apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Trite and Banal about sums it up...

agree with bspsf
Plus, I'd imagine it says 'this is what I could afford and had an opening'
And again with the grammar, the second to last 'question' is not one and does not need a question mark.

I was hoping for some transformative insight.

I really like the idea for this post (looking at buildings/houses and imagining the inhabitants is one of my favorite things, ever), but it just kind of got started and didn't really go anywhere.

not every post has to be transformative with a big "T"... i enjoyed taking in the various architectural styles of my former home city as well as contemplating my daily walk to work when i lived in minneapolis... i miss it since i moved to nyc!

I don't want to be snarky but you people are expecting too much.

This website is about girlie/tutti-frutti guy stuff, uh, you know: design. This site is about raising your arms to the heavens and shouting, "THINK PINK!"

(And then carrying a bolt of pink fabric across the room and re-doing the entire apartment in PINK with Chartreuse accents.)

Uh, It's not about Freud's theories. :)

I actually liked this post a lot. The tryout posts all seem a little (OK, a lot) truncated but I think there might be rules about length.

I don't think I'd want to put myself out there only to be called trite and banal either, but hey, that's just me, I guess it's OK to be a jerk on the internets. It's just tubes, is what it is.....

geez, tough crowd!

In the interests of actually engaging with the post, those buildings are all quite lovely, whereas it is really ugly exteriors which all always prompt to ponder 'who would want to live inside that?', and 'could the interior of that building possibly be uglier than the exterior?'

I live in a neighbourhood in West Hollywood which has some charming Old Hollywood-style apartment buildings and sleek mid-century numbers, interspersed with many horrible, offensively ugly, squat 70's travesties of design. I often wonder if I could live in an ugly building if it was exceptionally beautiful inside and very well located, but ultimately I don't think I could live with having to explain to friends and family 'it doesn't look like much from the outside, but once you get inside it's much nicer...'

This post started off with an interesting question; however, all it did was ask questions. It would have been interesting if the writer answered some of those questions from his own perspective, e.g., I live in such and such apartment, row house, etc., and this is what my choice of apartment says about me. (Although I do suspect that affordability and availability play the largest, if not the sole, criterium in apartment selection in this town).

salinla, i once saw a really lovely apt--new hardwood flrs, cute kitchen, skylight in bathroom, lovely view of the brooklyn clock tower--in a really ugly building. the bldg was yellow-beige and it was as if that ugly popcorn ceiling stuff was all over the outside! the ugliest thing by far on an otherwise cute block in central park slope! i honestly had to consider if i could live in it. decided to pass for other reasons, but am super happy that i ended up in a beautiful bldg (inside & out) in ditmas park instead!

i insist this was a lovely post in that it made my mind wander and generated discussion....

I agree, I believe this could have been a great subject, had the article included historical information about the buildings shown.

i recommend Alain de Botton's "Architecture of happiness" to find some answers to these questions. Raising those is quite easy though, answering them a lot lot harder :-)

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the criticisms. Maybe an anecdote or a funny example would help. For instance, something about people who live in Modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows, or something else kind of dramatic, to contrast the examples posted. I want a bit of a twist or surprise [not Freudian, though].

To answer the question [and, yeah, it's basically a good one], I live in a neighborhood with a rich 19th century history, and there's a bit of snobbery/curiosity/envy when it comes to certain buildings with unique pedigrees or architectural details. I don't think my building is the most distinct-looking, but people have exclaimed, "Oh, you live in THAT building" like it says something about me as a person.

I really hope that my building doesn't say anything about me, because it's fugly. My apartment is nice though, possibly the best kept apartment in the building.

My building says that I bought this giant multi-unit Victorian to house myself and numerous family members in an affordable way. It also says that it is mine! I can finally decorate, remodel (and live!) exactly how I want! Of course, it also says that I have to maintain 5000 SF of crumbling plaster, leaky roof, and bad plumbing. Ah, well ...

I like this post. Not every blog post needs to be researched and carefully worded.

I also like to look at the buildings in my neighborhood and think about what living there must be like. I was afraid this post would get classist or eliteist. It did not :)

I like to think about what one's building would say if it could speak. I think mine would say, "I may be quite a bit older than everything else on the block, but I've still got it going on." And then it would say, "Hey, you there, in number 205. What are you, some kind of savage? Take your shoes off before you start walking around on my hardwood floors." And then it would say, "Ahhh, that spring sunshine feels heavenly on my old bricks."

I think my apartment building definitely reflects my personality and priorities... it's one of the few places in/around DC that preserves green space instead of being jam-packed with additional apartments. It's a historic landmark, but it's also a fairly bland, brick facade. Charming, but not too specific... which really let me run with whatever interior style I wanted. The best part is that my door opens directly onto the courtyard, as do a few others, making it a very social spot. There are more than a few funny stories about my husband, the extrovert, and wide-open 1st floor windows.

It's true, that sometimes we live in whichever building is convenient at the time, but I do believe that all of my friends in DC, regardless of financial situation, have chosen buildings that are completely appropriate to their personalities. The quirky one lives in a funky old building, the modern design lover chose a glass and steel tower (outside the District b/c of height restrictions, of course), the flaky one (she knows it) lives in a highly inconvenient area... etc, etc.

there's something sort of sesame street about this post.

great photos!

This is a fine discussion starter post... i'm okay with the lack of depth, that's what we're here for, to expand.

Our building is quickly losing it's older residents and gaining younger residents. We're all constantly greeting and quizzing eachother about what options we have for changing our collectively uniform spaces. I suspect the outside of our building will soon reflect the changes going on inside.

Ouch!
This post would've been better without the comments.

I live there. Picture #4, corner building with a teal Vespa parked in front. I like that it's an older building (from the 40s) and there are many elements that still reflect that (proportions of the rooms, ceiling height, decor elements in common areas, cast-iron steam radiators).

I can see how this post may seem banal to some, but in DC it can be quite a subject. There is a lot of fascinating lore and history all around the city, buildings have personalities and quirks. I can go for miles and hours talking about this:)

By the way, why no picture of the Cairo? Perhaps it deserves a separate post some day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Apartment_Building)

i agree with davis... the best posts are the ones that spark discussions. the length of the article is fairly average for AT, and is in the spirit of the average "what i noticed the other day" posts that are often on the AT pages. nothing wrong with that.

Better w/o the comments, and much better w/o the question. At least to NY-ers, the outside of a building doesn't even make it on a list of concerns. Posing the question seems the height of pretension.

I like the "IDEA" of this article, but in reality, if you think about it; there are many people like me... who live where they do because THEY CAN AFFORD IT, without having to move into MD.
This article is cool, ONLY if you judge people who have the MONEY to live ANYWHERE they want. Not people like ME who have to settle for what they can get.

re: "This website is about girlie/tutti-frutti guy stuff, uh, you know: design. This site is about raising your arms to the heavens and shouting, "THINK PINK!"

Um, are you sh!tting me with this?

And as far as the post, I think it an interesting question/topic... but it also raises the issue of how the insides and outsides of building do or don't synch up... I lived in a GORGEOUS little townhouse in Ft. Lauderdale that looked dreadful from the outside.

(and ps: I think the candidates were asked to provide one "musing" type of post, in addition to the more standard fare.)

Sleek--

I did not get an elistist or socio-economic vibe from this question at all.

lol @Mr. Dangerous. I so don't think this blog is that way.

My apartment complex says, I'm quiet and contemporary. And yes, that is the reason why I moved into my complex.

I live in a typical Boston brownstone on a gorgeous tree lined street and I am pretty sure what it says to people about me is: "She is a heartless yuppie (she must be called Madison and her boyfriend is Chad); she eats heirloom tomatoes; and she really wants every neighborhood playground converted to a parking lot or a glorified dog park."

Well, it's lying!

What it should be sayng instead is: "She grew up in one of those fugly 70's buildings with gazillion identical apartments, and she is psyched to finally be in a house with nooks and cranies and no two windows alike."

I live in a building on the historic register which I think says that I appreciate the classic... or that I too am a heartless yuppie. Seriously though, for me personally the outside of the builidng is as much of a draw as the inside. I don't think I'd want one without the other. This sound like such snobbery I know but I love it when I say which building is mine and people ooo and aaa a little!!

I love that there is no mistaking this for anything but DC :). And it suggests an elevated form of people watching, no? Love the concept and the post!