apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love it, especially the kitchen with your anchor print curtains and the plates on the wall. Well done!

I love everything about your place. It's darling.

Ghost Lounge? It is haunted?

Love the curtains in the kitchen!

Love the coffee table and couch too... beautiful.

WOW! that's cozy done right. Amazing light and beautiful furniture!

Oh my gosh do I adore the kitchen curtains!

This is a fun place! I like the kitchen curtains and the artwork too.

This is really wonderful. I love the art, the anchor curtains are fabulous, and the furniture is well edited. It strikes a really nice balance between having some stuff without being cluttered. Bravo!

i would want to be a guest here, its cute, warm, cozy, and theres cake in the pantry!

Wow. I live below you. Totally interesting to see how you've set up the same space (although I am totally jealous of your kitchen tile - mine's blue). And I have record albums in the kitchen too! And did you change the light in the bedroom then?

This so totally weird.

I like the free-hand floor plan sketch, as well as the kitchen tile, couch, and armchair.

Yay for checkerboard kitchens!

I too am intrigued about why you titled it "Ghost Lounge." It certainly is an evocative name. I'm impressed you were able to score that Tord Boontje pendant light 2nd hand! More props for the anchor cafe curtains and plate arrangement in the kitchen, and I love your little 50s style dinette set in the living/dining room. You also have a nice art collection and I always think it's so great when the artwork is personally meaningful.

I like the knife block shot - nice looking place!

totally cute and cozy. i love it..mmm cake...

love your photos -- especially of the kitchen. nice spice rack and cake dome!

cute place, but I think you need to get some wine for that empty rack!

Cute and cozy. I was a little disappointed that none of the subesquent photos lived up to the first livingroom shot. Also 2 shots wasted on vignettes and not enough on space shots. Nice: yes. Contest winning: prolly not.

I love it but I really wish they'd paint the walls. Even something neutral would really liven it up.

I love your knife block! Source? And I've never seen a Dansk enamel pot so tall.. gorgeous.

Totally cute :)

I really like your living room grouping and your formica dinette set.

Did you just put that double layer chocolate frosted cake in there to win extra points? It worked! Yum.

Such a sweet little home.

Wonderful use of a small space!! I disagree with the earlier statement about 'wasteful' vignette shots. Clearly, this was an average space before you worked your detailed little magic on it. The great balance between various trinkets and art within the space should be emphasized, in at least a couple of closeups. I get enough of a feel for the entire space from the remaining shots anyway. Great job!

kelly, what a sweet, chic place; yr kitchen, the yellow pot, the anchors ! evrything, a joyful place to hangout

Am I really allowed to be the friend of a person with so cool an apartment? Surely it even deserves the name Flat. It fills me with doubts even as I am hopeful about moving to SF because the ubiquitous sun may never allow for such lovely, gray ghosty light as one finds in Chicago. We can only pray hard for fog...

justice?!: you will get your fog!!

I love this! It makes me think of vacation in Maine. A very lovely thought indeed.

i have that couch! whoooo.

So cute! I love the plates above the stove (do they get dirty?), the coziness of everything, and of course the cake...

Love.

This place is soooo great! I, too, love the curtains. They look hand-printed. Way to go the extra mile and make your own!

Cake is good, cake under glass is even better.

WOW! Thanks, everyone! I am utterly, 100% thrilled to see so many nice comments on my place!

To respond to a few specific ones...

I'm glad that people like the curtains! I printed the anchors using a rubber pad, cut to shape, using fabric ink. The fabric was just cheap white muslin. It took forever to print all of those little anchors on, but they make me so happy every day.

The knife block was my grandmother's, so I don't know where it's from. Probably Marshall Field's, like most of her things. The picture doesn't really show it, but it's HUGE.

The cake was a recipe from a recent Cook's Illustrated -- yellow cake with easy chocolate frosting. It is delicious.

The Tord Boontje is NOT second-hand! Sorry that my statement was misleading.

I did consider painting the walls, but all of my belongings are so colorful, it was really difficult to pick a color to go with. Also, the walls are a very nice, clean, bright white. The livingroom gets VERY little natural light (especially in the winter) and the white walls help brighten it up.

the egon schiele and jay ryan prints are great touches. i've also been looking for that bowie lp for a long time, and never would have thought to frame the reverse side. very cool!

emhoop beat me to it. Ya need more booze lady!

I LOVE the fabric on that chair.

Your place has a really cool vibe. Of course, I may be biased due to the fact that we own several identical or very similar pieces. I think we could be friends.

very charming vibe going on here. but...please paint those white walls. even an off white or barely there sage. something! that white is so sterile. Natural light enchances the color too.

The kitchen is abolutely adorable! But the single wine bottle in the rack looks lonely.

Despite the fact that your images are not the greatest. I still voted cool. I suspect the images are not true to the greatness of your place.

Love your furniture and the anchor curtains. Wish we had a better photo of the bedroom.

Love your cozy landing strip table in the entry.

Also, like your plates collection and other art in the kitchen and the yellow Dansk pot.

Re: The quality of the pictures
It's funny - looking at the pictures at home, on a much larger scale, I thought they looked very nice and true-to-life. Seeing them here, they don't look nearly as nice. The scale is off, the impact of the colors are off... Sort of a bummer! It looks better in person. Hopefully, now that the sun has re-emerged in chicago, I will be able to get a bit more natural light for pictures.

I feel I should also mention that this is a rental. I am hoping/planning to buy a place of my own soon. When I do so, I plan to invest much more in the structure of the place. Paint, built-in storage and bookshelves, replacing drawer-pulls, the whole bit. Exciting.

love. this. home.

Very cute!! I think the cake plate in use was my favorite part I have to admit :). But very cute all around.

This place is simply heartwarming. You've got a great eye for color and space. Personal and welcoming.

What a great little place.
Cozy and functional.

Maybe upgrade the entry mat to something else some day.
One of those round IKEA rugs would work here.

But a cute place.

Why all shots of the kitchen?

I like the octopus on the door frame.

Well, there's 3 rooms in my apartment. I have yet to figure out how to photograph my bedroom because it's so tiny. I think most of the bathroom pictures I've seen in this contest are boring or grody. That leaves two rooms. I'd say it's only appropriate that the 2/5ths of the pictures are of the kitchen.

Dammit, I see no ghosts, lounging or even floating. Such a disappointment ...