Apartment #9 - Fifth Floor

We live on the fifth floor, apartment #9. We found this big 9 at Home Depot and decided to make it our own. D did a great job painting it with the 3 colors that we used for inside the apartment. Also some shots of  our floor. The 9 makes it feel like coming home :)

D painting the 9

Painted and hanging outside our door!

3 colors of our apartment

View from the stairs going up to the 5th floor

Top floor

Adding a Ceiling Medallion

D installed a ceiling fan when we got back from our honeymoon in June. But since we were dealing with a light fixture that has been fussed with for about 100 years, the ceiling above the ceiling fan light fixture wasn't so pretty. More spackled and messy.
So we found a 2 piece ceiling medallion (love Amazon) and D put it up a few weeks later.

Before:

Not the prettiest fixture

After:

Ceiling Medallion added!!

Those shades we custom ordered last year in our last apartment, but we still love them

Makes a huge difference

Finally Decorating - July 2012

We have been working hard to make our apartment feel like a home. Painting the bedroom, living room and bathroom was a crucial first step, and organizing all of our stuff together again has felt great, but starting to put pictures and travel souvenirs up has really made it feel like home. We are finally at the point where we have most of the furniture we need, and most of our things arranged... so time to start putting decorations together piece by piece!

Decorated the TV center - waiting for inspiration for the floating shelves

Added a frame to the kitchen door! Nod to Friends apartment :)

Added this candle holder above the fireplace for the time being

Decorated the top shelf!

Love our tall ceilings

Need to organize these wires!!

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

We knew we had to do SOMETHING to our tiny kitchenette to make it feel brighter and bigger. Painting it yellow make it brighter, but we had to do something about the kitchen cabinets. We had made the decision to buy extra storage unit/cabinets to put in the living room - and wanted to keep those white too. D got down to business this July and it has made a huge difference on how our kitchen area looks!

These are the before kitchen shots:

Move in day

Moving mess

Painted Mellow Yellow

Organized and painted - July 2012:

Painting the rolling kitchen cabinet first

It's always messy before it gets organized again I guess...

Looks like a brand new piece of furniture!

Kitchen cabinets painted!

Updated kitchen - July 2012

The white makes such a huge difference

Gotta work on that corner now...

My other mess piles are improving - slowly but surely

Building Radiator Benches - Phases 2 & 3

D started to build the radiator benches in April after we first moved in. He got all the major work done so they were functional. It wasn't until June - after the wedding and the honeymoon - that he was able to complete Phase 2 (installing metal screens) and Phase 3 (painting them white).

Here is where they were at from April - June:

Bare bones

Building - phase 1

End of Phase 1

Then D got to work in June and finished them up for the summer. (He is going to make some updates for Winter when the heat is on). He added metal screening to the openings and painted them white. They look really nice and finished, and a great addition to the apartment. They look like they fit right in, which was the point. We both love sitting on the benches and looking out the window.

Metal screening added in!

Painted white - looking finished

Installing a Ceiling Fan

Living in a 100 year old building, we only have 1 AC unit in the bedroom. Which means our living room, with 4+ heat waves already this summer, was super hot. D took on the task of installing a ceiling fan into the old ceiling and crazy wires. He did a great job, and the room is much cooler and more bearable now!

Before

The beginning!

Resorted to headlamps after the sun went down - our breaker turns out all the lights...

Another job well done

To be installed - ceiling medallion