apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

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...

About a year after we brought our little white dog, Arlo, into our Jamaica Plain apartment, an unconscious shift to white décor began unfolding. We didn’t even notice it was happening until an out of town friend visited and remarked: “Wow, you’re really moving into a white phase.” It seems that we had been creating an environment that allowed our little guy to camouflage his furry bod and blend into the scenery. What domesticated animal wouldn't love the chance to sneak up on his unsuspecting humans!...

Small living requires ingenuity, resourcefulness and, sometimes, a very specific table to make the space work just right. But searching for that perfect table – coffee, side, dining, whatever – can be very frustrating. If you’ve got an idea or even just a dimension, the Door Store is the perfect place to get exactly what you’re looking for...

Move over New York City, John Derian is coming to Cape Cod, Massachusetts! You now have one more reason to join the throngs of people headed to Provincetown this summer - John Derian has recently opened his third retail store there!...

Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood is home to two, interconnected non-profit organizations that every do-it-yourselfer should know about: The Boston Building Materials Co-op (sells new household building supplies) and the Building Materials Resource Center (sells secondhand, salvaged building supplies)...

We popped into Mohr & McPherson’s clearance center last week and discovered these great side tables from India. They’re 20” square and constructed of Shesham wood, also known as Indian Rosewood. Shesham is a fast-growing hardwood, typically sourced from sustainably managed plantations...

As national bike month comes to a close and more of us are out on the streets - braving the potholes, endless construction and Boston drivers - we need a place to rest our bikes when we return home. The Cycloc has been discussed here on AT for its aesthetic qualities, function and price point but how do you actually hang the thing on the wall?...

flickr photo by Jim Sissman

Sometimes, up here in New England, cars signal "home." And our home obsessions occasionally creep into other parts of our lives. We’ve been in love ever since spotting a 1970’s Jeep Grand Wagoneer one summer many years ago on Martha’s Vineyard. It was teal with wood paneling and the back window was covered with years worth of beach and dump stickers. It even had a dog...

There are yard sales and then there are YARD SALES. Our neighbor, Mark Waters, has his own Junk Removal and Estate Cleanout service so he has a steady stream of treasures, which he warehouses and resells in Dedham, MA. But a few times a year, Mark hosts a yard sale in his Jamaica Plain driveway and this past weekend we got lucky...