I was happy to find the link here to the High Line park and spent some time looking over their website yesterday. I love Piet Oudolf and haven't found a project that he's done that I don't like. I've often wished I had a sunny lot that was just a little larger so that I could have adopted more of his plant choices. So since I'm not able to, I always enjoy seeing g*ardens that he has had a hand in and this was no exception. I found the whole project fascinating! The website has 118 pages of photos to look at, which is almost as good as being there. [g] Looking at photos of what it looked like before the r*enovation and what they accomplished was really inspiring to me. If I lived in a city, which I really wouldn't enjoy...lol, I would LOVE to have something like this in my neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I was quite disappointed when Boston did over the Greenway that they did not ask Oudolf to come and design something for us. What a change from the graffiti covered structure that was there! The views from that elevation and the addition of the glass railings in different areas, has changed that whole area into something much more livable. All the buildings around it have spruced themselves up. Examples pulled from their site.... To go from this..... To this.... I am surprised that you didn't enjoy it Ego. Of course, I haven't visited there, so maybe it is disappointing in person. I guess for me, even if Oudolf had not been the g*arden designer, if they had just cleaned it up and planted it with anything green and used it as a park, I would have thought that was a better use of what was there then other options. I did read that 70% of the annual operating costs were provided by Friends of the High Line but even if public funds were used to r*enovate this area, I think it was a good i*nvestment for so many reasons. I thought that with that narrow long space to work with and to also include sitting areas, Piet Oudolf's s*tyle is difficult to accomplish. Comparing it to Chicago where he had tons of open space, it's quite different. I did take a look at the p*lanting list and see many of the p*lants that he has used in other projects. Thanks kt and carl for bringing this neat park to my attention. :-)

Oh man....I wish I still lived there. Takes me back to memories of sample sales in the garment district... Hope you got some great items -- any photos would be welcome!

gooster - we thought the exact same thing! Yesterday we went out and got another white cab with open shelving and light wood top for the end of that wall - it was almost too big for the space but we managed to wedge it in there. It looks pretty close in appearance to the other two, enough that it looks fairly integrated. It looks good and will be used for the induction burner that heats the tea kettle! scrappy25 - we gave the IKEA measurements to Cabinet Authority. Unlike Semi-handmade and Scherr's, they don't keep them on file. I got the exact measurements of the fronts from IKEAfans.com. The paint is a factory finish with a very low sheen. I had an option of three whites by Sherwin Williams: Crystal White, Frosty White, and Designer White. I listed them in order by the strength of their yellow undertone, from strong to nonexistent. I went with Designer White because I wanted that stark white look. If you happen to live in NYC, I can just give you the sample color blocks since I don't need them anymore. We had to do the drilling for the fronts ourselves, except for the two doors below the sink - those got standard boring holes for the clip-on hinges. IKEAfans has the template for where the drill holes should go on the drawer fronts. It wasn't hard to do at all. Just remember to measure twice and drill once! We made one mistake and have to live with a little unevenness on a drawer front. I'm not sure what you mean by a box versus door breakdown. Do you mean drawers versus doors? We went with all drawers on one side of the galley (12 total on that side). The other side, where the sink is, got two doors under the sink and two drawers for the trash pullout (the bottom part of that cab looks like a tall door but is actually a pull out drawer). Drawer fronts are pricier to make than doors for some reason.

rococogurl, you nailed it with that Grand Central train to White Plains recommendation. 12:30pm - Walked out of my room at Hotel Plaza Athenee, upper east side manhattan 12:48pm - Caught the Grand Central Metro North train on Track 112, via the elevator down near track 30 with 2 x 29" luggage in tow at this point... Destination: North White Plains. $8.50 maybe. Odd though - I couldn't use my MCA card to pay for it. There was a kind woman setting nearby who said that even this car opened, at that North White Plains station, although that wasn't always the case. I made the train by all of 2 minutes, so I hopped on the caboose...or the first car available. 1:30pm - I was in the elevator at North White Plains train station! I remember this time clearly because I thought the elevator was stuck. I eventually realized I had to first go UP and change elevators in order to go DOWN. Picked up rental car from the Hertz there. Totally painless. More soon! :-D.