Where was Janet for the past year and a half?!?

Happy New Year!  

It's been a while since I've made new designs, I totally admit it.... Where have I been?  To be honest, it's taken me a year and a half (until now!) to get over doing emergency renovations to my NYC apartment, which doubles as my home jewelry studio!  While my family and I took a summer vacation for two months in 2015 to Japan and Hawaii, our next door neighbor had a leaky air conditioner which sloped into our space, and since our place was closed off, curtains drawn, and really humid while we were gone for the summer, we came back to 1000 sq ft of water damage--warped wooden floors, and mold that grew up to 6.5' high! 

It took two months to pack up what we could, throw away what needed to be thrown out, and donated whatever we couldn't hold on to, while I moved our family upstairs into the kitchen and living room. Yes, my kids got new trundle beds in the kitchen, and I told them to pretend it was summer camp! Just thankful we had space upstairs.  I knew my hours devoted to playing Tetris during college would someday come in handy!

The contractor came in after that to do the demolition and mold remediation, and then we waited another two months for all the supplies to get here. We decided not to chance it with wood again, and opted for "fake wood" porcelain tiles (I love my new tiles!).  Then, the day before the construction was supposed to begin, our entire building, which used to be a printing press factory built in 1905, had a water main break and we had even more water damage! The damage had spread to 1500 sq ft total.  We had to wait another month for more demolition, more decontamination (it was all the water from our building, including raw sewage!), and more materials to come in.

Once they got started on the work, it went really quickly, but it has taken us until now to unpack all our things and to put things back where they belong.  I'm just really glad it's done and the kids are no longer sleeping in my kitchen!

Thankfully, the jewelry studio is upstairs and unharmed!  

This past year was quite...something.  Sometimes it was overwhelming, sometimes I was so upset by it all (esp dealing with the insurance companies!), some days I was just so frustrated about my house being upside down (I didn't know where anything was!) because my home is my sanctuary.  But at the end of the day, I had to take a few deep breaths to remind myself that the kids are safe, our house can be repaired, and I have so many other things in life to be grateful about.  

And I'm ready to get back to work! First order of business:  we are going to clean house with a massive sale!