aocoats's Profile

your place is gorgeous, and makes me homesick for NOLA. love the exposed brick, greenery, warm wood tones and asian accents. beautiful, warm and homey!

Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments!

@Gracello, the sign was obtained during a University of Chicago ScavHunt. Since you're living so close to that Metra stop, I suspect you're probably already well acquainted with the madness that ScavHunt entails ;)

@justjude: I think what you're referring to is the mural at the bottom of the stairs...? It's based on that famous woodblock 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa.' Our home improvement 'to-do' list is getting shorter, but I'm a big fan of immediate gratification, and find improvement via distraction a handy tool ;) I reason if I paint a big tree or wave mural on the wall, maybe you won't notice the wall spackling I'm *still* working on. Yes, I think our little one will probably eventually end up in the faux bedroom once he moves out of our bedroom, but hopefully then it won't be so faux, though (say that ten times fast!). We're thinking of adding some sliding shoji-like doors there eventually.

1. the house in practical magic...the attic, kitchen and greenhouse esp!
2. mindy's apt in the mindy project
3. i second the braverman compound.

very cute, but who needs this in the bathroom?

i guess it's a "filing" variant, but my grandfather taught me to roll all my clothes, which he learned in the army. it has the same advantage of being able to see everything at once, but no problem with the "filing pile" flopping over as happybirthday pointed out.

second YB's cautionary post: for those of your parents out there, read about the hygiene hypothesis (short version: consensus amongst immunologist and allergists is that OTT cleaning is a big contributor to increased allergies/asthma):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

and, seam2stressed, some of this overzealous cleaning is RESPONSIBLE for the development of those resistent bugs (though your suggestion of using bleach and peroxide are really good ones...what i'm frustrated by is the prevalence of all those horrible antibacterial soaps, wipes, etc).

I agree that the vast majority of sellers and buyers I've encountered are very nice. I just had a unpleasant experience yesterday, though, when a potential buyer sent me an email to "call him" about a desk I was selling. I called and left a msg to the effect that he was welcome to come and see it some time over the next two days, but that I was moving and wouldn't have my cell phone on me for most of that day. At the end of the day I see he's called and I call him back and he launches into a screaming tirade about how he rented a truck from a carshare service to pick up the desk that day and that he had to return it and there's "REALLY bad karma" between us and that I'm a terrible person and owe him $40 for the truck rental and "who in this day and age doesn't carry their phone around with them??!?!?!" Um, the girl who told you in the message she wasn't going to carry her phone around with her that day. Who on earth rents a truck to pick up a piece of furniture: 1) not knowing where the seller lives, 2) not having agreed upon a time & place to meet the seller/knowing the seller's availability, and 3) not knowing if someone has purchased the item in the time between when the seller left you a message and when you called them back? What a nutjob.

In terms of craigslist tips, I totally agree with tequila red and buddyrooster about the greasemonkey preview script...it is awesome! Also, in terms of searching for different keywords, I like using the multiple keyword search syntax instead of individual searches: {sofa|couch|sofas|couches|sofabed}

Totally saves time!

good lord! i've been coveting a gorgeous dwell duvet cover at target (http://www.target.com/DwellStudio-Target-Foliage-Duvet-Sets/dp/B002PP2EHK/ref=sc_qi_detaillink), but i was put off by the $59.99 price tag. but in comparison to the duvets they have on their website, that's a veritable bargain! if you're liking dwell, check out their target collection...from the reviews, it sounds pretty high quality and some of the prints are GORGEOUS: http://www.target.com/b/ref=pd_sim_cat_1_3?ie=UTF8&node=404152011

i think the perfect light fixture would be this discontinued (i know, so sad!) pendant light from ikea. we have it in our bathroom, and it looks so so so class and 1950's soda-shoppy!

http://www.marieclairemaison.com/data/images/photos/F0/Suspension-SODAK.jpg

i think three of these in line would look awesome!

i also agree with the previous comments to paint the walls. i think a really nice grey-blue would look awesome!

I'd leave the cabinets alone and introduce some warmth by swaping out the countertop closest to us for wood. Ikea has some dirt cheap countertops (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00086414). I agree with the suggestions to switch out the hardware (I really like http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40138760). And definitely switch out the light for a pendant lamp. I like a bit of whimsy in my kitchen, which you could inject by buying an old ugly brass chandelier for not too much (regardless of where you live, craigslist will have one for $20 if you're patient enough), and painting it white (or perhaps something bold...charcoal grey?) it'd look awesome and not dated. Not that big a fan of the floor, but cork is pretty cheap to buy and pretty easy to install yourself (and so warm underfoot!).