apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love the wall tiles!

Let's get ready to rumble!

That's a cool apartment.

I voted not my bag (sorry) b/c though I feel like Satya's place is a best case scenario of a certain kind of Manhattan apartment, I lean towards more eclectic and less modern styling. But your decor fits well with you place! And I like the wall tiles, still, sadly, not my bag.

This contest, as always, is off to a great start!

A beautiful start, being first is never easy since there's no reference posts yet. Got to love sleeping with a view like that! Good luck.

Don't let the middle name fool you. Its me. The apartment is excruciatingly mediocre. It is trying to hard to be and nothing works. its a cookie cutter apartment with cookie cutter furniture. It lacks the three Cs. Colour, Character and Consequence.
I certainly hope its not a harbinger of things to come.

sooooo exciting! :-D
i loved seeing the guitar. i hope you find lots of time to just relax and strum.

I like the use of texture, and layering

I like the textured tiled wall, but the rest, while nicely done, is not very exciting.

The wardrobe splitting the living room is a smart idea - but the wall tiles covering the back is brilliant.

Love those dining chairs too - resource please!

The movie screen as window screen is awesome - I may have to steal that one.

Very nice looking apartment, and I like the way you guys created the second bedroom. It doesn't "wow" me though, so I'm voting "cool".

Chic, grown-up, efficient, and does not look like "all one truck" shopping. I vote yes.

Fromthe Future--

You must have some seriously design-y friends if you find this a "normal Manhattan" apartment.

And Edina--
I hope your comments are not harbingers of things to come.

I would've liked to see the other rooms too ... but oh well ... such is the 5-pic rule

For me, this place feels kind of cold. I like the black sofa/chaise? in the movie screening room, but all together it has a very '80s Wall Street vibe for the junior set. And there is too much stuff. The bedroom seems more restful though.

And use of wardrobe-as-wall is the kind of adaptive Smallest Coolest ideas I hope we will see more of.

Fab windows in the bedroom! Would have been great to see more color, but hey, that's just my 2 cents.

I'm impressed with how you fit seating for 7 into a 10x12 room - very nice. I've been trying to figure that out myself. Excellent use of space. And so much light! Way to coax light into every corner of the apartment!
Everything is very neutral in this apartment, though - I'd like to see a more lively use of color. This place is a good start, but it needs some warmth & personality.

Ms. Monsoon, good to see you again ;)

Props to the 80s Wall Street tip, though I'd be more interested to see the Gordon Gekko to this Bud Fox.

P.S. What's up with the empty room in the floor plan? Reserved for a special someone al la Darien Taylor?

Oy, this is not the color contest, people.

Lighting gives it warmth, texture and the mix give it personality.

This is neither cool nor small. That is ginormous by NY standards.

Love the idea of the bed against the corner windows, but I agree with others that it looks cold to me. To me, this apartment looks like a winter day, though I'm not sure why.

I have trouble voting for a place that is so large it has an extra room. Seems to defeat the point of a contest based on Small.

What views!

I love the wall tiles - it really gives that room an extra something. Resource?

It's so cold looking; I don't even think I'd want to hang out in that space, let alone live there. Also, that is a pretty large space for Manhattan!

That said, there are some pretty neat features, like that sliding wall...

The wardrobe/wall solution was quite smart and I love those tiles.

I appreciate the creativity in making the storage wall to carve out the second bedroom and using the projector screen against the wall with windows is a great idea.

Looks a little un-necessarily cramped with two couches. I would have used chairs. But the aesthetic is great!

Folks, I'm guessing it has an extra room because (as it says in the title and intro), it's shared. I think what is shown is Satya's portion and the common areas.

Seems unfair that her roommate's room is almost as big as the entire rest of the apartment, and Satya has to sleep in a section of the living room, but I guess it works for them!

The fact that this is towards the large end of the spectrum shouldn't be a negative factor--they've got a roommate. I think that's a much bigger challenge than a little less space.

Good job.

btw, the samurai sword is upside down.

the way it is now, pressure is being put on the blade making it dull. I know it's not a big deal, but it's just a pet peeve of mine. Most of the time people want it to look like it's smiling, but that's not the right way.

hejira, you are late to the discussion about size. That horse was beaten in the announcement thread.

I'm so glad Edina's back!

I believe the wall tiles are from:
http://www.re-modern.com/product/MIO-ACOUSTIC.html#

Cold? Here I was thinking how comfortable it looked. And I really dig the wardrobe/sliding door.

~Q

Thank you all for your comments and feedback. To address the wall tiles, they are actually from Inhabit: http://www.inhabitliving.com/

I did consider the acoustic tiles above, but they would have to be painted and were a little too busy. Plus I got the tiles for half-off as they were irregulars...mainly lightly dented edges, though some looked like they had coffee spilled on the back. Can't see the dents unless you are looking for them.

Re: the color issue, my last apartment was a color-playground, featuring a 50-foot length burnt orange accent wall. When I moved to Manhattan, I originally inteneded to paint the walls (mainly light grey and charcoal?, with maybe a red accent), but found that the open modern space lent itself to a clean white. It does feel a little too sterile during the day if there is no direct sunlight (unfortunately the day I took the photos above), but it keeps the apartment very bright and spacious despite all the furniture. In the evening however, all the different light sources create a very cosy and intimate setting, with the city as a backdrop through the massive window walls. Much of the lighting was chosen to highlight textures and artwork, all accents. As I am rarely in the apartment during the day, it seemed a worthy trade-off.

After following this contest for years, I knew going in that the whiteness and size of the space would be controversial points, but was very glad for the opportunity to submit.

Re: the eighties...I'm glad receycled cardboard acoustic tile could take the place of faux-brick and gold foil. I do like Patrick Bateman's place though...

Clever creation if that second bedroom, but the living room looks so very cramped. And the fabric couch seems to jar with the "leather' sensibility. It clashes with the rug as well. I wonder if that is just the result of roommates combining furniture. The glass table. et al, expands the space. Not my taste, but well done.

looking at this i would think the name of the contest could be changed to smallest, coolest, limitless budget....but it looks like you have managed to combine high/low pieces to create a fabulously high end looking space...well done!

I gave it a "Super Cool!". I don't normally like that much white on the walls but you've got enough intersting stuff going on that it works. Although, i'm curious why you left the case to the projection sceen exposed like that. It seems like a bit of an eye-sore that could be easily covered up.

Also, I'd love some details on how you constructed your sliding wall, it looks really good.

Too 80s for me.

A great start to the contest! Love the sliding wall/wardrobe/textured tiles solution; it's a great space-saving idea and that's one of the best things about this contest. I'm a color junkie as well and I would love to see a surprising pop of color now and again, although a dramatic shape or texture could serve as well. In my mind the vase of branches on the table could do if they were a bold color. Just something to punctuate the space. Overall a smart plan and a good job. Thanks for sharing.

I love that you took the $1200 you would have spent on one of those cheap-looking fake walls and used it on great wall art and closet space! However I think that all the glass in your bedroom makes it feel a bit cold. Maybe you can add some curtains to warm it up a bit? Also, congrats to being able to fit so many pieces of furniture in such a small area in the living room, without feeling overly (a bit, but not overly) cramped. Great job!

i personally love white walls because you get very cool light from outside while making the space feel bigger. i'm not voting until i get to see more, but i'm glad others like white and have not jumped on the chocolate brown bandwagon! (although that is also cool but you know what i mean!)

honestly, i could not sleep with glass all around my head, in askyscraper...

I think this has a lot of good takeaways on the storage issue, but it feels very cramped with the big furniture. Love the closet/wall solution.

makes me want to drink absinth and watch wes anderson films. well done sir

It does feel like the 80s. Remove that lamp from the entry to dhe bedroom. How can u even get into the bedroom with out bumping into it?

I understand that limiting the original entry to 5 photos doesn't provide much of a chance to see the whole apartment, but this is a case in which I really think the apartment is too big. All of the emphasis is placed on the subdivided living room/bedroom. While this trick is really well done (this is a brilliant solution, Satya), the lack of emphasis on any other area leads me to believe that no other space-saving solutions of note had to be implemented in this large apartment. What about the entry hall? The kitchen? The entire second bedroom? These are voids. We get four photos of one brilliant space-saving solution and the fifth of a bed. Making my judgment on the merits of these photos and the floorplan, I vote "not my bag"--the space is too big to spur enough innovation.

patrick, I said 'best case scenario" not typical. I feel like Satya's apartment is what a lot of people want to create in their space, but then they just settle for some Ikea and a big paper lantern from Pearl River and never really take it there.

Nice view in the bedroom. Probably wouldn't work for someone like me...I love to sleep in on the weekends. Very nice though.

It looks like you guys bought every piece from West Elm - hello?? In any case, small spaces in NY win a lot when you can see some clean lines and light. At least you got the light.

Boy, I'd *love* to see where Edina lives...

dude, sweet pad. sesh it up!

I love the windows in the bedroom. It's like sleeping in the air.

Awesome wall tiles!! The way the track lighting falls on them is great, almost lounge like if you're entertaining (hopefully they can dim a little). Super Cool, I think the design, although a bit crowded (roommates!), really does define urban living. Well done!

Very nice stuff you have... But it looks kind of cramped. I feel like a "super cool" apartment would take advantage of its smallness better, and you wouldn't FEEL like you're in a small apartment.

Conceptually it's good and there are a lot of nice details. Unfortunately the execution is poor and the overall effect beyond the living room is surprisingly cramped and messy.

omg u did the thingys on the wall that i saw on design blog. i have been toying with the idea for my own house to add texture and visual interest.

First of all, some of you need to chill a little. I will agree this place is large, even by Seattle's standards and I live in a decent sized 1 bedroom but it's not THAT big I don't think and yes, it's a 1 bedroom too.

Some have said something about a bonus room, that's the original bedroom, sadly with no furniture drawn in it.

However I WILL agree that the space is a tad too white, not enough pops of color to add some zing to the space. Bright red pillows for instance will help tremendously, or a bold colorful piece of artwork, what they have in the way of artwork (that's shown anyway) has not a lot of color and what they have is little splotches which IMO don't really do much.

Unless I'm mistaken, I'd rather have a seperate door to close on the wardrobe for the simple reason that an open closet to me creates visual unrest which makes me agitated so I'd rather have the option of closing my closets at night because awakening to clutter is not good.

Otherwise, a nice place and I love the the fact that the space has lots of windows to make it airy and bright. One thing to keep in mind, a light with too much gray or blue in it will suck what color you may have out of the room, making it flat and uninviting so good interior lighting to offset that is crucial IMO. Something to think about.

Nice job.

I appreciate that Satya submitted thoughtful, meaningful answers to the competition questions. Thanks for the insight. So many of the other entries barely offered a full sentence.

I kind of like the space. It's not mediocre, it's very calm. I like all the windows in the bedroom area. I don't suggest curtains unless you really don't have enough privacy or light-blocking, but I don't like blinds. I'm not a fan of putting the "office" or office (I have an "office" but some people have an office) in the bedroom. It's a good place to hide these things from guests and make the public areas more welcoming, but it denies the occupant the same pleasantness of having business hidden from private leisure. It is what some people have to do, however. I miss seeing the rest of the apartment, as it seems to be the theme here so far, eating and other personal habits just aren't cool enough. ?

I love the clever use of space. Like how he used the window for a huge screen and how his closet doors double for his bedroom door. I personally do not like mini-blinds and I think I would trip over the bottom raised frame for the sliding door going into the bedroom. Overall - not bad at all indeed.

Karen

Love it! I'd love to sleep in that window filled room!

Great use of space. Great texture on the wall!

Very cool.