Category: Uncategorized

Yonkers is on a every other week recycling schedule– one week it’s paper, the next week it’s mixed media (plastic, glass,metal) It’s confusing to remember– and they have a very cool book, but I am always misplacing it! And the City of Yonkers website has it, but you have to download the whole thing as…

Things are going a little crazy here. In addition to all of the stuff going on inside– there’s all this green stuff growing on the outside of the house. And apparently somebody has to tame it. And apparently that somebody is me. Considering that our house has a little plot of green among a sea…

We went to California for a little while to visit with the Queen of Paint, her husband (Stephanie’s younger brother), and most importantly (sorry guys!) The Bundle of Joy, Stephanie’s nephew. It was a lot of fun, although our time was mostly spent shopping, eating, playing with TBoJ, eating, shopping, and playing with TBoJ. We…

You know, I realize that many of you who were playing at home may not have seen the final kitchen design. So here is a rough illustration of it (not to scale, naturally!)CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER DRAWING. It seems spacious until you are in it– I think that ultimately it will be a cozy and…

On Wednesday, we got a little cheeky and decided that we would have 14 people over for a dinner/seder. This despite the fact that our kitchen isn’t yet in, and that Aaron was able to install the oven at 3 pm on Wednesday. I was a little shaky about it, because — well, it’s a…

So I made a little mistake yesterday. The painter asked me which color to paint the sun-room (which is a little bonus room that we have) And I told him–which was naturally the biggest mistake of all! But first– a little backstory:Stephanie has a very nice sister-in-law, who for reasons of privacy we shall dub…

Even as we think we’ve got problems with contractors, timing, and we may feel like we are the only people renovating a home in Yonkers– lo! what light through yonder window breaks? There is another blog that talks about their problems and delights with their 100 year old Yonkers home renovation! There are lots of…

Yesterday was a bit of a difficult day. Aaron (our carpenter/foreman/go-to guy) wasn’t able to show up today (or yesterday either) due to an emergency out at the mansion/school that he is a caretaker for. Santana (our plumber) wasn’t able to come in because he had too much going on at the three other jobs…

Our first room is painted! And it’s bright orange! (Here are three images for you to savor and be amazed at. The unsavory chap in the second photograph is me) I saw this color (Sherwin Williams Laughing Orange) in a magazine, and showed it to Stephanie, saying that I thought it looked great. We’d been…

On Friday afternoon, just as Sears arrived with all of the appliances, I quietly slipped out of the house into a waiting Town Car and was whisked off to the airport. Escape! In order to get a few minutes to breathe (to breathe non-dusty air, anyway), I had to go away. Far away. So my…

This is the way I’m feeling lately. (I found this license plate the other day at the National Wholesale Liquidator the other day when I was on my way trying to get stuff for the house.) Of course I was freakin’ out, and it hit my mood perfectly. Why freaking? Well, it’s just that lately,…

Even as the dust continues to settle, and as the electricians, the carpenters, the plumbers, and the painters maintain their appointed tasks, we are packing, packing, packing. We are moving! We’ve been very busy getting everything done, but sadly, not everything will be finished by the time we move in. So we’ll be living in…

In between picking out cabinets, figuring out the differences between the phone systems of Lowe’s and Home Depot (Lowe’s is much more efficient) and juggling a very stressful full time job, Stephanie is also very involved in Congregation Tehillah, Riverdale’s dynamic synagogue. (And that means by extension, that Adam is involved too) Here’s the latest…

I’ve been getting worried that in the end I’m not going to like the decor of the house. We’ve started to talk about decor, and colors, and stained glass, and mason jars, and all this other stuff. Stephanie has some very strong ideas about what she doesn’t want, and I’m more flexible (I think– but…

Well, week 2 has now ended, and we’re actually getting a lot accomplished. Perhaps not everything that we would have hoped, but truly that’s inevitable. Other things happen sooner, other things happen later, and everything works out in the end. We’re coming down to crunch decisions– where will the island in the kitchen go– what…