About a year ago I bought some ginger jars at Pearl River Mart in Manhattan. I think they were about $10 each. And recently after seeing some lamps on ebay with similar ginger jar bases (selling for a few hundred dollars!) I decided to make my own cheap-o version. (Both of these lamp sets are [...]
Archive of posts filed under the How To category.
Unconventional Holiday Drinks from The New York Times
Well, Thanksgiving happened and I was sick the whole time. But now I’m better and it is officially holiday season. This year I want to find new ways to celebrate the holidays and this drink feature on The New York Times website is a perfect anecdote to tired holiday traditions and the drinks that go [...]
2nd Floor Book Club: “Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People” by Amy Sedaris
The Sedaris family make me proud to be from North Carolina. Speaking of which, I was there last week and picked up a copy of Amy Sedaris’s new book Simple Times. Its a book dedicated to “crafts for poor people.” In short, it is AMAZING. The book features some horrendous craft projects and some hilarious [...]
How To: Re-pot a Plant
I’ve started a new feature on 2nd Floor Living. Introducing the “How To” post. I’ve actually already written a few how-to’s in the past, they just weren’t labeled as such. But now you can easily access all “How-To’s” in the sidebar. Hopefully, this will be a helpful resource for you. Next time you aren’t sure [...]
A Quick Guide To Wall-Mounted Shelves And What Not To Do!
At some point in your life – perhaps this has already happened – you will install wall-mounted shelves and then an hour later they will fall out. It’s ok. It happens to everyone. It happened to me the other day actually. I was trying to put up a shelf in the kitchen and the result [...]
Advice from the book arranger to the rich and famous
In December I wrote a post about attempting to rearrange my bookcase. A day after that post, I learned that Madeline Donahue of the screen printing duo FakeDog is a professional book arranger! She works for a large book store in Manhattan and is hired to put together private libraries for people who can…well, afford [...]
Learning the art of floral arrangements with help from my local flower shop
A little over a year ago a new bar/flower shop (yes, a bar slash flowershop) opened in my neighborhood called Sycamore. Their flower selection is beautiful and definitely a step up from the typical roses, carnations and baby’s breath that most places sell. Sycamore tends to have much more unusual selections with exciting names like [...]
Prime, Paint, Poly – Tips for painting furniture
I openly admitted it in my last DIY project post that I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to painting furniture. I’m not ashamed of my ignorance, but I’ve also decided that on this particular subject I prefer knowledge over stupidity, so I’ve done some research and have picked up some tips [...]
Easy ways to keep the cold out
One thing that all of my apartments (and I’ve lived in 5) have had in common is drafty windows. Yes, cheap drafty windows are very popular with landlords for some reason. And they also love to turn the heat on as high as it will go. It is like a game they play to see [...]
Strip Framing: not as erotic as it sounds but very practical
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about dealing with unconventionally shaped wall art. So, to follow up on this whole wall art topic, I’m gonna talk about framing canvases (gasp!). There are two paintings in my apartment that are on canvas. The first is a big painting done by my friend Madeline Donahue (she’s [...]
Terrariums: get your hands dirty and make one!
There is a magical time that lasts about an hour, when my apartment gets a great amount of sunlight. Other than that, its not dark but its also not light. This is a common problem for city-dwellers and as a result of my spotty sunlight, I have had some very sad plant experiences. Perhaps the [...]
A classy skirt for my not-so-classy bathroom
There are many things about my bathroom that are shameful and scary. Perhaps the worst is that I never finished painting the walls in there, which is a horrible horrible thing to admit when you have a home decorating blog. But more on that issue at a later date (please hold me accountable readers). The [...]
