| MARINA CITY CHICAGO IL | |
| my
new home: |
 Mr.
Cat and I are now living in a 750 sq ft one bedroom pie-shaped apartment
on the 32nd floor of the West Tower of Marina City. It's been painted
in the following colors: Azure Afternoon,
Desert Orange,
Strawberry Crush, and Purple
Passion, all of which are available from Glidden
at your local Home Depot in case you too need these colors in your life.
The condo has Saltillo
Tiles on the floors, and only needs Mexican sunlight to be
a complete escape from the dreary Chicago winters - suggestions on how
to accomplish this are most welcome... |
|
When I bought the place it had the skankiest of carpeting, gold foil
wallpaper in the kitchen and textured vinyl wallpaper in the rest of
it, and to top it off, mirror tiles in the bedroom. All that is now
gone. I don't have any "before" pix, but here are some of
the renovation-in-progress pix.
Mr. Cat likes it too, he grows catnip on the balcony...
|
|
My
biggest remodeling expenditure has been to put in the Mexican saltillo
tiles through the entire unit. These are handmade, so they are very
irregular tiles in both color and shape -- an added bonus: you can see
a dog print in one where a dog ran across the drying tiles. They look
fantastic. It would be nice to redo the entire kitchen, open it up with
an island, but to save money, I've just had the kitchen cabinets painted,
the fridge and dishwasher replaced with some inexpensive units from
the Sears Appliance Outlet store and the stove replaced with a stove
from another unit in the building. (There is quite a secondary market
in the building - someone else now has the drapes that came with my
unit.) The full wall mirrors in the living room came with the unit;
keeping them seemed like a good idea - it makes the small space feel
larger. Not so for the stick-on mirror tiles on the bedroom walls -
they are now salvage for mosaic projects. In the bathroom I've had 2
inch cobalt tile put up, the tub re-finished and the toilet replaced.
I'm keeping the vanity sink and counter and the kitchen sink and counter
for now; at some point I'd like to replace them with more cobalt tile.
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