Friday, July 16, 2010

Home Sweet Home

We keep adding or changing small things at our place. Wanted to post a couple of shots of the latest changes. Luckily for me and not so luckily for him — Andrey was staying at our place for this modification. We are very grateful for his help.

Padded carpet covering 100% of the floor of our bedroom.

The first one is done in preparation for family expansion. We decided to cover 100% of our bedroom floor with a thick carpet and padding. This should cut down on some noise and if the neighbors are still not happy — it’s not our problem anymore — we’ve done what the rules require. Even though it might not look as great as hardwood floors we think it gives us a peace of mind and that’s more important. Plus it actually did make the room cozier.

Half of the mirror installed. You can see how big the difference is.

Another one is a small improvement to the living room wall unit. We inserted a pair of mirrors into the areas with glass doors. This was my parents’ idea and it sure made the whole interior look much brighter.

Both parts of the mirror installed. Hard to capture on the photo because glass reflects as well.

Turns out there are tons of mirror shops around and we got ours cut precisely to 1/8th of an inch several blocks away from our place for something like $90 or so. I think it’s a big improvement.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: bedroom, Besta, carpet, IKEA, living room, mirror, padding, wall unit
Time: 16:22 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, May 28, 2010

Hallway PAX

Here’s a follow-up to my previous week’s post about some furniture updates that we’re doing to our apartment. We’ve put everything in the hallway together over the weekend and even made another trip to IKEA for some internal organizers, since PAX wardrobes themselves come completely empty.

I ended up with way too many pictures, but it presents the new house “mod” from all the angles.

Overall we added 3 PAX units — a pair of 2-doored ones and a single slim 1-door unit. In between these we added a BESTA unit, similar

in style to our living room setup to keep keys, mail and sunglasses on once you come in.

We also ended up replacing our chandelier that we had in the hallway. One of the doors would not open fully with the old one. Also because of the size of the PAX wardrobes one part of the hallway became quite dark. We ended up getting a set of 5 lights arranged in a pretty much straight slim line. This way we can direct the light evenly throughout the hallway and it resolved the problem with the door not opening fully.

Another angle. Looking through the mirror.

We also added a big nice mirror, something that Alena has dreamed for quit a long time now. In the old place of ours we had a pair of weird, wavy mirrors on the wall, but they weren’t very good and we managed to lose them somehow during our move.

As you can see this ads tons of storage space. Finally we don’t have to keep shoes all over the hallway in massive disarray and have a place to hide all kinds of miscellaneous junk that we had lying all over. The little closet is going to be fully dedicated to the little one that is arriving in a very near future.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: Besta, furniture, hallway, IKEA, PAX
Time: 16:09 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Storage Space

New IKEA Besta unit in one corner and the table in the other.

We’re at it again — apartment redesign. This time though we’re just adding some finishing touches to what we started in October of last year.

Corner looks empty without the new unit. And the curtains add a lot too.

We wanted to fill up the corner that was occupied by our monster TV earlier, but now with the expected arrival of a 4th family member we figured we need to better utilize the space in our hallway as well. And as the last time we started with some planning in Google SketchUp.

Then with a huge help from Misha over the weekend we started implementing the plan. Misha drove us to IKEA in his minivan and back and helped me carry all the stuff upstairs. Some of it was just incredibly heavy that there is no way I would be able to do any of it by myself.

At this point the living room is updated and the hallway is waiting for its turn, which is going to be this upcoming weekend. The table has also been relocated to its new place in the living room.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: bar, Besta, black-brown, hallway, IKEA, living room, PAX, red, redesign, sketch
Time: 18:38 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Living Room Curtains

One of the last touches for our new living room is a set of modern curtains. I think they look great, but we paid way too much money for them. You just know that when your curtains cost nearly as much as your whole wall unit or your new 46″ TV you’ve been screwed. But you either get something ugly, get nothing, or pay. That’s why we are sticking with blinds in the office and cheap, $90, Bed, Bath & Beyond curtains in the bedroom.

We picked them up on Sunday and I custom cut and installed the curtain rods myself because the curtain people wanted another $120 for 30 minutes of easy work, freaking con-artists. There hasn’t been a sunny day in NYC since then, so the photo that I have has a rather gloomy look outside.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: curtains, living room, redesign, window
Time: 13:49 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Old Painting

Last weekend we finally decided to hang an old painting that we had up in our old apartment in the living room. Ever since our move it’s been rolled up, collecting dust behind our couch.

After the redesign in the living room that space on the wall in the hallway seemed empty and it proved to be an ideal spot for our painting. And it looks good with our old custom frame.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: frame, hallway, living room, painting
Time: 16:26 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Living Redesign

IKEA wall unit, Giormani leather sectional sofa.

Big day today. Had two deliveries of new furniture and then we had a pickup of a donation of our old stuff to a Jewish organization. The new sectional sofa and a table are awesome. Huge upgrade. We really lucked out on the sectional deal¹, I think.

New Giromani leather sectional sofa and coffee table.

Our old couch, armchair, TV and the stand are gone. It’s somewhat sad, but I’m glad I’m not the one who had to move that stuff out. Poor guys barely moved that TV and then I saw² poor bustards unload it on the wrong floor, before reaching the bottom level, by mistake. But they seemed to be laughing when they realized.

25% cheaper than all other places, and when the price is in the thousands it really means a lot. [↩]
Internal building video feeds. [↩]

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: black-brown, brown, furniture, Giormani, leather, living room, sectional, sofa, table, wenge
Time: 15:53 Comments: 11 Comments Post a Comment

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Besta Wall Unit Construction

Cheapest way to construct Besta wall unit.

A bit more about the construction of our unit, in help to those who might want to recreate the same thing. There are multiple ways you can build this unit. The most obvious one is on the image above. It’s also is the cheapest¹ way to go, as you need the fewer components then what we did.

One of our objectives, however, was to make as few holes as possible on our wall, to mount it, or none² at all, which we did. Thus by spending a bit more money, we built it so the middle shelf is not handing in the air, but is actually supported by the side cabinets. I also did add several additional screws in between the top cabinets, but the weight that they have to support is much less then that a full shelf with stuff inside.

$510 vs $620 for the frame. [↩]
This clearly goes against IKEA’s recommendation. [↩]

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: Besta, construction, IKEA, wall unit
Time: 17:15 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Monday, October 12, 2009

Wall Unit & TV

This weekend was well spent. A good portion of our renovation project is complete. We put together the wall unit from a million pieces that it came as into a single solid system. It took a lot of work, but it’s all done. It came out better than we expected and it’s as custom as it can be. We added a lot additional support parts and cut a bunch of paths for wire management.

IKEA Besta. Ignore the other-dimension cat.

We also bought a new TV and wired everything up — video, audio, network. And out of all the wiring there is only one wire actually visible and that will be corrected in the near future. We were also happy to get rid of our old open bar and move our vast alcohol reserves behind the glass.

The TV that we decided to go with is Samsung LN46B750. It’s a 46″ non-LED LCD panel with 240Hz refresh rate and 1080p resolution. After doing a lot of reading this is simply the best LCD available as far as non LED screens go. It is also better than latest Samsung edge-lit LED screens. And actual back-lit LED screens cost twice as much and in my opinion are just not worth it. Either way, I’ve been tweaking the settings on the TV and we’re pretty happy with the end result.

More updates will follow as we make more progress.

In: Gadgets & Gear, Home Sweet Home Tags: Besta, IKEA, living room, LN46B750, Samsung, TV, wall unit
Time: 16:53 Comments: 5 Comments Post a Comment

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Alena says: Subscribed

October 12, 2009 @ 22:04

I just want to add that when my husband wants something done — it will be done quickly.

We bought the whole unit last Sunday (I was still somewhat sick, but felt well enough to make a trip to IKEA). We bought the carpet the following Wednesday (!!!) night — and the same very night after some of the wires were secured under the carpet Danya assembled the fist part of our wall unit.

By Saturday a lot of work was done, and on Sunday Danya’s left arm was aching from overexertion so much that we had to rub it with Bengey.

I also have to say that Danya came up with a very good design that not just looks good, but eliminates the need for screwing the unit to the wall, and also leaves our light switch easily accessible.

Overall, I think our living room already looks much cozier. I really like it when the couch is standing in the corner — it makes me feel more protected somehow. Now I need to go through all of our papers, organize them and put some of those awesome red-door shelves to good use.

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Friday, October 9, 2009

Living — Under Construction

When we bought our apartment we moved in with pretty much zero furniture purchases and used everything that we had before. Now we decided that it’s time we’ve updated our living room. We have no plans to be moving any time soon, therefore we might as well make it as nice as possible.

The whole movement has started because of that BD movie and the player. The TV could use a refresh, and along with it could the arrangement and the layout of the room. Also I decide that it’s time I finally got my surround system back in place, as we have never connected the rear speakers after the move.

Living room and IKEA wall unit in Sketch Up.

We visited a lot of furniture stores and came to the consensus — they either have something small, ugly or just plain wrong for our room, or they have something that costs WAY too much money. 5 grand for a freaking collection of shelves and doors?

Naturally IKEA came to mind and we came up with what we think should serve our needs for a very good price. IKEA though has no planning tools, but that’s when my old friend Sketch-Up helped me out.

Many more updates to come.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: Besta, construction, furniture, IKEA, living room, rugs, sketch, TV, wall unit
Time: 15:07 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, September 25, 2009

Blu-ray Player

On Sunday we finally decided to make the next leap in the realm of home video entertainment. We were in a local BestBuy and almost bought a Blu-ray player. I’ve been thinking about getting one for a couple of weeks already and the main reason was the falling prices of Blu-ray movies.

You see, we tend to add movies that we liked to our collection from time to time. Originally, when DVDs used to cost around $15 for the movie and BD would cost $50 there was no interest. But when BD came down to $18 for the same movie I started feeling that buying a DVD was becoming silly to save $3.

Of course to make that argument work one needs to have a player that can play said BD movies. My research led me to 2 top players from LG and Samsung — BD390 and BD-P3600¹ respectively.

For some reason I was leaning towards LG, although I think Samsung is equally good. Of course thanks to my iPhone I checked the price² on Amazon. So after running around with LG box around the store, we put it back where it belongs, went home and placed an order online.

It was delivered yesterday and I was eager to hook it up. Even though our TV is over 10 years old it still supports 1080i playback, but that’s not really the most interesting thing. One of the main reasons of us getting this player is of course Netflix.

It took us only a few minutes to set it up and to get a movie from Netflix to play on our TV. I couldn’t really tell a difference between this and DVD quality-wise.

This is the moment when I had an epiphany — why would I want to buy a disk now if I can just play anything whenever I wish from Netflix? Never quite felt this as profoundly as at this moment. Of course the answer right now is that Netflix doesn’t have everything for instant watch, but for how much longer will that be the case?

Although Samsung has a higher end BD-4600 it has a really weird form factor and doesn’t really add any benefits for the added cost. [↩]
BestBuy had it for $349 + tax, Amazon had it for $285, no tax, free shipping. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear, Home Sweet Home Tags: Amazon, BD, BD390, BestBuy, Blu Ray, DVD, home, LG, Netflix, Samsung, video
Time: 11:05 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Completed Diecast Cars Shelf

Today I attached mounting hooks to the shelf, Alena bought a set of wall anchors and we put it up. Finally those poor cars have a permanent place. It only took us year and a half.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: car, diecast, model, shelf
Time: 19:57 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

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Sunday, October 5, 2008

Model Car Shelf

This weekend was a home improvement weekend for us. Yesterday we covered up our basement storage cage with some tarp (before it was see-through), found a place to make copies of all our home keys and weather-proofed our air conditioners for the winter (wind and moisture resistant covers).

Today we finally got around to building a shelf for my old diecast model car collection. It’s been sitting in a box for almost a year now. We were unable to find a shelf anywhere that would work for this purpose, so the only solution was to build one ourselves, just like I did the last time (old one broke a long time ago).

We went to our local hardware store — Doody Home Center. I said it before and I’ll say it again — this is by far the best hardware store I have ever seen with the most helpful staff.

We picked out a set of boards and asked to have them cut to our specifications. Later on at home we glued and nailed them together and right now we’re in the process of painting the shelf with clear polyurethane. I have put several coats on, but I’ll probably finish it up tomorrow. So we figured we’ll post a couple of pictures of it now. Too bad we didn’t photograph the whole process.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: car, diecast, model, shelf
Time: 23:05 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Magnet Collection

As you can see there are very few empty spots left on our refrigerator. The main reason is that we try to buy a magnet every time we visit some place — with few exceptions where we forgot to find one. We also got a bunch from friends and family.

The top door has magnets of the places that we’ve visited. Majority of them are from the places that we visited together — the exceptions are Minsk and Moscow. I like to just stand it front of the fridge sometimes looking over our collection and remember how and where each one was bought. So many good memories.

In: Home Sweet Home, Travel Tags: magnet, refrigirator
Time: 11:35 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

IKEA Billy Bookcases

As I wrote before we went to IKEA this weekend to get some stuff for our apartment. Out of all the stuff that we wanted we didn’t find anything, but one thing — IKEA Billy bookcase, even though even this item was marked as sold out.

To our surprise we were able to find the right color bookcase and the glass doors for it at their warehouse. So that’s what we bought. I assembled it the same very evening and Alena moved some of our books and a whole bunch of trinkets into the bookcase.

It’s came out like a micro version of my parents’ bookcase that I wrote about a while ago. But even though it is much smaller it looks just as good, or so I think.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: Billy, bookcase, IKEA
Time: 17:31 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, August 8, 2008

Office Shelves

Well, this past weekend we finally decided to do something that we haven’t gotten to in over a year that we’ve been living here — add some shelves to our office closet.

The thing is that the guy we bought the place from mean for this room to be a bedroom I guess, and he made the closet for hanging clothes. We, instead, piled up a bunch of our photo and computer bags in there, and then more then half of that space was wasted, because you can’t store anything on top of the bags.

We carefully measured the size of the shelves that we would need and went to a local hardware store —

Doody Home Center. Now this place might not be as big as Home Depot or Lowes, but it’s by far the best hardware store I’ve been to. This wasn’t the first time experience either. Basically we just asked a guy working there where we could find the boards for the shelves. Not only did he help us find the boards, he cut them for us precisely to the right size. Go get someone to do that at Home Depot.

Went home, drilled some holes, installed the pins, the shelves, attached the moldings, done! Came out rather nice.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: hardware store, office, shelves
Time: 10:08 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Bedroom Shades

It took us a little over a year, but we finally ordered a set of honeycomb shades for our bedroom. The sheers were nice, but I think it’s going to be much cozier with white shades on the windows during the evening instead of the dark night outside.

We ordered our shades from SelectBlinds.com. They often have a good promotion going, have a lot of different choices of shades and our order was delivered to us within 5 business days. Only time will show how well the cordless mechanism holds up.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: bedroom, shades, window
Time: 20:29 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

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