Aquatic plants for the front entryway

One of the big design challenges that I'm facing is bringing a feeling of light and life to the front entryway to our unit.  It has no natural light whatsoever.  (The stairway running from it to the second floor gets filtered light.)  I knew the lack-of-light issue was going to be a tricky challenge when we were laying out the locations for each unit's entry and all the stairs in the building.  Since our entry is in the middle of the back wall of the building, the only way to have avoided the problem would have been by putting in a transom window above the doors to our unit (thereby reducing their dramatic height) or putting in a pair of sidelights next to a single door (no room then for a double and the sidelights would have had to be frosted or sheer-curtained anyway for privacy from the street and common area).  But I really wanted French doors and I really wanted the doors to be "secret", so glass around them was out.  It was a tough call at the time, but I traded off on the natural light in order to get better doors to our unit and a better common entry.  I don't regret the decision -at least not yet- but it has made it challenging for me to give our unit's entry the energy I'd like it to have.

These photos pretty much sum out how I want the area to feel:

Of course, water lilies want as much light as possible, so there aren't going to be any actual lilies involved.  What I am going to experiment with, however, are some other (low light) pond plants, together with lots of glassware and reflective surfaces (probably mercury glass as opposed to mirror).  I have no idea, though, if even a low light pond plant will tolerate the conditions in the front entryway.  So after much research, I ordered three different shady types to try out.   Meet salvinia:

Azolla:

And water lettuce:

I am super-excited about their arrival and keep checking my email to see if my order has shipped yet.  Fingers crossed they ship very soon and don't die a slow and lingering death at the RBB!

(My back-up green plan right now, if the pond plants do decline, are various sizes of moss ball. 

But so much less interesting!)

Crown molding and plaster frieze on the second floor

I finally have some photos to share of the crown molding and plaster frieze that's being put in on our living room/dining room/kitchen/powder room level.  Remember these guys?

Well, here's how they look now:

I love it: so elegant!  Our plasterer is coming by on Monday to advise us about whether and how to fill more of the gap between the bottom of the crown and the top of the frieze and also whether and how to create a more gradual transition between the bottom of the frieze and the wall below.  (The frieze pieces are really thick!)  I think it might look better if the transitions between materials/pieces was a little more gradual.

The wood crown is installed on the whole floor but they ran out of plaster frieze after doing about 2/3 to 3/4 of the space.  More is on order and we anticipate having it in about a week.  The painters primed and painted it before installing it, so I imagine it will be at least two weeks before the rest of the frieze is up.

Tenants' Move-In Day

Today is the day when our tenants move in.  Well, we don't know if they're actually planning to move in today but as of midnight, the apartments are theirs for the next 10 months.  I took a lot of photos last night to preserve the memory of the way the units look after so many months of labor.  It will be very strange not being able to wander through them, or take shortcuts through them as we have, especially through Unit 2's side door. 

The common entryway is essentially done: we just need to figure out where/whether to hang the mailboxes and I need to buy some jute treads to protect the painted wood treads from wet shoes and boots (they're urethaned, but still - plus they'll likely get slippery).

The silk wallcovering came out absolutely beautifully.  Unfortunately my camera skills aren't good enough to capture the beauty of the dupioni's texture and sheen.


Here's Unit 1:

The old refinished doors are amazing.  Below is the living room/kitchen, from various vantage points.

Going downstairs to the lower level, here's the bathroom:

This is the bedroom, also on the lower level:

This is the inside of the bedroom's walk-in closet.  The double doors seal off the back-lit onyx risers of the front entry staircase, while allowing access when necessary.

The view across the bedroom from the closet, towards the emergency egress door and the utility room and street beyond:

Here is Unit 2:

The kitchen and little living room on the upper level:

Then down the stairs to the bedroom and bathroom on the lower level:

Here's the bedroom:

The view towards the walk-in closet:

The bathroom, which is the mirror image of Unit 1's:

I can't believe that we're actually finished two of the three units - it was starting to feel like the day would never come.  I feel a little sad, a little deflated, but also relieved to be able to move on. 

The workers have all been focused on finishing the tenants' units for the past couple of weeks, so we've seen little progress on the carpentry and painting fronts in our space.  Today they're back in our unit, the carpenters working on the crown molding, the painters doing touch ups of the bedroom level and doing the final coat on the staircase panels.