apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have been stalking the midtown newsstands every single day waiting for the January issue. Anyone know when it's going to be out?

I bought this issue last Monday at my local newstand opposite the Parkchester #6 subway station in the Bronx! It's the shop at the corner of Metropolitan and Hugh Grant Circle. go figure...

wtf! I've been to the Murray Hill Borders and a bunch of newsstands and have not seen it. I normally catch it somewhere around the end of the first week of the month.

That Martha....so clever.

Omg, i love it soooo much... but who's office actually LOOKS like that!?!?!

I can't believe how homey those barcelona chairs look. Only Martha could do it.

Beautiful white barcelona chairs

if i weren't so busy working out/managing my finances/jumpstarting my social life/ in january this could be my jumpstart project!!

Anyone else immediately think of this IKEA hack?

anybody know where that rug is from?

This is so clever I almost forgive Martha for folding Blueprint.

But I'd hang a painting on the sliding panel. It's too obviously hiding something; if I saw it in someone's house I'd spend the whole night wondering (murphy bed? tv?).

mrsemerald,

"who's office actually LOOKS like that!?!?!"

I was thinking along the same lines, although I thought to myself "if our office area looked like that I wouldn't need to hide it."

Exactly why this is a perfect solution right?!

So Here's an idea...

how about a smallest coolest home office contest...

C'mon AT.

great idea...a step above similar "ikea" like designs...

No one's office looks like that. I mean, how handy that all their books match the color scheme and have blank spines.

I can't spare space in my bookcases for anything but books, and if I had to squat on a tiny stool to use my computer I'd go crazy.

I think hiding your home office is kind of a dated concept, like having a decorative cabinet for the telephone (or the refrigerator, or the television set). Everyone has these things, they're part of life as much as the furniture. Why go to so much trouble to pretend they aren't there?

Even the dog fits in with the color scheme. Kinda creepy!

It's a great idea for a small space, though. It may be true that everyone has a computer, but that doesn't mean I want to stare at it all the time.

Nougat--ha ha ha....I'm imagining someone on a walkie talkie "Black lab?!? What the $*$@#! I said GOLDEN!!!"

My place is so small there's no place for a desk at all and my computer is stashed in the bottom compartment of a cabinet in my kitchen. I have to sit flat on the floor to use it, but it doesn't bother me, and neither does the idea of having to use a backless stool. No, what puts me off is not the stool or the cramped size of the work area but the sterile, stagy, coordinated-out-the-wazoo tastefulness of the whole thing, complete with unread books & Rent-a-Pooch looking to an offscreen handler for direction. Why bother covering up such an immaculate fraud of an "office" in the first place? The whole thing's bogus.

But I still like the concept of the big unit. Just not done is such a soulless way.

lindsey kathlene-
That was the first thing I thought of as well.

It looks like what they've done with their books is to create paper "book jackets" for them with plain paper--it's not any less functional to me than the people who seem to think it's a good idea to organize a book collection by color.

I struggle with creating an office solution that doesn't look immediately like an office--because of the size of my home I have no choice but to have my office space to one side of my living room. While I'd like it to be less obvious, that doesn't mean I'm trying to pretend that it isn't there, but it also shouldn't be a focal point of my room--especially if I'm in the middle of a messy project, it would be so much easier to just close it away in a cupboard than having to leave it all out for everyone to see when I have company (and no time for serious tidying of the office).

This is definitely over the top Martha, but I'd love to see more solutions for integrating a home office tastefully into a living room space.

I agree that this is over the top but I love the idea of it - It would never in a million years work for me and my small space. With that being said, I do love the fact of constructing this maybe on a smaller scale and, instead of a desk, maybe hiding my nasty media center - even a flat panel TV is disgusting to me!!

i love the idea. and just got the new magazine in the mail, it is fantastic. lots of great ideas.

and my pets both match the color scheme of my house, unintentionally!

You could totally IKEA hack this. There's a sliding door now available for the PAX wardrobe, in either birch, white or with a mirror. Get the deepest PAX, one or more sliding doors and appropriate shelving. Even tricked out it would cost well under $1000. You can give it a built-in look too by filling in any gap between the PAX and the ceiling, either with other IKEA shelving or just with custom-cut sliding panels installed in a track.