apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Bargains: Being poor and having to pay for my own wedding taught me bargain hunting
Colors: Architecture school
Old furniture: Friends and AT
Sew: Mom / Home Ec in high school
Compromises: haven't made compromises because i just haven't made any decisions
Modernism: Architecture school
Dishes: still hate them, but i love having nice things to take care of...sooo...my husband
Cook: My husband

Bargains: Definitely Mom
Colors: Art school as well
Old furniture: Friend from college who has an amazing eye.
Sew: Mom again. She always made our Halloween costumes. One year she made me a Bugs Bunny costume, which totally rocked!
Compromises: Uh, definitely my husband as well.
Modernism: Probably a combination of art school and AT.
Dishes: Not wild about doing them, but I do more cause my husband cooks more than I do. Sort of our trade off. But a dishwasher would definitely help me like doing dishes!!
Cook: Mom, my husband, and way too much Food Network while I was in college.

Bargains: Mom, and I love a good sale, but I'm still not a good "hunt down something awesome in a sea of junk" type person. It makes me cringe, I just don't have the patience.
Colors: Crayola 64
Sew: Sewing class in jr high, though a friend's mom was a seamstress and my friend really taught me a thing or two about fabric shopping, patterns, etc.
Compromises: Ultimate Life Lesson that I'm always learning...
Modernism: Mom and dad both into Danish modern since i was a tot.
Dishes: I actually find this relaxing, though I do love my dishwasher too for the bulk of the work.
Cook: Mom, grandma, brother, friends growing up, cooking class in jr. high, and my husband too.

• How to hunt for bargains: My sister, my ex-best friend, and my friend Whitney.
• How to choose colors: I have no real idea...I feel like I must have had a class on colors at some point in my life, but when or where, no clue.
• How to rescue old furniture: My roommate - we moved a lot when I was young, and the Army replaced anything broken.
• How to sew: 7th grade Home Ec course.
• How to make compromises in decorating: Have yet to learn that one.
• How to love modernism: My grandparents and aunt.
• How to like doing the dishes: My dirty roommates taught me that one against my will.
• How to cook: my mother and my friend Lena.

Well, Mom was an home ec major in college, and Dad is an ex-Marine (read: clean freak), so that accounts for most of the concrete skills.

Colors/design/modernism appreciation all came pretty naturally once I grew up enough to learn to trust myself to know what I like.

Decorating compromises: I live alone, so my compromises are limited to living with rental white walls.

Bargains: My mom
Colors: Still learning from graphic designer sister and friends
Old Furniture: Self-taught while being a poor college student
Sew: My mom - she would make matching clothes for my sister and I as well as doll clothes.
Compromising: My husband - he is surprisingly opinionated about our decor
Modernism: My mom and my grandparents, full-blood Norwegians with homes filled with Scandinavian, modern, and teak furniture
Dishes: Compromising with Husband (See cooking)
Cook: Never learned, my husband does all the cooking and I do all the dishes

- How to hunt for bargains: Both my mother and father, and to some degree my better-half.

- How to choose colors: Many years of choosing the wrong colors.

- How to rescue old furniture: I think refinishing and restoring has been an intrinsic part of me.

- How to sew: Mother for hand sewing, and self-taught for hemming trousers with a sewing machine.

- How to make compromises in decorating: I'm still learning, and this is due largely in part to my better-half.

- How to love modernism: I love, love, love my parents, but not their odd traditional furniture and clutter that I grew up with, so I sought out the simplicity of modern furniture and design at a young age.

- How to like doing the dishes: I still do not like doing the dishes... However, I love using the dishwasher.

- How to cook: Mother, 80s cooking shows on T.V., an ex who studied at the New York Culinary Institute of America and epicurious.com (love, love, love this site). Also, I worked at Crate & Barrel for a few months in my early-20s, and was lucky to purchase decent cookware at a discount. Good cookware defintely helps.

Neat thread.

Believe it or not, though I must have absorbed a lot of the domestic skills from my mom, as an adult and first-time home-maker when I moved to this country 12 years ago, I learnt everything I know from MARTHA! Her half-hour TV show on Lifetime taught me a lot.

And now I can't bear to watch her current show.

This is cool - makes me remember my mom in a different way

• How to hunt for bargains: Mom - I was garage sale and flea market hunting as a kid
• How to choose colors: Art school, natural ability
• How to rescue old furniture: Mom again. We stripped and restained an old desk when I was oh.. about 11
• How to sew: Mom, she used to cross stitch.
• How to make compromises in decorating: Being broke
• How to love modernism: Art school and living in a 50's modern apartment building in the historic district of Savannah, GA.
• How to like doing the dishes: Living alone
• How to cook: Still working on that

Bargains: My grandma, she of the 'rummage sale'
Colors: no formal training but I have strong opinions
Old Furniture: Self-taught, started collecting antiques at 20 yr. old.
Sew: My grandma with mom doing follow up and very much self taught.
Compromising: ummmmmmm still working on that one!
Modernism: Just a zest of moderinstic resides here
Dishes: Still hate doing them, will leave clean dishwasher for several days very carefully stacking rinsed dishes in sink.
Cook: I can do it but mostly don't want to.

• How to hunt for bargains: Necessity. When you don't have a lot of money you learn this very quickly
• How to choose colors: Instinct.
• How to rescue old furniture: HGTV and trial and error.
• How to sew: Mom.
• How to make compromises in decorating: My ex-fiance (we didn't break up over decor!)
• How to love modernism: HGTV.
• How to like doing the dishes: I still don't like doing the dishes.
• How to cook: Necessity and advice from mom.

I learned how to get bargains from my parents- king and queen of garage sales and auctions. That is also how I learned to rescue old furniture- and how to decide what furniture is worth rescue.
I learned how to cook by working as a cook in a diner- and it was refined by food tv.
I learned how to do the dishes by marrying someone who did the dishes for me
I taught myself how to sew- my Grandmother loved to sew but passed away before she could teach me. She did buy me my first machine though.
I don't make compromises in decorating unless it's due to the budget.
I learned about colors by trial and error.
I grew up and found out that I loved modern design.

• How to hunt for bargains: Necessity and my husband.
• How to choose colors: Not sure I've learned that yet!
• How to rescue old furniture: Try and try again.
• How to sew: Mom, and I don't think she knew she was teaching me.
• How to make compromises in decorating: Mom and Dad.
• How to love modernism: Detroit.
• How to like doing the dishes: Dad - my parents house is the cleanest, tidiest house on hte face of the earth.
• How to cook: Mom, dad, grandma.

• How to hunt for bargains: Mom and being a poor college student
• How to choose colors: Mom and elementry school art class
• How to rescue old furniture: Don't know if I have learned this one yet, but while being a poor college student I did rescue a few items from the local dumpster
• How to sew: 6th grade home ec class
• How to make compromises in decorating: I don't - this is why I live alone
• How to love modernism: Working in photo research in the early 90s doing research for the USPS for a possible 60s chair stamp as part of the Remember the Centurty stamp series
• How to like doing the dishes: Palmolive commericals - I always feel like doing the dishes is actually a spa treatment
• How to cook: Teaching cooking classes for teens while being a community center youth director.

• How to hunt for bargains: I think I missed that lesson entirely.
• How to choose colors: To some degree, my mom, but mostly from home magazines
• How to rescue old furniture: Mom and my dad
• How to sew: Mom
• How to make compromises in decorating: My husband.
• How to like doing the dishes: I don't.
• How to cook: My mom taught me how to follow recipes. My other cooking skills come from a mixture of being self-taught, and learning through Jamie Oliver and my husband.

I'll add another one because I think it's important to my life:
Both of my parents had an incredible "can-do" attitude with regards to home remodeling and decorating. That attitude has 100% rubbed off on me and now I try to do everything I can myself.

All things kitchen: Mom
All things art & design: Husband
All things cleaning: Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelsohn. Seriously, I somehow left home able to make a souffle but not vacuum, iron, dust, make a bed, you name it. My mom can clean so this failure is clearly mine. Dad made sure I could type, though.
All things bargain: long-term poverty really honed my skills. I still find it hard to spend money.
All things used: long-term poverty has left me with an abhorence of used, needs-work, curbside finds, and even antiques. Which forces me to learn to spend money, so I guess long-term poverty will eventually teach me to spend freely.

One more category: all things moving: 19 NYC moves, 2 cross-country moves, and one international move in 25 years. And that's just me. Husband has 6 international moves and I don't know how many NYC moves under his belt. I know from the posts here that we are typical AT readers. This group really knows how to pack!

How to hunt for bargains: Being Chinese (it's genetic)
How to choose colors: My boyfriend does it.
How to rescue old furniture: Did this one on my own with the help of the internet.
How to sew: My dad (his dad was a tailor)
How to make compromises in decorating: By not having any money and having to make do.
How to love modernism: Architecture school, but one prof also taught me not to love it slavishly.
How to like doing the dishes: I developed a taste for it.
How to cook: My mom, the Urban Peasant and by doing it A LOT.

Bargains: Me. Definitely not my big hair Texas mom.
Colors: Influenced by the old Galveston homes I grew up in. Mossy greens, oaky browns, crisp whites, sky and water blues...
Old furniture: My mother, hoarder of all awesome antiques within a 300 mile radius. And her mother, my Grandma Furlow, who was a Navy officer's wife in Hawaii during the 50's. She is the supreme queen of all things Mid-Century forever and ever.
Sew: My Grandma Waters. She grew up in a state orphanage during the 1918 influenza pandemic so she made what she needed or went without. She knew how to make everything herself, even stockings. She taught me how to sew, knit, crochet, and tat. I wish I had taken to tatting. It's a lost art. Does anyone here know how to do it?
Compromises: My Great Aunt Haydee, of Galveston by way of New Orleans. Her motto, "Get over it. Because you're going to anyway." Also the one who introduced me to "Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez" (Let the Good Times Roll) At 95 years old, she has never missed a Mardi Gras and could teach us all a lot about letting go of things and enjoying life.
Modernism: New York City. My best friend and worst enemy for 4 years. Design is constantly thrown in your face. There's no way to not learn it.
Dishes: My awesome stepmother Judy. She's the one who taught me a lot of the basic household stuff. How to change a diaper, how to boil pasta, how to make a bed...
Cook: Hands down, my Grandma Waters. I still have the wood ladder back chair I sat on in her kitchen while she taught me how to cook anything you can think of. But the woman never used measuring cups. A handfull was a cup, a finger rolled up like a thimble was a teaspoon. My cooking never tasted as good as hers as a result. I miss her terribly.

How to hunt for bargains: College. Or rather, the years I was in college & totally broke.
How to choose colors: Intuition(?). There are a lot of artists in my family, so maybe I inherited some of their skills. Lots of decorating magazines help, too.
How to rescue old furniture: Haven't tried this yet. The old stuff I have has been left as-is.
How to sew: Mom. This woman's talents with a sewing machine are astounding.
How to make compromises in decorating: My husband (although he lets me do basically anything I want)
How to love modernism: Sites like AT. Honestly, you people do a great job.
How to like doing the dishes: Still haven't learned that!
How to cook: A tiny bit from my mom, but my biggest inspirations are my ex-boyfriend (we're still close) and his mother. Both are excellent cooks. When my ex's mother passed away, I found that cooking helped me to remember her and feel closer to her. Thanks to them, my skills have improved and sometimes the ex asks me for cooking advice. That's quite a compliment!

Bargains: My mom, she was a dealer at flea markets.
Colours: Decorating and fashion magazines. My mom
Old Furniture: Mom and the internet
Sew: eh... I still don't know how
Compromises: my girlfriend, kinda....
Modernism: I've really always liked modernism.
Dishes: My old roommates. They would always leave their dishes in the sink. Drove me crazy, so now it's hard for me to leave a dish in the sink... can't say I love to do it as much as I feel an inner compulsion to.
cook: culinary school

Bargains: Autodidact. Lifelong bargain fiend.
Colors: Education in progress--even though I am a designer and a fine artist with tons of experience, colors for interiors are still tricky. I have learned a lot from Susan Sargent's palette.
Old furniture: My father, the scavenger, dump picker, physician. Go figure.
Sewing: When we were both 10, my friend Nancy and I made matching dresses out of leftover curtain fabric. Her Mom taught us how.
Compromises: My always-too-skinny budget.
Modernism: My first house was a cool 50's split level
ranch. And I knew it was cool even though this was the 70's.
Dishes: still hate 'em
Cook: Acquired a copy of Julia child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking when I was 14, then cooked my way through it. After that, I could fly solo