Did I ever tell you this story? When I turned 25 my mom went through all the tried and true recipes that she made when I was growing up. She hand wrote each and every one on a separate sheet, placed them in a plastic sheet protector and organized the entire list in a three ring binder complete with different sections. She covered all the bases – from Salads, to Main Dishes, Cocktail recipes, to Pies and Cookies – I have all the recipes that she is known for.
Mom presented the binder to me on my birthday “To my favorite Chef.” If I ever follow a main course recipe, it’s my attempt at recreating a meal “like mom made.” Fact is, I own hundreds of cookbooks – I am an addict. I love food photography!What really and truly makes my heart sing is baking. Maybe it’s the perfectionist Virgo in me? {winkwink} The fact that if you follow a baking recipe down to a T it will look, taste and be exactly what the photo looks like in the cookbook. I love that. It is so incredibly satisfying! Celebrating as a kid, I always wanted my birthday cake to be white cake with lemon yellow frosting and have colorful sprinkles on top. Funny thing is, I don’t even like cake very much. It’s the icing – it’s too sweet. I am more of a coffee cake kind of gal.
Anywhoo… there won’t be any baking for me today. Heck, we’ll be lucky if the kitchen is installed and unpacked in time for Thanksgiving! I am simply marking the date. It’s been ten years I have had my binder and I am incredibly thankful for that. I am off to enjoy what’s left of my 35th birthday in New York City. I am so happy to be taking a break from the cleaning and the boxes in Connecticut and celebrating in the city I have called home for so many years. Have a wonderful day!

24 Comments » Posted by ABCDDesigns / Nesting and Personal and Uncategorized

As you know, we decided to go forward with the move even though we couldn’t put anything on the second floor. The wood flooring “specialist” did the most horrendous job possible on our wood flooring. I had three different wood flooring professionals over last week to look at the mess he made. All agreed the job was sub par. This fact sent us scrambling to figure out how to fix the mess in the three days leading up to move in day. My painters swooped in to save the day – however, the solution didn’t come fast enough. This week I have been waiting for my wood floors to get three coats of paint to cover up the dark stain = no *indoor* shower access. I have to admit – it’s been super helpful to have an outdoor shower. I’ve even loosened up a bit (considering we have no neighbors for miles) and have tried the shower sans swimsuit a few times – eeeps! Needless to say, I still think we need to come up with a privacy screen treatment for it. Each time I shower outside, I hope and pray that the UPS guy doesn’t happen to stop by with a delivery = talk about stressful!
Long story short – it’s day six of me unpacking moving boxes. The movers arrived at about 2:30 in the afternoon last Saturday. They pulled the last box off the truck at about 6pm. The movers must have made a hundred trips into and out of the house with their dirty shoes. Luckily I realized it would be messy and I lined the floors with craft colored building paper. Don’t laugh – I might have selected my floor protection by what color I liked better! A helpful hint: if you use blue painters tape to put the rosin paper down, be certain that you pull the tape up quickly after you’re done using the paper. The blue tape bond becomes extremely strong and will pull up any new urethane finish that you might have on the floor. That little lesson I learned in our old Soho apartment – I let the paper sit until I unpacked the box. The job took days and I was pulling up the new wood floor finish left and right – what a mess!I ran around and pulled up all the tape right when they left. When the boxes and paper overwhelm me, I take it to the transfer station. I have made multiple trips to recycle our cardboard boxes and newsprint packing paper. Oh my gosh, moving is not an eco-friendly activity! Ugh. What I did learn: these people in Connecticut don’t mess around with their trash. On one of my visits to the transfer station, I saw someone rescuing an abandoned vintage Eames Lounge from the dumpster. What a find!So far, the library is coming together nicely. It’s actually the living room, but with a gigantic built-in bookcase as the focal point, it is hard to call it anything other than a library! The biggest disappointment is that our china hutch doesn’t fit in the dining room. (It’s too tall!) We were lucky enough to find a house with beams in the ceiling, but those beams are exactly what are keeping the poor hutch from fitting in the room. Boo!The house is blessed with a ton of open shelving. I think it will be too visually stimulating to add a glass front hutch to any of the other rooms. It’s such a shame, because I absolutely love the china hutch! But the fact of the matter remains that it will only really be right in the dining room.That is the first week update from the ABCD Homestead! The Mr. is hoping to catch a 5:19 train, so I have plenty of work to squeeze in before his arrival tonight. I am off to organize my sewing, craft and art making tools in the romper room – I am going to make use of all that kitchen cabinetry we moved out there! I wish you a wonderful weekend. xox

12 Comments » Posted by ABCDDesigns / Nesting and Personal and Uncategorized

If I were a superstar blog writer, I suppose I would have had a slew of guest posts ready to go live this week while I am unpacking all the boxes. But I am not, and I don’t. Heck, with both flooring disasters delaying us by more than 5 business days, I was ready to postpone the move until September. That is, until I learned our movers were going to charge us for changing the move-in date. Not only that, we’d have to pay for another month of storage in the Bronx. Which (might I add) is almost equal to our Connecticut mortgage payment – pure insanity, I know. Instead of putting off the move-in day, we simply had the movers place everything on the first floor while the second floor gets the second and third coat of paint.Please bear with me… I realize ABCD Design hasn’t been totally itself lately! It takes a lot of time to scour the internet and scout things in real life that inspire me enough to want to share them with you. Between all my personal time being soaked up with renovations, recovering my bike accident, and now unpacking – I am doing all I can just to stay above water!In happier news, I unpacked all my cookery books over the weekend and they have a new home in the laundry room. It’s so great to see them again – now all I need is our kitchen installed. The art is here, (safe and sound, thank goodness!) and our paintings look great leaning against the dark living room walls. I am truly delighted with our decision to nest in the Country and keep our little postage stamp sized spot in the City for late nights out and early morning commitments in the Big Apple.

{Images of moving boxes via Patti Friday, formally called the Liberty Post}

22 Comments » Posted by ABCDDesigns / Nesting and Personal and Uncategorized

As I suspected, the wood flooring job that the “specialist” came in to “patch” last Friday still looks like phooey. There are sanding marks, areas where the stain was put on heavier than others, and a distinctive black ring around the perimeter of our entire second floor. The steps were about 3 shades darker than the rest of the wood. They completely obliterated the beautiful bull nose on many of the steps and at the landing. Not to mention, they left areas so rough that I am bound to get splinters should I ever dare touch it. Now that is a fine quality – kidding!The unfortunate thing is that now I am stuck with a botched floor and I will have to refinish them after we’ve moved in. Given how incredibly dusty these guys were the first time around – all of my belongings are going to be laden with construction dust. The one thing I was trying so hard to avoid! I am contemplating telling the wood floor guy to go away. I really, truly think I might just paint them white.Did I mention that there is a fine coat of dust on every surface in the house? The flooring guy led me astray by insisting I have the painters come in first and that he go last. All my fresh paint looks terrible! Always, always paint last – I knew this, and he convinced me otherwise. I am still trying to get through cleaning out the romper room. My right shoulder is so sore from my bike accident that I really can only do little bits and pieces at a time before my shoulder gives out and I need a rest. Since I am moving so slow, I had hoped to have an entire week to prepare the house for move-in. Now I am down to one day. I decided to hire a team of fellas to come in and help me clean the mess that the wood floor guy left behind. It’s the only way I will be ready for the movers to arrive. Why bother to clean if they have to come back? Oh lordy, will we ever be settled?I have been collecting images of painted steps and floors for a while, but didn’t realize I might be painting my own! Here are some images to check out painted floors and stairways: red steps from Dos Family, pink painted steps image via Michael Graydon, black and white steps via pretty organized palace, checkerboard floor via Decorno, an array of flooring options from Wide Open Spaces, High Heeled Foot in the Door gives a tutorial on painting wood floors, white steps with natural wood “runner” and turquoise painted steps featured in this post are from Apartment Therapy.

19 Comments » Posted by ABCDDesigns / Nesting and The Country House and Uncategorized

It’s been two months now of me sleeping on the floor in various parts of the house dependent upon where the work is being done. I have slept in the living room, the upstairs loft area and the little red outbuilding in the back yard. When the house has been inhabitable because of wet floors on the main level, I either rented a room at a B+B (I did that twice) or headed down into the City for a night. For all but about 6 nights this Summer, I have been a country gal camping at The Country House.I am sure I’d be a better sport about camping on the floor – if I felt better. Since I fell off my bike, I have had a lot of pain and have not been able to get as much done around here as I would like. I went to the Doc last week during a quick jaunt into the City. I do indeed have a hairline fracture to my right collarbone, and I sprained my left thumb. He says only time will heal these pains, so until then I will just need to take it easy. I really wish this ‘taking it easy‘ thing didn’t coincide with all the preparations I need to do for moving in.I have a very dirty barn to clean. The romper room is going to be a staging area of sorts, as the house doesn’t have a basement and only has two closets. I can only imagine that we’ll use the attic over the barn as our primary out of season storage area. I need to clean out the attic, wash the walls and ceiling in the barn. I need to suck up as many spiders as I can with the vacuum if we’re going to use this space as a part of the house.About a week after they installed the white poured concrete floors, I noticed a yellow spot at the front door. I convinced myself that I was imagining it – “It must be the way the light is hitting it.” When the Mr. arrived (in the dark) on Friday night he said “Why’s the floor yellow?” Long story short: the epoxy failed. It is a new 0 VOC formulation and we got a bad batch. Within the following week, I started noticing yellowing across most of the dining room, the little red house and further into the foyer. Monday and Tuesday of this week consisted of glossy white floors, round two.The floors were wet on Tuesday night. I couldn’t sleep in the little red house or the main house and the barn has too many spiders for my personal taste. I didn’t want the expense of a B+B, so headed down to the City for a night. Upon my return, I pulled into the driveway and realized that our stone mason has placed the patio 11 inches off center to the left. Ugh! You bet they’re resetting each stone again today. There are somethings that I just can not budge on. An off-center patio on the front of the barn is one of them.You remember when we had the wood floors refinished last week, right? They used a different grade of sand paper around the perimeter of the house and on the steps. Why? I don’t know. Well guess what? The color took differently and looks like phooey. It seriously looks like our floors have ring around the collar. Not to mention, the floors are an entirely different color than the sample I approved. But that is an entirely different story. Magically, the sample that was left on the scene to match has *poof* disappeared! They’re coming back on Friday to undo the mess they made. Which means, I’ll be spending the weekend before we move in – in the City. Off my wet floors, not prepping the house for move in day. Hmmpf!When speaking with the wood flooring specialist, I insisted that the painters go last. He was adamant that the painters paint first. I went with what the “pro” insisted upon. He was dead wrong. The entire house is covered in dust from the sanding and my fresh paint doesn’t seem so fresh anymore. Never again will I refinish the floor after I have painted. I *knew* better. I don’t know why the flooring guy didn’t.Since I am moving slower these days, (sore right shoulder and achy left thumb) I had hoped to have the entirety of next week to get the house ready for move in. Looks like if I am lucky I will have two days without workmen under my feet, if that. Needless to say, it’s going to be interesting around here the next week or so. Very interesting, indeed!

14 Comments » Posted by ABCDDesigns / Nesting and Uncategorized