If you’re like us the words “thrifty” and “green” may just throw you into a fit of hipster hating backlash. Or maybe it would make you a little misty for the bearded Al Gore. Whatever. Today’s NY Times has a story about Katherine Belsey Davis and her husband’s (a musician, not named…hmm) Brooklyn Heights kitchen reno: Continue Reading →
At least now we know who to call to resurrect our window boxes:
The Street.com: Find Your Green Thumb…: New Yorker Erin Combs managed to get the latter without the former — and if you're an urbanite who wants to add some natural beauty to your concrete existence, you'd do well to follow her example.
Combs, 32, is the founder of Jardiniere, a three-year-old urban gardening company run from her Brooklyn Heights brownstone apartment.
Growing up in Farmington, Maine, or as she calls it, "the middle of nowhere," everything was potential garden space, and her parents started her digging in the dirt at an early age. "Mom and Dad were escaped Long Islanders," she says, "and I think they just ran out of gas in Farmington."
Brownstoner has a story today about a Brooklyn Heights couple who in the course of renovating have discovered a stained glass floor:
Brownstoner: Stained Glass in the Floor: I wanted to share an architectural find my husband and I uncovered during the demolition phase of a coop apartment we recently purchased. The apartment is in a stunning limestone building in Brooklyn Heights with the original mahogany trim, plasterwork and mosaic tiled hallway still intact. It's one of the main reasons we were drawn to the apartment—this house was really something in its day. The apartment is on the second floor and there was what appeared to be an unused shaft between a closet and the kitchen that we could use as additional space. There was no evidence of the shaft in the apartment above or below. We figured it was the remnants of a very large dumbwaiter. After making the proverbial inspection hole, however, we discovered the interior was finished plaster and wainscot trim. Clearly not something one would have seen inside a dumbwaiter. It was also very large (3' by 6') and a ton of construction debris that had been piled inside the shaft from the renovation of the apartment above many years before.
This drapery arrangement and chair design might have been found in a Brooklyn brownstone of the late nineteenth century, according to Debra Salomon of the New York City College of Technology ("City Tech"), a unit of CUNY. On Saturday, May 12, from 1 to 5 p.m., Ms. Salomon, along with a distinguished group of architects, interior designers, antique experts and a home inspector, will present "Anatomy of a Brownstone: Brownstoner's Marketplace", at the City Tech Auditorium, 300 Jay Street (corner of Tillary).
The seminar will focus on four different approaches to renovating a brownstone. The first of these is to replace original details (such as railings, gates, terra cotta and furniture) with identical material, the second to adapt the interior for a new use (such as an artist's studio), the third to make it "modern and green", and the fourth (continuing the "green" theme, but also considering economy) to make it energy-efficient. Continue Reading →
Your old home feeling a bit boring and cluttered? Just bought a new apartment and have no idea what to do with it? Want some free wine? Tonight, and the first Thursday of every month, from 6pm to 8pm the Design Within Reach store on Montague Street teams up with interior decorators Pret-a-Habiter for "Design Thursdays" — free interior design advice (and wine) for the clueless:
Join us at the DWR Brooklyn Heights Studio every first Thursday of the month as we team up with Pret-a-Habiter to make interior design more accessible. Bring your questions and ideas to the design professionals and let them provide you with modern solutions using DWR products. The experts at Pret-a-Habiter, a New York based interior design firm, aim to make the interior design experience fun, easy and affordable through their ready-to-go approach. If you have an interior space in need of a modern make-over, then come enjoy an evening at DWR and get free design advice that will help give your home a new look. Wine will be served.
Bring photos of your current space if you've got any. You may RSVP at brooklynheights@dwr.com. Let us know how it goes.
NYC Inside covers the interior of a Brooklyn Heights rental today:
NYC Inside: Brooklyn Heights: The renter writes…We moved into this small yet completely gut-renovated apartment in November 2006. We pay $2,400 for the 1BD apartment which is approximately 550-600 sq.ft. Exposed brick (which is neither boring nor cliché as some might think), brand new everything floor to ceiling is what attracted us to the apartment…oh, and two other amenities…a washer and dryer in the apartment, and we’re a half block to the Promenade! We love the Heights…we kid our Manhattanite friends by telling them it is the best neighborhood in Manhattan! Take care everyone and enjoy the photos.
Lots of work done over the weekend. Lowered the floor of the "standing area" for the loft portion, put in the rafters for the bed platform and the ceiling for the room aka The Study aka The Batcave. Continue Reading →
Work began with cutting out the space for the "standing area" (the space to the right of the door), and installing the frame for it. I wasn't happy with the doorway being so close to the future stairway, it looked awkward. The entrance to "the study" (or "the TV room") should be centered between the edge of the wall and the edge of the stairway.
Also, the "standing area" is a bit too high. When I stood on the frame I bumped my head. Can't have that. The light fixture will be turned into an outlet for a possible bed light, and the light fixtures that were on that wall will be 
moved to the side wall in "the study". The rest of the frame and the rafters should come up rather rapidly, as soon as the "standing area" height is reduced.
No, the room isn't leaning, just the camera.
We can't all be a Brownstoner renoblogger.
When I bought my "Junior 1 Bedroom" apartment, one of the more interesting aspects of it was the "Junior Bedroom". As you can see, the walls don't reach the ceiling, and the space inside barely fits a bed. Since the ceiling is 11 feet high, I felt this arrangement was a poor use of space.
Music publicist/nabe resident Chris Chambers tells the New York Times about his adventures in renovation today:
New York Times:A Repeat Renovator Finds His Rhythm: But Mr. Chambers claims that his first renovation six years ago, when the work was late and over budget, was as bad as any of these dramas.
The moment he can’t get out of his mind came when he was in Miami, on business, talking on the phone with his cabinet maker. When he realized that a project that that was supposed to be finished had not even been started, he went so crazy he threw his phone off the balcony of his hotel room at the Mandarin Oriental, into the water — for a publicist, a rash act indeed.
“We had this company dinner I was supposed to go to, I never came out of my room the rest of the night,” says Mr. Chambers, 35, at his Brooklyn Heights triplex. “I remember it clearly. I did not want to come home.”
Photo: NY Times
Gargoyles, dolphins, sea nymphs…in Brooklyn? See them while you can, before they vanish into the past, victims of funding scarcity.
Details of the facade of 177-179 Columbia Heights. Click for larger images.
There’s an article in the Thursday March 1st edition of the “Brooklyn Heights Press & Cobble Hill News” by Phoebe Neidl about my new home, 177-179 Columbia Heights, and it’s strange and mysterious facade. Unfortunately the newspaper, a subsidiary of the Brooklyn Eagle, doesn’t have a web presence, so I cannot link to it directly. However, I will quote what I can. I urge you to seek it out. (Update: According to Ms. Neidl, the article has just been published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, so make sure to pick up a copy! It will also appear on their website, for those with access).
For reference, here’s how the building looks now (February 10th, 2007):
The restoration of 135 Joralemon seems to be nearing completion, at least the exterior is. For better photos…
From ApartmentTherapy:
DWR and Pret-a-Habiter Design Q&A
Bring your design questions. Wine will be served.
February 1st, 6-8pm. First Thursday of every month
RSVP to brooklynheights@dwr.com
DWR Brooklyn Heights Studio, 76 Montague Street
An addendum to this list:
Brooklyn Heights $3Toomuch,000
Somewhere on Columbia Heights
"Junior" one-bedroom, one-bath co-op, around 500 sq. ft., 11' high ceiling, with renovated kitchen, touched-up wooden floors, a dwarf refrigerator, and a showerhead that snapped off shortly after use. Maintenance $average.00, 44% tax-deductible.
Asking price $SlightlymorethanToomuch,000, on the market since the late summer 2006. Brokers: NONE! Through the owner! Sponsored Unit! Sucker Buyer: Me.
The new owner reportedly will be converting the "bedroom" into a loft and office space/studio/TV room, installing a real fridge, and adding a bar to the kitchen. There's sure to be a renoblog of it. Meanwhile, just like everyone else in the neighborhood, he's on a quest for a good, decently-priced restaurant in the immediate area (Jack The Horse: very tasty, will return, but holy crap was it expensive).
As we're about to renovate the BHB kitchen, nothing catches our attention more than a story on great kitchen makeovers. And when it's in the New York Times, about someone in the nabe who is the executive chef at The Harrison in TriBeca, it sends us into a Snoopy Dance of home improvement/foodie joy.
New York Times: 4 Star Dinner Conjured from a 1 Star Kitchen: For the last 12 years, Brian Bistrong and Chieun Ko-Bistrong have rented the parlor floor of a Brooklyn Heights town house. It’s a nice place, though not a marvel of brownstone Brooklyn like many of its neighbors on Remsen Street. It has a small kitchen, which is peculiar, given that food — well prepared, fresh, local and organic, if possible — is a primary bonding agent for this couple.
The kitchen, which is six feet wide from backsplash to wall, is the only part of the house that Mr. Bistrong and Ms. Ko-Bistrong, who are both 38, have lavished any attention on. Four years ago, they transformed what was a typically forbidding New York City rental nightmare kitchen into a graceful 10-foot-long space with Ikea cabinets, butcher-block countertops and a stainless-steel refrigerator tucked in the corner behind a column.
The large kitchen window opens onto their charming block just a short walk from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. It’s a cheerful space.
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Brooklyn Bugle Cobble Hill Blog
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