Architect Ira Rakatansky

Rakatansky studied with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at Harvard in the 1940s. He began building homes and his own home in Providence, Rhode Island. Check out more of his home on Apartment Therapy

Bed Progression

The bed is looking amazing! Still need to pop in the top boards (see plan) and find a new king-size mattress.

Materials: 2 sheets of walnut veneer plywood, several 2x12's from the home center, and walnut veneer edge banding to hide the plywood edges. My husband cut his own shellac and added a reddish brown dye to it to better approximate the look of aged walnut furniture. After three coats of the tinted shellac, he put on two coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal wipe-on varnish - one gloss coat and one satin coat.

Total Cost: $490

The next project is going to be a set of matching floating nightstands with spalted maple drawer fronts to add some texture!

Illuminated flowers

Ever since I had seen an illuminated arrangement at my Agents house I've always wanted to get a bunch of my own. Not sure where they would go but it's on my list. I found a good selection at www.traditionsfurniture.com

Platform bed

We are full of ideas, but actually making it is the scary part. A while back I mentioned a sideboard project we'd designed. Sadly that hasn't come to be. My husband is a bit of a perfectionist and he hasn't yet figured out how to get a nice, even finish without an expensive sprayer... We are new to this furniture-making thing!

OK, so a bed. We really need a bed (and no paint finish problems to worry about!) I showed him some beds I liked and we decided on something simple and strong. We started buying the wood for the inside structure, I'll keep you all updated on our progress.

New and improved

I'm in such a good mood today! The fan is up, the lumen white roller shades are up and I found a cute retro stand yesterday at a flea market for $2.

Everyone who has seen the blinds is shocked at how amazing they look. I'm even thinking about getting another set for my office and master bathroom. I'm sure by the end of the year all my windows treatments will be converted. The fabric I chose for the living room is a bit see through but you can choose from lots of different types, thicknesses, textures and colors.

Click here to see the before photo.

Can DO!

It's been 100 degrees with high humidity in NH all week! When I went to my local home improvement store to buy some driveway repair gunk, I walked past their awesome celling fan selection and realized I had to have one (we do have an air conditioner in the bedroom, but the rest of the windows in my house are not AC-friendly.)

I was actually quite impressed with some of the fan styles, but I ended up choosing this Harbor Breeze 52" Brushed Nickel Avian Ceiling Fan:Installation was a major pain. Since we have recessed lights in the living room, we had to purchase a recessed light converter kit. Our house being so old, however, the recessed light can was not a standard size, so my husband had to spend the better part of the day - the hot, sticky day - trimming off and adapting the conversion kit to our light cans, and up on the ladder installing the whole thing. The fan finally went up and now sitting at the dinning room table is wonderful!

Blueberries

My property has hills, large boulders, and low swampy areas that dry up in the summer. The low areas are home to really old blue berry bushes that are almost 10 ft tall! This last week the berries have been quickly getting ripe because of the heat wave. Does anyone have any good blueberry recipes?

New slat wall and garden pictures

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

I'm feeling wonderful because this past weekend my husband and I finished a slat screen. I wanted to hide the fire wood and other misc junk on the side of the house and this was a beautiful solution. I was inspired by Morgan's slat screen from www.the-brick-house.com. So simple and modern and really quite easy to make. Also I have my new rusty steal planters I had custom made by artist Joe Papendick. It's finally getting there!

Next on the list is to get the driveway sealed and get some new light posts.

Roller Blinds

I think this may be the answer to my dinning room/ living room privacy needs in the warmer months. I just love that clean glowing look that you get with roller blinds. The picture below is of my living room, I don't really have close neighbors that can peak in but it would to have something there. I'm not sure if I want something sheer so I can see the trees outside or something thicker that won't let people see in at night. Hmmmm....

I'm so ready for all this snow to melt!

Summer/Fall 2008

October 2009

This spring I will finally have some grass growing on my property, hooray! My husband and I purchased our home back in August of 2008 and most of the work we have done has been outside.

The back of my home is all woods and the front yard was all overgrown shrubs so I really wanted my own patch of grass. My husband and I cleared those enormous shrubs/trees and I have been raking out the dirt. Most recently we had large concrete circles professionally poured into the frames we built. Below is what I hope to get my yard looking like this summer. I'm counting the days!

Readers I need some help

I have a bit of a long driveway that looks kind of sad where it meets the curb, so I want to put up a modern stone structure at the entrance that matches the style of the house. I've been looking everywhere, but I can't seem to find any pictures out there of anything I like. I want the structure to also incorporate lighting and a mailbox. If anyone has any pictures that might help please send them my way!

New Chairs

Many months before

I think a simple, geometic black and white rug would really look nice in here. I also really want to grab the OLUNDA print and have it hang on the tan wall to the left.

I want to many things...

Yay or Nay

Foyer
I spotted these two cute chairs on Craigslist and I'm debating if I should pick them up. I think they would look great in the foyer against the iron wall, and I have two cute orange pillows that would look great on them! Ok, as I write this, I'm now convinced that I have to have them! Now I just need to convince my husband to drive out with me to get them. If your reading this Al...I love you!

New Clock

It was my birthday last weekend and I decided to treat myself by getting this cute starburst clock from Urban Outfitters. I had been searching for something to put on this wall for some time but I was waiting for something that tickled my fancy. (Oh and yes it's on sale too!)

Vitten

I purchased some Vitten rugs from Ikea a few weeks ago and I love them! They make the space feel so warm and cozy. I sewed them together and you can't even tell they're four carpets put together. I updated the carpet because I always wanted shag and the other carpet was just dirty looking, I have this bad habit of walking barefoot where ever I go (inside and out) and my husband always forgot to take off his shoes so yeah it was dirty. We are really good about being clean now, we really love this carpet so we are willing to make sacrifices.

Walkway

No I didn't keep you out of the loop, I just haven't done a thing with my front yard. We finally decided on cement circles, but how to make the forms was another roadblock. We decided to get quotes from contractors but we weren't to happy with paying $2000 to get it finished. Then finally my husband found something called wacky wood, which is a bending plywood. I will keep you all updated on our progress.

Bedroom vanity

I took a trip to Ikea last week on a mission to find a dressing table for my bedroom. I was going to get Ikea's Malm dressing table, but.... they don't have it in the walnut brown color I wanted anymore! I was so sad. I'd been looking for a vintage vanity on CL, but I was having no luck there either.

Then yesterday I found this cute, old desk that I think might do the trick. What do you think?