It's late

So, its way past my bedtime. I usually go to bed around 10 or 10:30. I am a little wired from the ladies game night I attended tonight. So instead of sleeping, I have been wasting precious sleep time blog hopping. Interesting, I found some people I haven't seen for a while, and I also discovered I have been tagged from Shawna , or at least I think I was, she did spell my name a bit funkier than it already is spelled.

Here are her questions. ( I think I am getting off easy on these)

1. What is one thing your husband doesn't know about you?
well I am not so sure I want to answer that, he does read this blog you know.
But I don't think he actually knows about the trouble we used to get into at Ricks. I seem to remember something about the Dean' s office?

2. Have you ever peed your pants because of laughter?
Probably.  But when I was pregnant with Luke I thought my water broke when it really didn't.

3. What's the most fun thing you have done with your kids?
Well I only have one kid. And today we had a pretty good time at Coney Island. (official post later). Especially on the never ending train ride.

4. Who is better looking Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg?
I choose Leonardo DiCaprio, he does a pretty convincing Boston accent, and he pulls off a pretty nice physique as well.

5. When was the last time you did something for yourself and what was it?
Um, I do something for myself everyday. I am kinda selfish. Today it was a run around Prospect Park. Yesterday I sewed myself a wrap around skirt from a vintage pattern I bought off Ebay.

Nursery dreams

About 6 or 7 months ago, a friend of mine suggested I enter Luke's nursery in a competition. I chuckled at the thought, and then sadly replied back, "you must be thinking of someone else, Luke doesn't have a nursery, or even a room to himself". Since then I have started to collect images of things I would someday put in a nursery. By the time it happens, it won't be Luke's, he will have to settle for a toddler's room, but truthfully they wouldn't be much different. My tastes for a nursery and child's room are consistent with two things, modern, and bright.

Starting with the bed. The Oeuf bed . Easily convertible with a few extra parts to a toddler bed, clean beautiful lines, and I am sure very comfortable.

 

And then the bedding. I have been attempting to work on this quilt for Luke's bed for quite some time. For some reason quilts totally intimidate me, so far I have only cut out the squares.

I love these lights, maybe on a shelf with books, or on his dresser.

I don't remember who makes these, but I saw them at Modern Tots. Ikea also makes a similar version, for a much cheaper price. But I love the little desk that comes with this one.

Of course, this cute knock-off Calder mobile would be hanging somewhere in the room. Maybe over the crib.

I love these Robot decals. So fun, and removable.

I couldn't find a decent picture of what I envision for the floor. I am hoping for hardwood in our next place too, so flor tiles will be a perfect splash of color. Try to imagine primary color squares in a large size rug.

An eames rocker of course in the corner.

And for toys? These are some of my favs.

I just recently discovered that apartment therapy has a nursery edition to their site. Great ideas for kids and nurseries. While browsing, I found this new bedding line from Walmart. How fun and modern are these rockets? Not so much with the crib though.

Ready to wrap this up

As therapeutic as I thought this might be, I am ready to write about more uplifting topics, some that don't include tears.

We began renovation immediately. There was quite a bit of work to be done but our target date was by Christmas. We could honestly say that year all we wanted for Christmas was our own bed. We day dreamed about where our tree would go, where we would hang our lights, and our stockings, what it would be like to wake up and spend  the morning alone.

It obviously didn't happen. But,we were lucky to get a place to ourselves. Rusty and Sara Clifton offered their home for Christmas, while they spent it elsewhere, so we got to enjoy their tree, their bed, and their kitchen, where we cooked a big Christmas breakfast.

We finally moved into our apartment on January 8th, 2006. It wasn't near finished, in fact there was only half a kitchen, the walls weren't painted, and it looked like a construction zone, but it was perfect. And three weeks later, Luke was born.

What was the best news about this whole thing is Mr. Wrong didn't have such an easy time getting into his place either. He lived in the basement of the deli right next to us for quite a while. So in other words, yes, I got to see him everyday for the next few months. As time has passed, I have become much more polite during my encounters with him. I say hello back, ask him how he is doing, and if he is enjoying his new place. Even now, I still see him. I guess time heals most wounds, or at least helps you forget, until you decide to write a blog post about it.

Here are a few "during renovation pictures" to enjoy. You can see, I was just about ready to "pop".

This particular day of renovation was by far the best. When we opened the door, it literally brought tears to my eyes (no surprise there, except they were for joy). The most beautiful sight ever, clutter free, beautifully stained floors.

So, we hope this story has a happy ending. We hope we sell our place, as close to our asking price as we can get, hope to move on to a bigger space, and hope that all of the memories we have made while living in it far surpass the ones we made along the way. So far, I am confident they have.

Renovation Crunch Time

Thanksgiving weekend, it was all cleared out. It was time to begin. By now, it had been 15 months since I had seen the place, and during this time, it had changed dramatically in my mind. The space was bigger, there wasn't a fireplace that I could remember, and the condition of the apartment wasn't so bad. We realized quickly there would be a lot of work. Surprisingly though, some things we thought needed to be replaced just actually needed to be cleaned.

We had a short period of time to get things going, and needed quite a bit of money. We decided to take out a equity loan on our apartment, we had gained quite a bit of it in the time we let the apartment just sit there. I called several banks trying to find someone that would finance a co-op. I finally found one, went through all of the paperwork, and again, almost ready to close when they wanted to just have a few more questions answered. Just basic ones, in fact, the same ones they asked me when I put in the application a week ago.

"Is this a co-op?"

"yes"

"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do co-ops."

"What do you mean, we already went through this over a week ago?"

"I'm sorry, I guess that was overlooked."

More sobs. Wasn't I done with the crying?  Shouldn't it have been smooth sailing from that point?
I spent hours that day calling several other financial institutions, hoping someone would help me. Finally that night after verifying several times they actually did co-ops, we were on our way. This wouldn't have been so stressful if everything else had worked out as planned, but why would they? Our contractor had already started tearing the place apart, and wanted his first payment within a few days. It would take at least two weeks to get the loan signed and deposited into our account. Thankfully, our contractor, was very understanding, very un New Yorker like, and said, get it to me when you can.

We didn't get it to him for another month.

This is what we had to work with. He did live in the apartment for over 13 years, keeping his clutter tidy, but I don't think he ever actually scrubbed anything, or used an ash tray.

As I mentioned before, I thought Mr. Wrong had the T.V. on 24 hours a day. It turns out, it was the soft glow of the glossy wall color he used in his bedroom. I also thought we would have to replace the windows because of the dark tint they had to them. Turns out, they were just stained from 13 years of nicotine, and dirt.
Thank you Rusty for the photo op and attempting to clean it.

The floors obviously needed some significant work. And why yes, those are cigarette burns.

A lot of work and not much time. We wanted to be in at least a couple weeks before I gave birth. But after walking through with the contractor and actually seeing the list, we became a bit concerned.

Were we too nice?

The days and weeks we waited for our official "kick him out of the apartment" day seemed to drag and drag. I was on my last couple months of pregnancy, work was wearing me out, and the four flights of stairs we had to climb several times a day to get to our temporary home seemed like mountains. Needless to say, we were past the point of being ready.

The day came, and we waited. Waited to hear that the Marshall posted the eviction notice on his door. Waited to get the official "its all yours". But, it didn't come. We followed up with the Marshall's office and at that point, not surprisingly, their office wasn't all that on top of things. He was backed up and the secretary couldn't give us any sort of time frame. More sobs.   

Tom, bless his heart, was a lot more forgiving during this process than I was. He called Mr. Wrong and agreed to help him move out. I was not so happy with this, I didn't think he deserved any help. Tom even payed for a UHaul and some how got some of our friends to help out too. They moved a bunch of his big stuff, but didn't really make a dent in the place. He knew he was supposed to be out by the date he signed to, but he wasn't moving with any sense of urgency.

The Marshall's office finally served the eviction notice, a week and a half late. We were notified, and relieved that there would finally be an end in sight. Mr. Wrong called us the same day and said he had just received the notice, but he wouldn't be leaving until the very last day possible, which would be another five days. I smile now thinking back on that phone call. It was the first that I had heard Tom actually raise his voice to Mr. Wrong. In Tom's words, "How could you do this to us, especially after my friends and I helped you move?" I could believe it, he didn't have any problem putting a pregnant girl on the streets. We of course explained things much more dramatically to him, but in my head it seemed justified. These five extra days we had to wait would seem like nothing to anyone else, but to us, it seemed like another 5 months. It was the middle of November at that point, and we had already scheduled an appointment with the contractor.

To his word, he did finally leave, but not until the last possible minute.

And he left us with this.