apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This is for local discussions in the Boston area.

Please comment below and feel free to include links to pics or sites where you are documenting your Cure. Also, please remember that if you want us to post your progress you should email us directly at any time of night or day: click here for submissions.

Here at the AT Labs, we got really excited about cooking up a new project for 2009 in which we we're going to send a garden gnome around the world from reader to reader (ie. Amelie) and have them send us back photographs of the gnome on their sofa (or some part of their home) and track the whole thing on sendmehome.com. But then we thought that there might be something better to send around than a gnome. Any suggestions? And, if not, what's your best small, light, mailable gnome resource?

1. Roundup: Best Window Seats 2008

2. 7 Best Alternatives to Traditional Christmas Trees

3. Best Holiday Music Playlists 2008

4. Great Standby Gifts To Have On Hand

Jump below for the rest of the list...

2008 was the year of amazing staircases. Starting with the Amazing Staircase post itself from London, more and more super creative ways of treating staircases popped up all year long, from stair storage, to painted staircases to spectacular designs that made you just want to spend all your time on the way up or down...

Posts shown above are in bold:

• Look! Two Amazing Staircases

• London Close-up - The Amazing Staircase

1. Back-Painted Glass Backsplash?

2. Hang a Mirror in this Bathroom?

3. Opinions on Target's Plaza Tufted Sofa?

4. How Can I Camouflage My Mirrored Closet Doors?

Jump below for the rest of the list...

Here are two stories about "giving" that we're collecting from readers and publishing this week. To find out more or submit your own >> click here.

From Danielle L.:

Dear Maxwell,

My favorite part of the holiday season has always been giving people gifts to let them know I've been thinking of them. This year we've taken a hit as my significant other was left unemployed by the recession and we're living on my income alone. I thought my holiday season would be depressing, as I'd miss out on my favorite part and not be able to afford gifts. Then I stopped feeling sorry for myself and realized that the part I truly enjoy is taking real time to think about the people I care about...

Sara Kate has been looking for a bike for weeks. She likes the vintage bikes and I do too. Together we've looked at Flying Pigeons and Indian Roadsters and various Schwinn's on Craigslist, but they all come with a question about what they will actually ride like. A picture is only worth a thousand words. Then, on Monday, I passed a guy on Grand Street riding a beautiful, vintage looking bike, with exquisite detailing. I asked him where he got it from, and he said ANT in Boston, and he said he loved his bike. Here's the scoop....

We don't have a green thumb and honestly we don’t really aspire to have one. Incidentally (or not) we don’t even have a smidgen of a yard – our house is literally surrounded by concrete on all four sides. But we love the idea of supporting and eating locally grown food so if we did have a little plot of land and some discretionary funds, we’d definitely call Greenbean Gardens. We met Gabriel Erde-Cohen, urban gardener and owner of Greenbean Gardens this past weekend at Bike’s Not Bomb’s Greenroots Festival in Jamaica Plain. He’s landed on a brilliant business idea….

Are you enamored with home design television shows? If so, you’re not alone. We just received our monthly Angie’s List membership magazine and the cover story is about why we’re so “intrigued by home improvement TV”. The article reported that 79% of Angie’s List members watch television design shows. TVacres.com reports a dizzying number of design shows on TV: 240! The Angie’s List article points out that home design shows first cropped up in the 1940’s but it wasn't until 1979, when “This Old House”, the grandmother of all TV design shows, first aired, that the current design show craze was born...

When you invite a big crowd over to your place to watch a movie or say, the Boston Celtics beating the Lakers in the current NBA Finals, you need extra seating. So we’d been brainstorming about how to add comfortable floor seating in front of our low couches. Then, serendipitously we received a random catalog in the mail from Eastern Serenity and we discovered these traditional Thai Triangle Pillows...

It’s one thing to sort through your stuff to decide what to keep and what to purge. But it’s another thing altogether to send the purged stuff on to its final destination, be it donating, reselling, or giving to friends. (Trashing should be your last resort, only if something is damaged or dirty.)

It’s a shame when you’ve worked so hard to relegate piles of stuff to leave the house, only to have bags and boxes languish by the door for months on end...

We hope you AT Boston readers made the trip to Chinatown after our last Vessel post but if you haven't checked it out yet, this Saturday is the day to go! Vessel is having its first-ever sample sale on Saturday, June 7...

Charlie and Sheba

If you're a fan of Goodwill, or curbsides on trashday you see a lot of bad art. We do too,
and we actually have a soft spot for it. Not in large doses, but sometimes the simplest, most sincerely painted
painting, even if its got no feet, or the eyes seem to follow you around can make a corner of a room sing...