show is, I’ll always have a special fondness for Monica, Chandler, Rachel and friends.

It’s up. And wallpapering wasn’t nearly as painful as I remember it, but it was still a pain in the ass, mostly because I had to contort my body over the counters and underneath cabinets to hang the paper. But I like the print and it almost saves the kitchen from it’s dated mid-2000 new construction look (black granite + stainless steel + those cabinets = unoriginal and boring). Almost. I don’t love our kitchen. It’s part of an open floorplan living area so it’s in the middle corner of the apartment where there is no natural light (no beautiful, rustic, light filled kitchen photo backdrops for us). I mean our kitchen is perfectly fine, but I wouldn’t choose those cabinets with that color countertop or pretty much anything else in there, but it’s not like we’re going to change it anytime soon and it’s not like it’s bad, it’s just so stereotypical of new construction that it’s laughable. So I nearly jumped for joy when I had the epiphany of using wallpaper as a blackplash, mostly because I couldn’t think of a color to paint it that would not make it look worse. Sure, sure, there is tile, but we didn’t really have the budget for that. My second choice was to paint it a slight metallic, shimmery neutral, but I liked this idea better. Rather than lament over the lack of lightness and light, I just embraced it for what it was and then framed the walls on either side of the kitchen with chalkboard paint. I actually think that it integrates better with the rest of the apartment.

Working with wallpaper strangely took me back to the house I grew up in. Nearly every room had wallpaper and we hung it all ourselves, my mom and me, working with that horribly thick wallpaper paste. My brother had a blue snoopy wallpaper when he was little and I had a pretty floral print with tiny pink and red flowers. Then when I got into my “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” phase, I somehow convinced my mom to let me wallpaper my whole room black. It wasn’t as depressing as it sounds – my furniture was white and my carpet was a silvery gray, but I did have a black satin comforter as my bedspread. I loved that room. But wallpaper! It’s amazing how it’s come back with such style. Even when I first started seeing beautiful prints a few years ago, I never considered it because of the wallpaper overkill we had growing up. Plus we had some baaaad wallpaper. In our hallway, the previous owners had hung this multi-color metallic, textural, crinkly abomination that under certain light, looked like it reflected an evil, jack-o-lantern grin on the wall. I swear it was there and it always smiled back at me in the mornings and evenings when the shadow play was the strongest. It freaked me out and gave me nightmares (much of house did, actually). I wouldn’t walk past it and instead chose to go around the kitchen to get to my room. I was off wallpaper for good, I swore, but I guess I got over that eventually (though the image of that evil smile is forever burned into my memory). Now I’m thinking of wallpapering one of our 2 bathrooms. What have I started?

Soooo…..since the moment we came back from the North Fork last weekend, Mark and I have been painting, reorganizing, painting, going to Ikea, putting together Ikea furniture, painting, and going to Ikea again (3 freaking times in a week!). We’re almost done, however, and we can put Home Improvement Fest 2009 to rest. We ended up not only painting the living room and the girls room, but the front area of the apartment as well as the hallway (not planned). The only rooms unpainted are ours and the new office.

So you know how people say to paint a swatch of paint on the wall before committing. Yeah, do it. Seriously. And let me repeat it again. Do a sample swatch. I did initially paint a swatch for the livingroom and the gray I chose was too dark for what I had in mind so I went lighter (BM Silver Satin), but when it finally went on the wall, it was way too light. Like it read *white*. Do you know how disappointing it is to want (no, no, no, PINE) for gray walls all these years and then commit, only to find that it just looks white? Pretty freaking disappointing. But wait…in certain light it does look like a pale gray. It makes the room, softer, warmer, but…craaaap, it might as well be…white! I actually like the lightness of the color and I like how airy the room still is with the light reflecting in all different ways throughout the day, but that so didn’t get the gray out of my system.

To compensate, we decided to paint the front part of the apartment a slightly darker gray. Our living space is one big room – the kitchen, the living room and the dining area, but the front area by the elevator door which opens into our apartment juts out a bit so it’s very easy to delineate it with a different color. I also had the genius idea (bwahaha) to paint the hallway to the bedrooms an even darker gray, like an accent wall, so off to the hardware store we went. Without a swatch test, I picked a medium gray that I thought would work. We brought it home and started painting. Craaaap! It just read really dull, green and awful. So at this point we were out $40 in paint, but I did mix some of the awful gray in with the Silver Satin from the living room to make a slightly darker gray and voila! It worked beautifully, especially in combination with painting all the trim and the front stairwell door a bright white (also unplanned).

And that hallway? After much going back and forth, we decided to just cover it with chalkboard paint. In order for it to have worked, I realized that it needed to be dark. We have one narrow wall in that color that separates the living area from the kitchen so I felt like it balanced it out somehow and framed the kitchen area. Black walls are definitely not for the faint of heart and we’re still getting used to it, but I think it will be ok (oh and how much did I love Claudine’s casual reaction to the wall when getting up this morning? She walks out of her room, glances briefly at the wall and saids” oh, black” without stopping or much else).

Which brings us to the girls’ room. The bunk bed is in (from Room and Board). It wasn’t cheap so it was a major investment and as you can see, a pretty big piece of furniture for this size room. I was worried about Claudine climbing up on the top bunk so I liked that the ends of the bed were completely closed off, but it does create a wall right when you walk into the room. I’ve put a bookshelf on the end of the bed so it actually creates a little cozy nook and it seems to be working. We painted their walls with BM’s Oyster which is the palest pinky lavender, but as you can see, reads much like white (what is with that???) but it has a very rosy glow. There are some times in the day where it reads more pink, but after my initial disappointment (again), I actually like it. The girls have transitioned easily to the bed – no drama, no fuss, and after 10 days of not sleeping in a crib when we were away, it was just plain strange to put her back in her crib when we got back, so she is happy.

And so…there you have it. I wallpaper the kitchen backsplash today. I’ll try to post some more photos, but we are in the middle of discussions with some design blogs about possibly doing a house tour, so not sure how much I will put up. Besides, I think we are both really tired of thinking about the apartment. We still have a few things to do like find a living room rug (hard!), but we’re ready to move on.

Finally, after years of wanting one, I snagged a vintage George Nelson lamp on eBay the other week. I know I could have bought a new reproduction but this one came with 20 feet of cord which means that we don’t have to hire an electrician to rewire and move our ceiling lights so that it can hang above our table. So what did the girls say when we first turned on the light? “We can see our food!!!”. Seriously. I don’t know how we lived without a light above our dining table all these years. Seems crazy now that we see the difference.

I’m in a bit of a frenzy because I have to make some decisions about the apartment quickly. We’re going away next Friday to our rented beach house (YAY!) and have decided to close our shops a few extra days after we come back to tackle the paint job and reassembly of the girls room and the new office. I’m totally undecided about a rug in our livingroom – something that can withstand kids and a cat – but I *think* I narrowed the gray paint choices down to BM’s Gray Owl or Silver Satin. I purchased a little bottle of Stonington Gray and decided that it was too dark, that I liked the room to still read as light, particularly when a friend of mine told me that her living room, which I’ve always admired as a gray I love, is painted with BM’s Sebring White which reads as so pale on a paint chip. I still have to decide on a color for the girls’ room but what I can’t get my head around is the logistics of painting and setting up the room while still trying to maintain normal bedtimes. Can anyone tell me how this is going to work?? Do we move Mia’s bed into Caludine’s room (tight fit!!) while we work on their room? Do we paint first before the bunk bed gets delivered? What? Help!

Here’s another question…I’ve suddenly got into my head that instead of painting the kitchen backsplash I might want to wallpaper it with something like Ferm Living’s Forest Flower. Is this a crazy idea? I’ve ordered samples and the site saids the wallpaper is washable….but…is this crazy?

By the way, you can see more details of our home over on my guest post at Decor8 which is up today. I also forgot to mention a fun interview that we did last month on Heart Handmade called the “Other Half” which interviews the significant other of an artist/business owner, but since Mark and I co-own our biz, Marichelle interviewed both of us. I’ll hopefully have some other exciting press mentions for the fall that I’m working on lately. Happy Friday!

We’re gonna do it. Finally after all these years of wanting to paint the apartment but flaking out because it seems like such a huge undertaking, we’re gonna tackle it when we close down our shops for vacation in a few weeks. I’ve always been a white walls sort of person but for a few years I’ve been wanting to paint the living room a light gray. We have one narrow panel painted a chalkboard black that separates the kitchen from the living space so we have taken babysteps in breaking up the whiteness. Also to be painted: the girls’ room and the kitchen backsplash.

SO the big question…which gray? There are too many choices! Does anyone have a gray on their walls that they love? We’re looking for a gray that doesn’t skew towards blue, purple, beige or green (as neutral as possible), that’s light but still reads like a “color” on the walls, so not too light. Is this asking too much? Help!