apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Trying to catch up and get to L.A. this week. Managed to rearrange various objects on one wall – http://www.flickr.com/photos/7340332@N05/ – and am now getting back to the suggestions about painting the inside of the front door a dark color. I was thinking that since there is some green in the place already, a deep dark green might be a nice choice. And possibly for a “jewel-tone” pillow to cut the white of the large chair as well, although that may be overkill.

The size and configuration of windows, door, and closet makes it awkward and a tight fit no matter what I do.

Given utterly free choice, I wouldn't have asymmetrical window placement in the bedroom, but every mid-priced condo development in Phoenix goes for exterior looks over a sensible interior design.

I'm working up a sweat rearranging the living room, having finally realized that what bugged me is that it was way too easy to see the kitchen from every seat, but the patio was virtually hidden. (Yeah, wrong week and nothing to do with my original Cure plans, but I'll take inspiration where I can get it.)

my bedroom is very odly designed. the door is ina slanted corner and on the otherside of the door, directly adjacent to it, is the back door - where my boyfriend comes in and out. They don't open into eachother, but they are still incredibly awkward. there are plenty of other things i can describe that make our bedroom very awkward, but it's hard to do so without a picture. but, my problem is always the same problem - clutter, and the dark molding that is not versatile so I am kind of stuck in trying to decide color. it's like a very very dark brown - and what stinks, is that it's not the wood - it's PAINTED brown. and so are all the doors, base boards, everything. i was thinking a rich saturated aqua on the wall where we would have a headboard, but the mattress itself is a tight fit between the two windows (the only place to put the bed) that i can't have a headboard. and then on the rest of the walls, a very cool, calming white that is closer to a spa blue color. does anyone think all that would look good with dark brown?

My largest struggle has been with finding a good way to make my nightstand functional as well as attractive--my issues are largely due to having a piece of medical equipment and related accessories there that's necessary for a sleeping disorder. Some of it can be fixed, but I'm afraid that there's no hope for all of it. I should post pictures later and see about suggestions.

not aqua - teal. like one of the Smallest Coolest entries.

On my side, things become very serious from now on. This early morning i gave my cats to a "cat-hotel" where they will stay until the kitchen is done, this because they aren't the youngest anymore and will get too freaked out by all the upcoming mess.
Tomorrow, the electrician will install a temporary fuse box as the actual one is in one of the walls which will disappear on monday.
So far, everything is on track, only the guy who shall install my new kitchen furniture almost gave me a heart attack on monday, when i called him to ask for the price offer. I've sent him the plans on thursday before Easter, and he tells me, he hasn't received them! Great! I know why i don't trust postal services...
So, i've re-sent the plans ( he doesn't wan't me to fax them) and called again today to see if he has received them this time. As he will only return home tonight, he promised to call back to confirm the receipt and for the price offer. Ok, i'll call back on friday latest.
This is kind of stressing me, as it is the only offer missing and i want the kitchen to be installed by the 7th and 8th of may. And time runs so fast! Guess i might be panicking for nothing, but i like things to be clear and organized...well, just wait till end of the week.
I've posted some pics on Flickr, status of tonight.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18145526@N00/sets/72157594580555528/

Elizabeth, if you can paint, why not paint the trim and doors white?

Jany: I admire your tackling such a big and complex project for the cure.

Thanks Jonathan ! Support is welcome now.
I just wish it would already be done ! But, as my actual kitchen really is annoying, old and not practical at all, i want / have to go through it now. After that, my appartment will be as i want it to be ( apart from some minor things to change, but not urgent).

Elisabeth in AL,
i would go for the aqua color and a lighter blue for the other walls. Aqua and brown matches well, in my opinion. Could you post pics of your bedroom, might be better to give some advice.
And, your boyfriend, can't he use the frontdoor?! Seems akward to me to enter by the bedroom, unless it is a studio.

I could paint the doors and trim white but that is A LOT of work - and I'm not sure the LL will let me do it, because he won't let me paint the cabinets - any part of them. They're awful cabinets and I have half a mind to go to Ikea and buy nicer ones and replace them myself.

But I, too, agree that the aqua/teal would go well with the dark brown - but are you meaning an actual blue for the walls? I was thinking white (but like with a hint of blue, yet still white) because I didn't want too much color in there (I lived in a very blue room for years in highschool - I said to my mother "I'm in my blue period.") and I wanted it to be very sooothing. I've got natural (like off white/oatmeal) little rugs in there and I've decided to put curtains up. I want to do the curtain rod that kind of wraps around the top of the window frame and use waffle weave (for texture) shower curtains the same color as the rugs to add texture. Plus, I thought that by "hiding" the window frames, it would ease up on all the dark brown.

Oh and Jany I'm very excited for you about your kitchen. I can't wait to get things done in my house. BF makes it hard because he doesn't want to be left out of it, but won't get a move on. And, I agree he should use the front door - I think he likes the back door because his parking is in the back, and I am the only one in the building who has their own little parking spot in the front.

http://la.apartmenttherapy.com/la/small-cool-2007-entries/1-lauras-fresh-start-santa-monica-studio-020899

like this color

or, and i can't remember who - it's a house tour and will help me find it, but they said it was "Lagoon" by Behr.

Oh my word, Jany! You are brave!

Having gotten the urge to see if the bed would look better angled (yes, but the nightstands wouldn't), I discovered that the movers had somehow managed to not assemble the frame correctly. "Discovered" = it fell apart. So I guess more problems were lurking in the bedroom than I knew.

wende -- just as long as you weren't in the bed when it fell apart

here's the other link!!!http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/house-tours/inside-out-jennifer-and-david-find-a-middle-ground-018664
makes me wanna go FOUND IT!

Elizabeth-
I too have dark brown painted woodwork, trim and doors. I have painted my bedroom a dark blue-grey color and I think it looks good together. I considered painting the trim and doors, but the work was to much considering the questionable trim and door quality. I have found that whenever I paint a room a lighter color that dark brown trim just jumps out at me-so I have painted my rooms darker or complementary colors to that trim. Good luck......

Well, here is a surprise: the owners of the condo that I'm renting it are going to sell it as soon as my lease ends - in other words, just as I've gotten really comfortable.

Ewwww... that's not so good, OK in MA. Or else it's fantastic in being an opportunity to get even more comfortable somewhere fabulous.

I'd half to be peeved for a couple hours before seeing that situation as an opportunity, though. The problem with all this shifting the energy of your residence is that things can start sliding...

... now you have me worried that finding a living room arrangement that really "clicks" will cause our landlord to forget that this unit was supposed to be a long-term investment for him.

Good luck with apartment-hunting.

eliz in al,

blue & brown are a fav combo of mine. esp in a bedroom -- it's very cooling, even in the middle of the winter. and if you have all white bedding you feel like cloud in the middle of the sky. mine used to be jordan almond blue shade -- a very light benjamin moore blue done at half strength and it was great. have you thought about swapping your parking space with your boyfriend's? maybe that would be a way to get him to use the other entrance...

I checked "other" because my problem is how long it is taking. The longer it takes to amass the different pieces I want to complete the room, the more tired I am starting to become with the whole look. But it IS starting to look nice.

Elizabeth in AL,
i would go for a very light, cool aqua-like color for the other walls in addition to the one aqua-colored wall. And as Abby suggests, with white bedding this will look fantastic!
And swapping the parking space seems a good idea, too.
Have a nice day!

Jany - it's great that it's all happening - and the cat hotel is a great idea. My two cats just seem to be getting more feral by the day, thinking that the building site is now their new, fun, lots-to-explore home.

About ten minutes ago, I had a major spanner thrown in the works for my plan to get the kitchen knocked into shape by the end of the cure. The electrician was due to come today, but has just called to say he can't make it (a very genuine reason, so I'm not mad at him). We've rescheduled for the 30th, but that throws all my plans out of the window. I'm going to carry on doing all I can, but as he needs access to all sorts of places that I need to build things on top of, there is no way I'm going to get even the basics done by the end of the cure.

(Insert many expletives here - the more rude and imaginative the better!).

On another note, I'm definitely joining the next cure (summer?) to do the Deep Treatment. I'm very jealous of all the wonderful things you are all achieving. There's lots of hard work going on out there - well done, everyone!

Isaspacey -- Yes, I put AT on the screen with malice aforethought. As for black, while there is a lot of black in the apartment, I'm afraid that painting the inside of the door black might overdo it.

Zooza -- that is a rather large spanner. Not sure I'd be quite as rational as you are about it if it were I.

Zooza,
That's annoying news. I hope there are at least some things you can get on with, maybe pianting a flower on the diningtable as on your style-tray, and painting the chairs ?!
More than a week is actually A LOT of time, when work is in progress.
In any case, i hold my fingers crossed that the electrician will not reschedule again!

Completely Cure-unrelated: i just purchased my tickets for the Montreux Jazz Festival, seems that Norah Jonas is already sold out ( after not even one hour ), but i'll see her in concert!!
And Beastie Boys (already 20 years since "you have to fight for the right ...", ummmm).
I'm happy ;))))

Yikes, Zooza! How frustrating!

Well, remember, though: the Cure deadline tends to assume you're not doing major rehab. Once you realize your apartment's problems are not going to be solved by minor repairs, cleaning, maybe a little paint, lots of decluttering, rearranging the furniture, and bringing in the flowers and candles -- which is a substantial amount of work right there and overflows 8 weeks for a lot of people -- you become a creature of your contractors' schedules.

My perception from three Cures now is that many of the active participants actually take on much more work than the Cure itself calls for.

Yes, I should switch parking spaces with him.

Abby - is that the name of the color, Jordan Almond Blue? I need to check it out because I'm starting to think that a more blue (and less greeny aqua - but still teal) would look better - you know - something softer?

And I am a firm believer in all white sheets. Always have been. In our old apartment, I bought BLACK SHEETS because my BF felt like it wasn't even half his bedroom (he has always had black sheets - yuck) so I bought them - and they looked okay given we had all sorts of Pink Floyd posters on the walls.... But in doing that, I realized that he's still in college-frat-boy mode and I'm DEFINITELY not. But I'm definitely decided on blue, it's just now I'm all wishy-washy in terms of "which color blue?" Oy.

Wende - your post has just made me realise how far I have come on this cure. I stumbled across AT last year, got intrigued, bought the book, bought flowers, poked about a bit in the nastier corners of my home and then realised that it was really ill and needed drastic surgery.

I've been feeling a little bit of a fraud in this group cure, as I'm not really following the book. I intended to when I started out, but as my confidence has grown, so have my ambitions! So for now, my house is dictating what I need to do. Hopefully by the time the next cure comes round, I'll have whipped all the basics into shape and be able to do it 'properly'.

Anyway, I have overcome the absence of my electrician and am getting on with other stuff instead. So far today, I have chipped up a lot more floor tiles, primed the doors for repainting walll cabinet doors, repaired and washed down a wall ready for painting, ordered one pack of the floor tiles to see what they look like in situ, ordered a sample of wall tiles, ordered new window fittings and dealt with a minor washing machine flood. I want to see how much I can achieve in the next four days before I next have to do some paid work!

Anyway, enough rambling. Back to the grindstone...

Elizabeth, it's time to take paint chips and tape them to the target wall for a couple days. While little chips don't give the truest sense of the color, they do give you an idea of which colors looked great in the paint store but awful in your room's light.

Whether teal or soft blue will look better with your trim depends partly on the undertone of the brown trim. If it's a warm brown, it will be compatible with teal. If it's a cool brown, soft blue will probably go better.

i wish one of you guys could come to birmingham and help me do my apt. bf is no help.

I have two paint chips already taped up there - in cool blue that I got last weekend. They are - Benjamin Moore Soft Jazz for the accent wall and Blue Hydrangea for the other walls. I am going to try to find a color similar to my trim. It's like REALLY dark brown, with an almost chalky texture to it (the paint is shiny, but the texture of the color itself.)

and thanks for the tip on the undertone of the trim - i really didn't think about that - i was just trying to look at it and figure out what was best!

i wish one of you guys could come to birmingham and help me do my apt. bf is no help

Yeah, there really needs to be a plan to match AT-ers who are planning to visit a specific region with other AT-ers who want a sounding board on their current decorating decisions and maybe some shopping companionship.

It helped me hugely with the old patio when ebrown took me plant shopping -- I think of her every time I dither about plants for this patio, as an incentive to actually make a decision.

Hey guys, I double posted this to the main page too but I am feeling really inspired to tackle this thing (getting antsy with the bathroom not happening) so can somebody help me? Our dining area is definitely a work in progress...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajftuba/465180113/

but I would really like to replace the nasty light fixture. I am looking for a nice plain attractive pendant light with a 16-20" diameter drum shade, something like this would be lovely...

http://www.designpublic.com/shop/lights-up/3621

but anything I like seems to only take a single bulb, and our current fixture has six. I don't want to give up the light as our house is pretty darn dim to start with but this thing is so horrific looking that I can't figure out what to replace it with! Any suggestions would be wonderful! Thanks!

And Zooza, I feel your pain. At least your electrician has a good excuse. Now our tile guy is just being a spoiled brat. Bleah. We'll have our 15-week cures done someday and they will be great!

Anne - what's the total wattage of the six bulbs you use at the moment? Perhaps one single high-watt bulb wouldn't necessarily give out less light - and because the bulb will be facing down in the drum shades, rather than up in the one you already have, it might still be good light to dine by. (I'm not talking from experience here, just spilling out thoughts!).

Susie, there are six little candle bulbs in there rignt now, I am assuming they are 40 watt so that's 240 watts,I have found yet another expensive one that I really like and it uses one 100 watt bulb so I guess that's not terrible, but the first few attractive ones I found used only a single 60 watt bulb and that just doesn't sound like enough to me. That said, congrats on getting those cupoboards hung up in the kitchen! It's going to be so cute!

eliz in al,

i don't remember what the color was called -- but i took in a jordan almond to my ever patient paint guy and he helped me to match it (yeah for crown paint on pico!). domino had a feature on mary macdonald a few months back & she had the same idea to use jordan almonds as her jumping off point. i have the article; i'll check out the color & get back to you.

Remember how I said we'd bought the wrong shape dining table at IKEA? Husband went to assemble it last night... and the legs we bought for it are explicitly forbidden in the instructions. This wasn't posted at the store at all, blast them. They want sawhorse legs (not in my very formal LR, they don't!) or these mini-bookcases that I'd find totally cool if I weren't trying to seat four people for dinner.

So olya was probably right all along about the need to CL it and start over. Thank you, olya, for talking sense to me!

I woke up this morning absolutely sick of decluttering and rearranging. It feels like I've been playing with one apartment or another for years. I'm going to sweep through the guest room like a fury and be merciless with excess office supplies and unloved remnants of old projects.

sweet, thanks. in the mean time, i'll be taking pictures of the br.

Wende, perhaps it just shows that you were meant to have a different table. Would it be possible to return it to Ikea or exchange it for something else?

As for myself, the situation here is confusing. I'm in the job market and some of the possibilities are in other cities. From that point of view, the landlord's decision to sell this unit is favorable to me, because the owner would agree to end my lease early if I want to. Others are within (long) commuting distance and now I would move closer. On the other hand, I'm also working on a book project, and if I get the contract for it, I would really prefer to have as little disruption as possible.

At any rate, I feel vindicated in my choice not to spend any significant amount of money on the Cure this time. I'm also paying close attention to the "smallest, coolest" entries - I've been living in unprecedented luxury in a condo 50% larger than my previous apartment, and will probably move to a much smaller place.

Zooza wrote, "Perhaps one single high-watt bulb wouldn't necessarily give out less light - and because the bulb will be facing down in the drum shades, rather than up in the one you already have, it might still be good light to dine by."

We should take into account not only the direction of the light, but also the output of the bulb, which isn't strictly proportional to the wattage.

For example, a standard 40-watt GE bulb emits about 490 lumens. A 75-watt bulb, drawing less than twice as much current, emits 1170 lumens - more than twice as much light. The seven 40-watt chandelier bulbs in my dining-room fixture (280 watts) emit no more light than two 100-watt regular bulbs.

OK in MA -- Nope, no returns possible, as IKEA's limit is 45 days, and it took us four months to get around to trying to assemble it. Also, there's no way we could get the table top in our car; it was originally delivered as part of a larger purchase.

So yeah, I'm thinking this is just the universe's way of insisting that I really needed a different table. Alas, it wasn't a different table that was waiting for me at any of five vintage stores I stopped at after dropping off crap at St. Vincent de Paul this afternoon.

Your housing situation would have me ripping my hair out! The timing of the move does work well with a job change, but my, what a lot of uncertainty!

A quick post before continuing to work in my now empty kitchen:
I'm on day three of the complete remake of my kitchen. So far, no mayor problems (pfewwww!).
With two of my co-workers we took out all the furniture, the oven and sink today. In only two hours!! And we were able to take everything to the recylcing center which is just at the end of my street. Cool! I didn't expect that it would be so easy.
Now i'll do some cleaning up, and might start to plaster the screw-wholes in the wall. I also have to mark "destruction-lines" on the walls, on monday the wall closet will be taken down.
Keep fingers crossed that it continues so good, please.
Pics are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18145526@N00/sets/72157594580555528/

Jany - fingers all crossed here for you! And I hope you're managing to find someting to eat without a kitchen!

Thanks Zooza,
i'm lucky to nice neighbours, especially one of them , who loves to cook, but not only for himself. He offered me "culinary asylum", and already invited me for dinner tonight!

I think I needed a break from my hectic schedule..I'm planning to do some major make over with my house and intend to go for a trip for a while...I'd like to visit those lovely scenery in time...
For now, i have to prepare the things I need for the make over and of course my car for the trip...I've checked out all my auto parts and luckily they were all in excellent condition except for my GMC rotors which needs some replacement..
But anyway, i find this post very interesting and worthwhile...It gives me new and better things to do...

Thanks a lot..I'll just visit from time to time for some updates...=)