A Day in the Life: James from Flash Exterminating

In Brooklyn, these days, it’s not hard to find what you need. There are shops that cater specifically to the art of meatballs and outlets designated merely for rock climbing, and this isn’t even discussing the gourmet dog treat stores and the organic liquor outpost. Still, when you hear about a winery being built on the outer terrain of Williamsburg, an eyebrow is bound to cock. But, as it turns out, that’s exactly what’s happening at The Noble Experiment, a new winery being built not all that far from borough institution Brooklyn Brewery. One of our providers, James of Flash Exterminating, is handling infestation detection, elimination and prevention in the space and was nice enough to let us tag along recently and explain what he was doing for The Noble Experiment.

James was quick to emphasize Flash’s use of eco-friendly pesticides and traps. Amongst them are EcoExempt, a mixture that includes rosemary and mint oil, amongst other facets, that is used to prevent spider infestations. For rodent prevention, he explained his three-step process of sealing off rodent access points and using tracking powder to get rid of any chance of infestation in the space, which has a beautiful backyard space. Both the wooden cabinet areas and the vats were treated with a broad eco-friendly spray, meant to target everything from millipedes to cockroaches, cutting off the chances of any bug issues in the area.

James did a great job but he stressed how extermination and infestation prevention is never a one-shot deal. He has already set-up two return visits, one two weeks from now and another a little over a month from now. We’ll be checking in with more of our providers in the future, seeing what they’re working on in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, and we look forward to seeing how awesome the Noble Experiment at its planned opening later this year. 

Our new Patio: Little Liess's Bar & Grill

We spend so much of our time outside & love having familly meals & parties out there so this year we decided to do a little work on our patio. Here is is "before" (I can't believe I'm showing you this pic!!)....  I think this is from two years ago or maybe three??  (is it sad that the years are starting to blend together??) with the AC unit, some messy gravel& the sawhorse table my husband made (which I loved but just didn't work out because it was so heavy!!! and the wood started rotting eventually..  great for a summer though)  I guess it was a couple of years back because it was before we painted the back of our house & shed.   Anyway, here it was "before"--

{We got the patio set at Lucketts for a steal but it came with ill-fitting cushions...  I immediately replaced them with NEW slightly-less-ill-fitting cushions that will hold us over for a couple of years until we feel like springing for new custom ones.)

We planned to continue the concrete all the way along the back of the house & resurface the old concrete to match the new.  I sketched out these plans of the back bar area with slate counters for the contractor:

Our grill isn't built-in...  It's just the same old grill that we made a custom opening for:

And here it is now:

We loooooove being out here now that it's completed & entertaining is so simple. 

Here's a pic of the non-custom cushions I found online that drive me CRAZY because in order to fit them I had to turn them sideways showing the seems, but that I am totally good with making do with for now because they are such an improvement to the original cushions...

The table is from West Elm & I can't say enough good things about it... (It's pretty, hoses off nicely, is super-strudy and holds up to the birds!!  --- if you know what I mean ;) ;) ..see spot in very front of table..  (I clearly didn't do any cleaning up for these pics- woops!)

The stools & chairs are from Pottery Barn & I'm really happy with them too.  The silver chairs are ooold.  We made a little cubbie for our firewood on the right which I love because it just adds a little interest & warmth..

I can't wait to have some mojitoes with my girls out here:

Eventually we'll paint the bar the same color as the house but for now, while we try to have a chill summer, it's staying as-is.  We also plan on continuing our dwarf holly bushes around this area of the patio too so it looks like it's always been here.

One last before:

And one last after:

We love eating at "Little Liess's Bar & Grill" as the boys have dubbed it!!! ;) ;)  Thanks for checking it out!!

And one pic of the littlest Liess, 3 week old Luke:

{Like me & the rest of my children, red-eye remover was required.}

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

New Kitchen Cabinets

We don't have a huge kitchen and had a desk area that we weren't really using, so we decided to do a bit of a remodel.   We really wanted more storage and I'm lucky enough to have a husband who can make just about anything!

Here's what it looked like before.  It was very nice and and good place to put some collectibles, but was not being utilized as much as it could have been.

I have an office right near the kitchen, so really didn't need a desk area right here. 

So out the desk and upper cabinet went to Habitat for Humanity's Restore for someone else to use...

And into the garage my husband went to start creating a new one.

 His favorite part of it--easy access wine storage!

Adding new crown moulding.  I am so impressed how he matched everything so well to the existing cabinets.

There's actually some extra room on the shelves right now.    I'm so happy with it.

Thanks for your visit!

Pam

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Hydrangea Time

After Luke was born (2 weeks ago today) I pretty much hibernated inside the house & in our back yard for a week or so- snuggling & trying to keep him fed.  Then one day as we were heading out, I noticed that our hydrangea had bloomed without me noticing.  Like crazy:

...So of course I had to take a few inside...

I love the old-fashioned appeal of hydrangea...  My grandma used to have a ton of limelights at her summer cottage.   I had just enough time to cut a few and am heading out today to grab more...

The thing I love about hydrangea is that there are so many I don't feel guilty for picking them...

I have all different colors (guess our soil PH is pretty inconsistent)...

I love the blue...

Here's a picture of Christian taken 2 years ago bringing a bunch in...

...They (both him & the flowers) were much smaller back then.   I never thought the hydrangea would get taller than me!!

my timer's up- baby's crying- so i'm out  but i cannot thank you all enough for all the well wishes and notes...  your friendship means so much to me.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.