Where Do We Begin?

It's always a surprise when we visit the apartment, no more so than when we've been away awhile. This time, we hadn't been in over a week, so we were taking bets on what we'd find upon our arrival. We weren't disappointed. As suspected, Lew had completed the entire wood floor, which is now covered with protective paper. This enabled them to start installation of the kitchen. Exciting. Very. Exciting. As you can see, they have started with the upper and lower cabinetry for our pantry (on the left) and the cabinetry along the main wall. The empty area on the bottom right cabinet is where the sink will sit, and to the right will be the dishwasher and range. We had debated the open shelf (above where the sink will go) for a long time—would it be better to have closed storage (so the shorter among us could reach dishes) or to allow ourselves the luxury of that emptiness? In the end we determined that, as basically neat people, the open shelf would be a safe bet. It will be a great place to hold cookbooks and place the more decorative of our serving pieces—like our vintage Fiesta. This will also help break up what would otherwise be a whole lotta walnut wood.



Apart from the excitement happening in the kitchen, the tile work has begun in our master bathroom. Here you can see the vertically stacked white tiles in the walk-in shower (the grout has not yet been done). In addition, the first trim has been placed around the outside of our master bedroom door. We wanted something slightly decorative, but still very subtle and contemporary. This will be a contrast to what we are doing around our closet doors. Which is nothing.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Our bedroom flooring is now completely down and, alas, completely covered with protective paper. While we appreciate the care in doing this, we are sad to have the floor hidden from view. The floor installation has now moved into our guest bedroom and so we have a runway of wood flooring sitting in the middle of the soundproofing.



Based on the window placement in the guest bedroom versus the rest of the apartment, we have decided to change the direction of the wood flooring in this one room. You can see where the two directions meet in this picture. It's much cleaner and nicer than I could have imagined. I think that this was the right decision, to change the direction so that the the wood always runs toward the windows. This way the grain of the wood will take your eye to the windows (rather than straight into a wall). You can also see here where the flooring ends and meets the rest of the (sound proofed) room.

The Porcelain Gods

We recently received delivery of our three main porcelain items—the two Laufen toilets and our massive farmhouse kitchen sink. Although we can't really see any of these items yet since they are still boxed, we are nevertheless happy that they have arrived.

Thank You

Thank you for weighing in and helping us decide on our bathroom sconces. Initially it wasn't our first choice, but after the strong public opinion, we ordered the Avia sconce from Restoration Hardware. Now that they have arrived and we see them in person, we're quite pleased with the selection. So, thank you for your input. We'll probably be asking you to weigh in our pendant lamp dilemma as well.

Amii Stewart*

This evening our suspicions were confirmed when we saw that the green sound proofing now extends beyond our bedroom into about half of the apartment. Only the main room needs to be sound proofed at this point. While initially we were dismayed at having to lay down sound proofing under the wood flooring (mainly due to the expense), we both admit that the noise level in the apartment is now greatly reduced. Granted, it was never so loud before, but now it is really nice and quiet. I'm sure our neighbors will also be pleased.



When we peaked into our bedroom, we were delighted to see this—our new wood floor! We didn't tread on it since we aren't sure how delicate it is while it is still being laid, but we were able to get a few snaps of it for you. We still can't stop talking about how great it looks—which it should after all the consideration that went into choosing it.

* Let us know if you get the title of this post—or not.

Meeting of the Minds

This morning we met with our architects from formativ and went over a laundry list of items. Our contractor, Lew, was also in attendance so that we were able to update him immediately on our decisions. One long-standing (yet not-so-exciting) point of discussion was about the trim that will border our "main" doors—these are the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms. We have now settled on what we will be doing for this trim as well as for the baseboards. It's minor, but it's something we can cross off of our (very long) list.

We also reviewed the paint colors that we are considering for the various rooms in the apartment. Essentially, we're thinking about "grey". Pale grey in the main room, medium grey in the master bedroom, dark grey in the guest bedroom, and a pale grey blue in the bathrooms. We were sort of expecting to narrow down our top 2 or 3 choices for each room to 1, but Ron and Lissa (our architects) suggested that Lew get some paint samples from Benjamin Moore and try them out on the walls. I'm hoping this will help our finalize the colors, but I'm betting on more indecision and contemplation.

Since our wood flooring arrived last week, we were able to sneak a peak at it today with everyone there. I wish we could have paused and taken a photo for you, because it was pretty great. I was getting nervous (it's such a big decision based off of a relatively small sample of flooring) but WOW! I think, er hope, you'll have the same reaction when you see it. Just wait. Right now the sound proofing continues to be set down, but after that, comes the flooring. Hopefully we'll be able to take a picture before it gets covered up with protective paper.

We also took a sneak peak of our new kitchen sink since that recently arrived. Well, we sort of peaked at it—the bottom actually, since it was up-side-down in a big box. Given the weight of the thing we didn't try to turn it around, but boy it's big. B-I-G BIG! I'm excited just thinking about all the dishes we can pile in there! Thankfully we're getting a dishwasher (and that it's not Steve or I)—I hope it's big enough.

There was one other big point of discussion today, and that was about the pendant light that will go over our dining room table. We have the very long (90.5") Big Sur dining table from Crate & Barrel and we LOVE LOVE LOVE it. We want to make sure that the pendant light we choose fits both the table and the room. However, we have a big issue—the ceiling connection where the pendant needs to attach is not directly over the table. We have had a lot of discussion over this one issue and I think we'll be asking you to vote on our pendant lamp finalists soon...

An Embarrassment of Riches

Sometimes self-restraint pays off. This week it certainly did as we held off in visiting the apartment during the latter part of this week. And so we were like kids in a candy store when we entered the apartment today—OH WHERE OH WHERE TO LOOK FIRST! The built-in shelving in the office is partially completed! And the built-ins along the windows too!



And in the guest bedroom MORE built-ins have been built! BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! In the master bedroom the sound proofing has been laid down! (Our co-op requires sound proofing to be laid under the wood flooring).



NO! LOOK! OVER THERE! They have laid the cement flooring in the guest bathroom in preparation to start tiling! And in the kitchen—THE KITCHEN! The kitchen cabinetry has arrived! The joy! The excitement! It's almost too much at once—but not really.

We've Gone Global!

Perhaps unbeknownst to many of you, we track our blog using Google Analytics. Don't worry, this program doesn't divulge any of your personal details to us. It does, however, allow us to see how many people are actually following our blog and how many people visit on any given day. If we didn't do this, we would never know if anyone ever visited Innexperience. Mind you, it would help if our visitors left comments on our posts (a-hem), but since that rarely happens, Google Analytics helps satisfy our curiosity. Every day I go to the Google Analytics page for Innexperiece to see how many people visited the previous day. Part of the information that the program gathers (apart from numbers of visits), is where our visitors are located. Generally you come from one of five states—Maryland, Washington, Hawaii, New York, and New Jersey. Recently we've branched out and added six more states to that list! HOWEVER, today, as I was casually looking at the map I noticed that CHINA (YES! CHINA!) was noted! We had one visitor from Shanghai, China visit us yesterday! Mind you, they stayed for less than a second (perhaps the sensors kicked them off?) but STILL! CHINA! Here's the map to prove it.

Floor Delivery

Although you would think that there is nothing to report today, Columbus Day, since our contractors did not work due to the holiday (or at least we don't think they worked). However, we actually have some news. Today we received a call from the shipper who will be delivering our wood floors on Wednesday. This Wednesday. Yes, it was supposed to happen tomorrow (Tuesday), but we'll take Wednesday. We're just happy to hear that the wood is on it's way—especially after mechanical problems on the truck delivering them from California. For those of you who have forgotten what the flooring will look like, here's a picture. It's the European Oak Lugano from LV Wood Floors here in NYC.

And the Winners Are...

After much deliberation, and some last minute back-and-forth (not to mention some assistance from you), we have decided upon our wall sconces. In this much maligned category we have found two acceptable winners. One—the Henry from Waterworks (shown on the left)—can be hung either as a ceiling mounted fixture or a wall sconce. We will be getting three of these—one to be used as a hallway wall sconce and the other two to be used as a ceiling fixture in our entryway and bedroom hallways. The second—the Avia from Restoration Hardware—will be used in both our guest and master bathrooms.

For those of you embarking on your own sconce (or lighting) adventure, below is the list of resources we scoured—but feel free to add to this list for others to use. We wish you luck (you'll need it).

Restoration Hardware (restorationhardware.com)
Waterworks (www.waterworks.com)
Schoolhouse Electric Co. (www.schoolhouseelectric.com)
Y Lighting (ylighting.com)
Velocity Art and Design (www.velocityartanddesign.com)
www.remodelista.com
Rejuvenation Hardware (www.rejuvenation.com)
Lighting By Gregory (www.lightingbygregory.com)
Circa Lighting (www.circalighting.com)
Hudson Valley Lighting (www.hudsonvalleylighting.com)

Tiles Away!

Progress on the two bathrooms is being made now that we have our rough inspection approval. This means that both bathrooms are now completely outfitted in matched tones of teal and green drywall. (It reminds Lara of work, actually, since teal is the o.b.® brand color and green is everyone's favorite color). Next week we are expecting the delivery of all sorts of exciting items—toilets, subfloor membrane, and wood flooring! But what we are really hoping to see, is the tile work in action. Until then, we've placed the tiles so you can check 'em out in advance. The pictures above show the following: marble flooring (which will be set on the diagonal) with Lucian Glass subway tile from Ann Sacks, and Adagio Grey Limestone floor (to be set in Herringbone) with vertically stacked, matte white subway tile.

Floor Plan Update

We recently received updated floor plans for our bathrooms, so we thought you might be interested in seeing them as well. I mean, we're asking you to vote on the fixtures, so you may as well get an idea of the room that they're going in. We're also re-posting the overall floor plan, for those of you who didn't see it earlier (or perhaps have forgotten by now). These drawings were created by our wonderful architects at formactiv.

OUT of the Rough

Yesterday we received the good news that we passed our rough inspection. Mind you, this was by default since the inspector did not show up to inspect. Apparently this happens about 75% of the time. Regardless, we are happy to be out of the rough and to begin work tiling. Look for pictures soon (we hope).

Best of a Bad Bunch

We have narrowed down our bathroom sconce options to the three above. From left to right, we have a modern looking light, then in the middle we have something that seems to bridge modern and traditional, and on the far right a retro-style sconce. While we price these out (because unfortunately cost does matter), tell us which you like best.

What type of bathroom sconce should we get?
	modern
	modern-traditional fusion
	retro
pollcode.com free polls

Almost Out of the Rough

Most of our guest bathroom is now covered with the water-resistant drywall—getting ready for tiling season. The rough is almost completely covered except for the parts that will peek through the wall for the trim to attach to. You can also see that the window ledge will make a useful shelf, as demonstrated by the soap bottle currently there.

Farmhouse Sink (confirmed)

Today we officially placed our order for the farmhouse sink that will go in our kitchen. We had originally posted our thoughts on having a farmhouse sink back in March, so it's nice to see that it made the cut in the end (not that we ever had any doubts). The kitchen itself should arrive mid-October (only a few weeks away), so we hope to have the sink in place by the end of the month. Cross your fingers and toes.

In the Rough

This past week a fair amount of work was done on the plumbing rough—so much so that our contractor, Lew, has decided it's time to call in for our "rough inspection". For those of you not in the know, the "rough" is the piping that happens behind the walls. What you see (the faucets, the Hot and Cold knobs) is called the "trim". As we have already found out, the rough is what costs so much—especially for the thermostatic shower controls. The thermostatic valve is what controls the Hot versus Cold water in your shower. ANYWAY, enough with the plumbing lesson and back to the rough inspection. This is when some person who oversees plumbing (presumably for the city) comes to check your plumbing roughing to see if it meets requirements. If you pass, then you can move on to covering up the roughing, and put walls up over all the pipes. Then fun really starts—TILING! And since all our tiles have already arrived, they are lying in wait...