apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My favorite dining rooms are always a mix of high=low. I love having take-out in a formal dining room, or lobster and linen napkins at a picnic table. The mix makes the "highbrow" seem fun, without being stiff.

I agree w/ Lisa - it's all about the mix of High and Low/Old and New that makes a comfy home, otherwise it can end up too much like a museum or a Frat-House/Dorm room.

I agree with the above, and also think that when rooms are too tidy the result is the same. A book on the sofa, a scarf resting on a chair, letters on the kitchen table, that kind of detail in a nice room makes you feel more at ease.

My apartment is a bit cluttered, but everyone who comes here says it feels warm and comfortable, especially since I changed the furniture. After the change, I actually wanted to come and stay at home, whereas before I spent free afternoons at the café terrace, or walking in the park, or out with friends.

I hate walking into a house and feeling like nobody actually lives there, where everything is so neat and tidy and organized that you'd think it was being staged for selling.

I like the way my parents run their house - casually. I don't like overly formal dining rooms and extremely polite conversation. There's nothing wrong with a little chaos. I'm a student at the moment, hence the living at home, but my spaces (my bedroom, art studio and tiny little powder room) just scream "kick off your shoes and relax". The apartment I had before I went back to school was pretty similar.

I'm a klutzy person. I think that's why I have an aversion to things that are neat and tidy and, more often than not, expensive. I'm too likely to destroy something just by being there.

Isn't this the whole "Broken Windows" theory that Malcolm Gladwell explained so lucidly in "Tipping Point"?