Harlem brownstone studio, before and after!

If I was single and living in Manhattan, this is the space I would want. An open studio with a fireplace, exposed brick, original shutters, heavy molding and hardwood floors, in the garden level of a 

Harlem brownstone.

It's charming and cozy and just right for my friend Sarah, but it needed some love and pink!

 

BEFORE:

 

Here are a few things I did to re-vamp this studio:

painted all walls bright clean white

used my favorite stencil for a dramatic gold patterned wall

made the ceiling light fixture out of coffee filters

re-surfaced a black dresser with white high gloss paint and new brass hardware

wallpapered over the boring beat up wood cupboards

painted and striped the desk 

oh, and spray painted a dinosaur gold 

AFTER:

 

 

 Working on this apartment was so much fun. Bonus points that it is located 6 blocks from my own apartment, so transporting a ladder on my scooter wasn't that ridiculous. I am so very proud of the way it turned out and so lucky to have a friend that completely trusts my taste and style and gave me complete freedom to do whatever I wanted, no questions asked. 

I could get used to this.

Hot ferrets

 I will try and limit the amount of ferret pictures I post, sort of.

Please meet Ferret Bueller and Babu. 

They like to nap, hide things and climb in pots.

kitchen ceiling Moroccafied

I really dig an all white kitchen.
When we moved into our current apartment the cupboards and countertops were already white. However, the walls and refridgerator were this awful, dingy, chalky flesh colored paint. There must be some non-profit that gives this craptastic paint out to supers. There is no way anyone would pay money for this stuff. Just paint apartments WHITE, even if we are poor, we deserve white, not flesh! Do you hear me slumlords landlords?!
Whew, got a little worked up, but I'm back. The flesh had to go, so we painted the walls 'white vertical stripes'. It's very subtle, but the stripes are visable by sheen. We used the same shade of white, but each stripe is either a flat or a high-gloss. It's wonderful, textured and interesting, but still WHITE!
Next problem, giant ugly yellow box in the corner. After a lot of pleading with our super to give us a white fridge, we ended up just painting our yellow/flesh one with appliance spray paint from my fav, Home Depot. It worked, it's white and it only cost $20. Seriously, the fridge looked brand new, it even covered the rust spots.
My only other solution was to try and switch our fridge with a bright shiney white baby in the basement, that hello... was not being used or even plugged in! Huz talked me out of that one, I guess he didn't feel like getting evicted for stealing refrigerators in the middle of the night. Pussy.
Finally the kitchen was white and it was lovely, but, I had to hang my head in shame, it needed a little somethin somethin. Maybe I was wrong all along, maybe I don't like all white kitchens?! Or maybe I just needed an all white kitchen with a crazy bright ceiling print.
Yep, that's it.

We bought this stencil on etsy from Royal Design Studio. It was a bit pricey, but it's a giant stencil and well, worth it.

This is the before. White, clean, but a bit boring. It's actually not even really clean, we always get flies, and flies pooped on my white ceiling. Ew. sorry.

We had this peacock tealish blue paint left from an old project. I thought that color, combined with the Morrocan print, was a perfect blend of Indian, Mediterranean, African, funkiness.

Supplies: 

Stencil:

White Russian break while stencil dries:

Trim:
I'm smiling because we are almost done and the camera guy is handsome. 

Done:

Total time on ladder: 3 hours
Total time from start to finish: 2 days
Total money spent: $58 (50 for stencil, 8 for shipping)
Remembering you have the best husband ever, who lets you stencil trippy designs on your ceiling. Priceless. 


Oh, important tip... coat the stencil back with some spray adhesive, along with tape for the corners. It keeps your lines perfect and both hands free.
It took a lot of time waiting for the paint residue on the stencil to dry. If you had the cash you could always buy two stencils, so one is always drying.
But we like things the slow, cheap and dirty kinda way.

Canning jars for tulips

Home depot is my favorite. Even the smaller, less stocked Manhattan locations suffice my fix. But this is the time of year that I love Home Depot even more.... planting season.
True, I do not have a yard or garden, but I do have a window ledge.
Actually I went all out my first summer in a real nyc apartment and learned a real hard lesson. Unless you can afford to buy nice heavy duty window boxes that attach to your building, all flowers should stay inside.
Six years ago I got a call from my roommate. He was trying to explain that there was an angry neighbor at our door, but because he couldn't understand Spanish, wasn't really sure what was going on. After awhile, I'm guessing some re-enacting went down, he was finally able to piece it together. It involved wind, my flower boxes and a child playing in the courtyard.
I got home as fast as I could (I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it all) and looked 6 flights down from our kitchen window onto our shared cement inner courtyard. There it was... a tiny tricycle lying on its side, wheel still spinning with shards of terracotta and dirt everywhere. Oh and one tiny little wilted flower sticking out from the pile of soil, taunting me... you're life could be over, you probably killed a child.
Well, I didn't, thank god. He only sprang his pinkie toe. I offered to pay for the doctor visit and was over the top apologetic. I think I freaked them out when I brought over a casserole. I mean, I don't think they were legal citizens and their basement apt was definitely not legal. So I think they just wanted to be quiet and move on. But whatevs, cute little boy was fine and I vowed to never have window flowers again.
Until we moved into our new apartment last March.
There they were. Giant, INDOOR, window ledges. 
Whew... flowers are back!

All of that doesn't really have a lot to do with this little project, oops.
Anyway, so I was at Home Depot picking up one new plant. And they had little potted tulips. So cute and only 6 bucks! I couldn't decide between yellow or white, who am I kidding, of course I bought white. But the pot had this ugly shiny pink foil stuff surrounding it and I really didn't want to buy a new pot. I typically put fresh cut flowers from the deli in a large canning jar for the dining room table, so that is what I did with the tulips.
But they all didn't fit in one, so I went with three. Everything looks better in threes.

I also had a little surprise waiting for me when I got home last night. My mom, who lives in Ohio, is the best! She sent Sandeep and I a huge Easter basket, full of our favorite candies and little personal gifts. Shh.. don't reminder her that I'm almost 30 and married. She might stop.

So after cleaning up all the wrappers and basket filings, the little eggs found a home by the tulips. So cute it even makes me roll my eyes.
The gold egg is my fav.