apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Back in July, Gregory gave us suggestions on how to re-use green tea leaves as a natural deodorizer to freshen up the home. We like this idea of re-using the leaves for a completely different purpose other than brewing a beverage, so we found some other tips for used dried green tea leaves (called "chagra"). After the jump, we explain how to properly dry the leaves for re-use, and then tell you more about using chagra.

We can't remember the first time we came across Marushka prints, but we do know that it was love at first sight. And we know we're not alone. In fact, two homes we've featured in recent AT House Tours had Marushka prints in them (Serena and Mason, Phillip, we're talking about you!).

If you want to freak us out, mention bedbugs. We had an unfortunate encounter in a Santa Cruz motel room, one belated Valentine's Day weekend a couple of years ago, that has left us mentally scarred by the ordeal. Let's just say that we woke up with two bugs feasting on our face and several more scurrying about the sheets at, oh... 3:30 a.m. Needless to say, we got out of Dodge, pronto.
So when we were watching "Dogs 101" on Animal Planet the other night, we were very interested to learn about beagles that are trained to sniff out bedbugs.

We'll never get those gorgeous red, brown, yellow, and orange fall leaves in California, but we still love autumn anyway. In honor of the season, we offer this roundup of leaf motif home design. More items after the jump.

Being less than graceful most of the time, we're appreciative of design that celebrates the imperfect in such a way that is purposeful, modern, and sleek. Japanese design company Kyouei Design's liquid lamps are the perfect example of just that. These stark white lamps are made from sturdy iron plate, but their melted look reminds us more of that glass cup full of white paint that we knocked over if it had been suspended in motion.

We replaced our vinyl shower liner with a new curtain, but we felt bad about just chucking the old one in the trash. We decided to keep it to use around the house because it seemed like something that could come in handy. We're glad we did, because we've already used it a multiple times as a drop cloth when we've painted. After the jump, read a few more ideas for re-purposing a vinyl shower curtain.

Like the deer, the panda, and the wolf that have become the ubiquitous animals of indie rock band names, the owl has become the clichéd kitsch animal in hipster wares. But you know what? We still give a hoot about cool owl decor. We think this over the top collection of vintage wide-eyed feathered friends, found in an apartment window near Dolores Park, is pretty gosh darn cool (yes, macrame and all).

Our recycling is full of junk mail and election flyers. Hating to see all that colorful and heavy card stock paper just go to waste, we decided to create something from them. Here are the results of our endeavor. After the jump, find out more about how we made this simple junk mail triptych.

We were sure floored (or should we say doored?) when we saw this trio of unusually placed knobs while on a late night walk in the Mission.

We know, it's only October, but stores are starting to carry calendars for 2009 and we're already looking forward to the new year, and a new calendar. But when we came across Lisa Dejohn's oh-so-cute desktop calendar for Chronicle Books (#5, above), we took a liking to the idea of never having to replace or throw away our next calendar. Here's a roundup of perpetual calendars that we like.

We have a thing for buttons, but we've never been very good at organizing or actually wearing most of them. Normally, we'll stick one or two on a favorite bag or jacket and then tuck the rest of our pins away in a drawer, out of sight -- and therefore -- out of mind. Wanting to keep track of all the buttons we own, we came up with this easy and decorative way to consolidate all them so that we can give them all a chance to shine, whether we end up wearing them or not.

In September, Grace at AT:LA brought up how campaign yard signs have caused controversy in some people's neighborhoods. With this year's election day less than 20 days away, we've noticed an ever-growing number of posters and signs in people's front windows. Being in San Francisco, it's not suprising that most of the signs endorse Barack Obama, but we wondered if the total lack of McCain posters in our area merely reflects the political leanings of its residents, or something more...

We woke up early Monday morning thinking we smelled smoke in our apartment. We were probably smelling the smoke from Sunday's Angel Island fire, but to be sure, we checked around the house. After we were certain our building was not on fire, we returned to bed but tossed and turned for half an hour while contemplating what we would do and what we would save if there had been a fire.