Home Improvements, NYC style

Perhaps you’ve surmised by the paucity of posts this weekend that our activities over the past few days were somewhat less exciting than the bongo-blasting Tao dinners and Yankees game we took in a week ago.  Yet, even in the midst of the most common tasks, there can be something that is blogworthy.

We woke up on Saturday eager to get a few errands done.  After a brisk trip to TJ’s (Trader Joe’s to the layperson), we set out to everyone’s favorite home improvement warehouse, Home Depot, to get some new blinds for the kitchen and foyer as well as a curtain rod for the living room.

For those who are unaware, home improvements and Zack do not often work well together.  And while I’ve gotten better during the past few years at managing my way around a toolbox, I’m still more Tim Allen than Al Borland - disaster is seemingly never too far around the corner.

In this case it wasn’t disaster per se, but rather a disastrous ability to properly calculate the size of the items we needed.  I had performed a few measurements at the apartment the day before. But somewhere between lining up the tape measure at home and standing in front of the faux wood blinds at Home Depot, those measurements took on a mind of their own.

I like to think I’m pretty good with numbers.  Calculus came easily to me in high school.  I churn through spreadsheets all day at work.  But apparently I’m not able to add together the length, in inches, of two windows side by side.

I figured out my mistake only after returning to the apartment.  Before I go any further, I should elaborate a bit on what I mean when I say return - by that I mean I rode the subway while carrying two boxes of blinds with me.  And this was a preferable method of transportation to Tracy, who walked 15 blocks back to our apartment while carrying a 8 foot curtain rod.  Seriously!

You can imagine our horror when we got back to 77th Street only to find that the curtain rod was too long (we needed the 6ft rod) and the blinds weren’t wide enough.

So I grabbed the boxes and caught the downtown train back to the Depot.  And Tracy trekked back with 8ft rod in tow.

Seriously.

By the time we made it home with the right goods in hand, the day was understandably shot, along with our patience.  Yet, after the frustration wore off and the curtains were up, we both agreed that the place now feels even more like home.

Even if it did take us a few tries.

Above is a shot of the blinds

And a bonus shot of the other side of the room - not sure if we’ve posted any real pics since we put up stuff on the walls.  We’ll have to take more pictures and post them soon.  For our Durham friends, you’ll be proud to know we finally put pictures in all our frames!  We’re no longer rocking the inserts from Pottery Barn!