This is Your Roof. This is Your Roof off Drugs. (Applaro Wall Panel Rehab)

Hello everybody! So, it's been a while. A while a while. You move, you're surrounded by boxes. Life stuff happens and you set your jaw and do whatever it is you need to do, unpacking be damned. But eventually, there is sometihing you can't take anymore. And what I COULD NOT take is the view on our roof of the nasty, messy tar that the previous owners thought was a-ok, in fact, that was put in place just last year by those awful, nipple-light loving (hello, p0rn googlers! welcome!), apartment-neglecting people who lived here before.

Here it was:

So, your options are, (a) get a roll or two of narsty reed fencing, the kind they cover chain link fences with in sketchy parking lots, (b) drop not a small amount of cash on decorative screens, or (c) desperately search the Ikea website hoping that someone in the Swedish Motherland has this problem. Guess what? They do!!

This is the ÄPPLARÖ wall panel from Ikea, answer to our prayers. For about 250 smackers, we covered almost 20 feet of yucky tar wall. Amen!

These were a bit of a pain to install, since we had to attach them to the building next door, drilling into materials unknown. Tar, roofing, masonry, dead bodies, the neighbors themselves? We used these blue masonry screws, which provide just the right amount of grip without being too destructive:

For days we've been walking around saying "blue screws" in the voice of Leo Johnston from Twin Peaks. You Twin Peaks people know what I mean. "Blue screws!"

Anyway, we put up the bottom halves together, then my long-suffering husband struggled with these new shoes, I mean, blue screws, for hours while I was out of town.

This is all after I dragged him to the South Philadelphia Ikea before Mother's Day brunch, just to hunt down these panels, which were unavailable anywhere in the greater NYC metro area. And then after they were up, he coped with me walking down the wall trying to get the screws in at preeeecisely the same depth all along the wall (impossible). Everything you've heard about C.W. Anderson being a saint is true.

We topped the panels off with Solvinden solar string lights, since we don't have electricity in our little rooftop haven.

They flipped on when it got dark tonight, and I gasped. So pretty! And solar!

Sometime I'll show you the inside of our apartment, beyond our moldings. It's all too overwhelming at the moment. It is so much easier to buy plants than it is to remodel a kitchen. Cheaper, too.

Aaaaah. I love when things work out just like you envisioned them. Don't you?

Better Late Than Never House Tour

We have lived in our current apartment for a little more than two years, and we've loved it here. We came a couple of months after our wedding, escaping from a cave of a place in Park Slope that had a little outdoor space, yes--but that space came at the expense of any sort of windows or light indoors.

We made the best of that place but it made me claustrophobic, plus it had a crappy landlord-special kitchen and recessed lighting that showed every crag and pore. So once the wedding was out of the way, we got to looking. With luck and persistence, we found a fourth-floor apartment in Prospect Heights with more light and windows than we thought were possible. . . and, you would not believe: a dishwasher. We knew we wouldn't be here for very long because we wanted to look for a place of our own once we'd saved a down payment, though.

I realized today as we started to accumulate boxes to pack that I never photographed this place. As much as I love the space, it's always felt a bit underfurnished because we knew we would be moving on. Plus, the paint colors are terrible-the paint went up before we moved in and we never saw it on the wall (in fact, I think we were out of town when the place was painted). The colors looked so totally different than we expected that we thought the painter had made a mistake! What we thought was grey was actually blue, and what we thought was nice muted green was more like a pastel key lime. Lesson learned.

kitchen

Oh, this kitchen. Basic, but perfectly sensible with TONS of storage. The guy who lived here before us NEVER cooked, so we basically inherited it pristine. We never filled the cabinets quite . . . but the new place has slightly smaller ones and fewer, and I'm a bit scared about it.

dry goods shelf

My favorite thing about the kitchen is this shelf, which we use for dry goods.

dining table & old hutch

We brought this dining table with us from Houston, where we bought it cheap from a furniture refinisher who never got round to refinishing it. Neither did we. Now it's too small for our new dining area, but I'm not sure what else one does with a spare table in a 2BR apartment. I couldn't bear to toss it or sell it, so we may keep it in our storage area until we make our next move. Unless you have a better idea!

The hutch we inherited from a neighbor in Park Slope who was going to throw it away. Its joints are all out of wack, and there's some water damage on the bottom.

There's a lot of pressure when you buy a new place to make it perfect and gorgeous and new. But looking at our stuff now makes me feel a bit of pride in how well we've made the wabi-sabi look work.

sofa & storage (we're getting rid of that shelf when we move)

This great sofa was a craigslist find. A nearly-new Hutton Sofa from Room & Board. It's wide and great for cuddling or sleeping, and Moses is only a little interested in scratching it. It hasn't held up perfectly (because she is a LITTLE interested), and she's also, erm, puked on it a few times. Cat puke doesn't come out of velvet too good. Nothing to be done.

moar sofa

seating / foyer

Note: please forgive the odd scale of some of these photos. Something's wrong with my wide-angle lens! And any detritus that seems to be lying around should be ignored as no styling went into this. The place was merely passably clean for an in-law visit :)

bedroom

The bedroom is way bigger than we need it to be. One thing we looked for in our new apartment was an appropriate balance of living space and bedroom space, because we've found both of our big bedrooms to be wasteful and were never able to utilize them properly. Happy to report that we think the new place strikes just the right balance. Please ignore the icky walls and forgive us our festive holiday bedding. We're still celebrating I guess.

bedroom view

The northwest-facing bedroom has a view of the Empire State building in the winter when the leaves are down, and beautiful green trees in the summer. I'm going to miss all the birds back there, as our back view will be somewhat more urban in the new place.

study / craft room

This was the first time we ever had another room. It's a bit odd because you have to walk through our bedroom to get to it. One thing about where we live now is that the public and private spaces aren't that separated. In the new place, the bedrooms are down a hallway from the living room, so it feels a bit more private. I'm happy with what we ended up doing in this room. It's such an odd shape--long and narrow--that we couldn't have fit any kind of guest bed in there. And since I took this picture I hung art and got an amazing ikea curtain that is, of course, coming with us to the new place!

This is what it looks like now.

Oy vey.

charming vintage bathroom & skylight

I love the natural light in this bathroom. The new place has TWO bathrooms, both with frosted glass windows. They won't get quite this much light but it will be enough to not make me miss this too much. Plus, we're renovating both . . . and as much as I love the vintage look I can't wait to have a couple of brand spanking new places to relax and take care of bizness.

Moses enjoying her last peaceful Sunday, though she doesn't know it yet

Moving is difficult. As we get older, change can be harder to embrace. Once, I moved to Houston without ever having visited. And I dragged Chris with me! Once, we moved to Brooklyn on a whim. Now, I'm sentimental and what is familiar is a comfort. It's hard to leave this place, our first home as a married couple. But it's time for the next thing. Hopefully, next time you hear from me on our home, you'll see photos of an absolute mess, an apartment with great bones in need of TLC and in the midst of having some of its guts ripped out. And by summer, you'll hear me bragging about our view of Eastern Parkway, blogging about DIY pizza parties around the island in the kitchen, and crowing about how attached I've become to our roof deck (bye bye Vitamin D deficiency!) and my container garden. I know it.

family portrait

But the best part is, these two rascals are coming too. So how different can it really be, right?

The Blanket Revelation

How come you guys never told me how relaxing blanket knitting is?

No shaping, no sizing, no swatching (breaking my own rule here). I bought a ton of Berroco Peruvia Quick last year to make Cirilia Rose's beautiful Aidez cardigan, but then realized this colorway turns me into a corpse.

(Add a rule to my list above: don't buy yarn online unless you've seen it in person and held it up to your somewhat sallow winterface. Cirilia swears this is fetching with a pop of color, but I'd need somewhat more than a pop, and can't be bothered with loud lipstick every time I wear a cozy cardigan).

All eight skeins have been sitting in a box in my office for a year. Eventually I needed the box to return the hairdryer that almost fried my hair off and blessed me with a 48-hour scent of burning rubber (long story!), and people started asking questions about the large pile of yarn in the corner, so I decided to put it to some use.

Finding a second project for already-purchased yarn is always a struggle for me, a perfectionist about matching projects to fibers. My stash is almost entirely comprised of failed purchases like this that don't get much love following the initial disappointment. I hit Ravelry trying to find a project I could give as a gift to someone who would look alive within a 10-foot radius of this yarn. Finally: Brooklyn Tweed's Umaro. It's been on my queue since Jared released it. Blankets always seemed like such a huge commitment, though. Katie from my knitting group is *always* making them, and every time I see her I'm all HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Quite the opposite, so far. It's been ages since I took on a project where literally all there is to do is knit until you run out of yarn. This is only one skein in to this blanket, with a long way to go, but all I feel about it is soothed at the prospect of inches and inches of this beautiful, squishy pattern. Blankets have officially converted me. Okay, talk to me several skeins from now.

What else? How about some purple oatmeal?!

Yeah, I thought so.

I'm a Monstah!

Pattern: Frances the Charismatic Monster by Rebecca Danger [Ravelry]
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers, 1 skein, 9452 summer sky heather
Needles: US 8
Recipient: Maya's baby Abel!

Notes: This is baby Abel. He's quite a little monster!

Well, not exactly a little one. He's 7.5 months old, and I won't share his weight because it's rude to talk about a person's weight publicly, but let's just say his mama Maya has her some guns.

So when it came time for Abel's babywarming, Virginia thought as our group gift we should make some monster themed loot for this little dude. Virginia made some of these adorable Das Monster pants! Maybe if I can snag a photo from some one, I'll post one here, because they are AWESOME.

And I made the monster a monster. This is Frances. Isn't he just debonaire?

He's working on his first novel on the old Underwood typewriter. He just loves the heft of the keys under his, um, paws.

His teeth are made of felt. I took a bit of poetic license (i.e., didn't look at the pattern) with his ears, and his mouth is upside down. Whoops.

But, all in all, he still manages to be quite genteel, as does Abel. I hope he gets a lot of joy dragging Frances around by the feet for many years to come.

Frivol!

Pattern: Frivol by Debi Tuttle (free pattern) [Ravelry]
Yarn: Rowanspun Aran, 1 skein
Needles: US 8

Notes: How many hats have you seen with a sideways cable? Not too many, right? Sometimes it takes a newbie to see things in a different light, ask why something isn't usually done, and figure out a way to do it. It sounds like Frivol was the result of just that process. Debi Tuttle came up with this hat about four months after she started knitting, and Frivol shows you what a little math and a lot of short rows can do.

The construction is kind of ingenious. The hat is constructed in one piece, knitting the piece around the head and shaping the crown using short rows all the way around. You can see the crown above.

There's a seamed version and a seamless one. I did the seamed version because i was too lazy to use the provisional cast-on used for the seamless. Apparently many knitters have also made this without the bobbles, which I find a little sad. Bobbles are one of my great joys!

The yarn used here is Rowanspun Aran received from Andrea of Knitting by Bicycle in a swap a few months back. If you find some, snap it up, because it has, tragically, been discontinued.