Brooklyn

  • Brooklyn,  Green is Gezellig,  Urban Gardening

    2011 vs. 2012

    Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post on how much gardening envy had taken over my life — and while the post closed with me saying, “I guess I’ll keep reading stuff and looking at stuff when I can and maybe next year…? No, definitely next year,” I didn’t really believe it.

    I said it because it sounded better than admitting I would probably forget all about it or just go through the same garden envy/lust combo again the next year (and probably for years to come, for all I knew).

    I did not —I could not — imagine that within a year I would be presenting a workshop on how to gain access to land for community gardening, which is exactly what I was doing this past Saturday at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s annual Making Brooklyn Bloom conference.

    It was fun and frankly exhausting. For an introvert like me, meeting dozens of new people and giving a presentation and answering questions to a roomful of people is on a par with… maybe not a marathon, but at least a 10K run.

    But I did it — and I still got up the next day, went to the garden and hauled wheelbarrows full of topsoil around, finally filling in my garden plot and getting it ready to plant.

    Hello, spring.
  • Brooklyn,  Life in Maison Gezellig,  Minimalist Living,  Photo Post

    Kitchen update:

    kitchen collage

    As you probably don’t remember, my kitchen is pretty tiny and I have pretty much zero interior design skills besides which poses an extra challenge for me.

    I think I may edit out a few things from this shelf arrangement (like, that one bowl on top of the plates is making me serious OCD-crazy looking at it) and I still need something to cover up that breaker panel at the top there, but overall, this shelf unit fits SO MUCH stuff in such a small space that I’m really pleased with it.

  • Brooklyn,  Doing More With Less,  Life in Maison Gezellig,  Questions

    The new kitchen (and what to do with it)

    new kitchen panorama

    Above (in my rather inexpertly rendered panoramic view) is my new kitchen. Your comments on my last post were all really helpful and/or encouraging, so I’m back for more.

    Here’s my problem: THERE. ARE. NO. COUNTERS.

    Okay, this isn’t as big as deal as my caps-lock might have you believe. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know about this before I moved in and my last apartment only had about 3-4 feet of counter space anyway.

    If you click through to Flickr, you can see my notes on what I’m thinking of putting where (and what I’m not going to do, like screw shelves into the wall that the electrical breakers are on — yikes).

    So. What do you guys think?

    Addendum: Under the jump are my own (somewhat disjointed) thoughts and ideas.