apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Sorry, I disagree. White is NOT a color. White is a wall not painted.
No-way José!

Those hanging lamps are killer! You've done a great job with your first place.

I LOVE your red kitchen and what looks like (on my computer) a moss green wall, and the choice and color of your dining room chairs are great. I would like to see your back splash in the kitchen more closely. The second photo feels very white to me with just a couple of red accents. I'd like to see more red and moss / olive carried over. Perhaps the living room and dining area look very different depending on whether it is night or day. Beautiful place and an instant winner in my book.

This place is SO HOT!

So, is this contest only about how much strong, saturated color is used in one's home, or can more subtle color schemes be considered skillful as well? That seems to be a major point of contention. If this contest is only about using large expanses of strong color, where's the contest for people like these guys who have obviously put a ton of thought and finesse into their entire palette (including white and neutrals) but elected to forgo the obligatory intense green walls?

Fuyuen and Alex, I think your place is incredible. I voted insta-finalist.

I really dig your magazine rack (?) thing on the far wall in pic 2.

How do you hang the bikes? Are they special bike hooks? We need some, too.

Great place! I love it. A little confused. The table looks white in one picture and blue in the other. If it changes colors I'd keep the blue, (but that's just me). You've got alot of color. I think the white works.

Love it!

As to the remark that white is not a color... That only applies when white is inherited from a landlord, a developer, or previous owner. When white is intentionally chosen, it becomes a color. I just painted my livingroom white, a decision I thought I would never make, but before I did it, I spent weeks choosing the shade of white to use. That makes it a color.

Have you never seen the hundreds of different whites there are to chose from?

whho designed your wall unit/bookshelf...it looks like vitsoe??

This place is awesome! Yes, there is a lot of white in photo #2 but it is in the same room as that moss green accent wall. I love accent walls, not every wall has to be a bold color to still feel like there is a lot of color in a room. Sitting on their sofa it looks like they would be looking at the moss green wall.
Fuyuen and Alex - can I ask what building this is (if that isn't too nosy). I live in SC but am going to be relocating to Atlanta and have been loft hunting online. My first guess was that this was in Cornerstone but it is different from any of the lofts I have looked at there. Is this one in Chandler or Inman Park? I love it! I want a large open but still separated kitchen and lots of natural light like this. If you don't want to post publicly on AT and wouldn't mind sharing what property you found I am at histkat@yahoo.com
You've done a really lovely job!

Agree white can be used as a color too. The blue table shows how a little color can make a room pop, plus the white can balance the strong saturated colors in the kitchen (red looks great there, btw). are there two tables or one with different top colors? confused.
like the bike rack too. a true loft.

cool space! Interested in showing it off for hgtv's Small Space, Big Style? If so, email me at nicole@brainbox.tv for more info

I voted for In Contention. The red and green kitchen looks really good, but my favorite is the blue table with black and white lights over it, that looks great. I am confused about the table though, it looks white in the first picture. I think white can be very bland, but this is an example of where it works. Having that bit of color with the table really livens the room and it's a pretty focal point.

LOVING the surfboard table.

This looks like the most professional decorating job so far and in a whole other budget league from most entries. I think this a finalist .

this is what Im talkin' about.

Thanks for your comments everyone! We did throw you for a loop because our bottom photo shows a blue table and the top one does not. When we bought the white IKEA table, we discovered that it came in a fabulous blue protective plastic and kept it on until it fell off (we even wrote to IKEA to see if they could manufacture a light blue tabletop)! Thus, there is a few months of lag time between the top and bottom photo.

Apologies for the quality of the kitchen photo, but our kitchen is a slate gray and red, with light blue accent colors in the tile backsplash.

Most of our furniture (with the exception of the sofa, ottoman, and stools) are from IKEA.

I enjoy reading all the comments and getting some great ideas from other submissions. Thanks again!

JC- Anything with VALUE is a color...
Beautiful space Fuyuen and Alex!

i love your place!!!!!!!!!!!! by far the best of the places displayed on this webpage! Its amazing that this is your first place...it looks like you are professional interior designers...displaying a model home. if you are into the home designing business, please let me know...i wouldn't mind getting an opinion or two!

Definitely a WINNER! I love it! Great job, Fuyuen and Alex! And great use of color and space!!

Nice but I'd of gone with more daring choices for the dining chair colors. I'd use 4 red 4 blue. Sometimes each color on one side, sometimes mix them up.

Great place! Now that you've mentioned that the table is actually white, I must admit that it looks better in "blue"...better with the chairs and lights, better in the room, better overall.

ok, let me try to answer some of your questions.

The Blue/White Table: Fuyuen answered that question. It
really is too bad IKEA won't produce a robin's egg blue version of it. We could always paint it.

Camellia: The magazine rack is a Blu Dot 2d:3d Wall Mount Magazine Rack. The bike rack is extruded aluminum and can be found by searching Google with "tension mounted aluminum bike rack." No special attachments are required, but you do have to locate it under a structural ceiling member.

Devyn: You're correct in assuming that we deliberately painted our walls white. The previous owner had a peach/skin tone paint color on ALL the walls. The floor was a burnt sienna, exactly like the Crayola color. Believe me; painting a 26 foot tall wall all white is not fun.

michael: Believe it or not, our wall unit is from IKEA, but it appears to be discontinued. :-(

kate(NC): My wife mentioned that most of our furnishings are relatively inexpensive and from IKEA. The most expensive piece in the place is that couch and tufted ottoman. We've found this design concept to work quite well: placing some nice, well-designed, inexpensive items around an actually full-priced piece can raise the perceived value of the entire design. In the kitchen, our mosaic tile was the “full-priced” accent. I wish I took a better shot of that. We are definite advocates that design doesn't have to be expensive. :-)

Thanks everyone for all the constructive comments.

Hi Alex, I saw you post about the apples in my lime loft. I love to cook so I do find the colors of fruits & vegetables a great inspiration. I think your space is very elegant. The shot facing the kitchen and showing the duct work above is beautiful. Well done!

I disagree with JC. White is a good complement if you feel there is already enough color in other parts of your home. Please...

I love this home. What is so great here is YOU STRIKE A GOOD BALANCE between dense, saturated colors and light, airy areas. Not too much color either which makes it easier to digest for the eye!

Harmony is finding a balance between dense & light, thick and thin, color and absence of color, light and darkness. You've done a great job!

PS Wish my ceiling were high enough to store my bicycles that way!

Alex and Fuyuen, your place is fantastic! I can't quite make out the mosaic tile but I can tell it is beautiful - I love mosaic tile in kitchens and can see you pulled in some of the other colors in your space.
I like your place even more after reading your description of the "before". It's obviously a great space, but I can't imagine what you must have thought when you saw it for the first time and it had burnt sienna floors and band-aid colored walls. Zoiks! You obviously saw the potential that some white paint and some colors that are more "you" would bring to your loft.
Erin T (a fellow Atlantan :)

Great use of color as decorating tool. nice complement of accents too. Fabulous house!!

This first picture is soo delish- but the second one falls short. What happened there....how does the same room (albeit different corners) go from being gorgeous to a stark sea of white?

Athalie,

If we get lucky enough to move on, we'll try to post more pix. The stark white room is actually in the same room as that grey/green wall you see in the first photo. There are a couple of other color splashes in the space, but without a fisheye camera lens, it's hard to get the whole thing in perspective.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Your entry made me eclaim "Wow! Awesome!" involuntarily.

WHITE is a color! What a doof!
I moved in to a place with GRAY concrete walls and the color WHITE is what I chose to paint them. Gray - white, green, - oh gee, green is not a color it is the grass left unpainted. WTF!

It is an amazing, artful space!

I think Alex and Fuyuen have done a fantastic job on their loft. My wife and I were really impressed when we visited their place! They even did an awesome job on their white floors!! Way to go Alex and Fuyuen, you guys have the coolest place in Atlanta!!

You guys did a great job. I vote insta-finalist!

This is really a great space. Good job you two! I love it when people know where to start and stop with the paint color. Easy on the eyes, easy to live with and some darn cool lamp shades. Would LOVE to see that backsplash up close. INSTA-FINALIST!!

No really...those hanging lights are just fab. I want them for my home in Marrakech. Where did you get them again? Loving your red kitchen, too.

Elle and Maryam:

Everyone can probably guess this answer. The lamp shades are from IKEA. Got them in 2004. Yet again, they seem to have been discontinued in the USA at least.

Hotlanta haiku- who knew?! Thats a finalist.

I'm sorry, but where is the COLOR!

Sorry but white is not technically a colour... it is a tint

White is NO COLOR. Black is ALL COLORS.