apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

will there still be a Flickr pool?

I still plan on updating my Flickr and contributing to the Flickr pool (as long as it still exists).

Hi Guys, of course you can use flickr but we will only be drawing images for weekly posts from the images submitted so please upload photos so that we can share your progress on AT!

And to everyone else, welcome aboard! This is week one and the start of a great process for getting our homes healthy, organized and beautiful. Abby and I will be your LA hosts so if you have questions or are unsure of anything leave a comment here and we'll do our best to get you answers. Also if there's something you'd like us to cover in more detail let us know!

Good Luck!

I'm hoping to do the Spring Cure, but I have a new job, with WAY more hours. So, we'll see how much I can really participate. Need to continue from the Fall Cure...

kelly--maybe you can focus on one area that would make a big difference in your working day--maybe you need more rest and the bedroom could be revamped, or maybe you just need a great landing strip, etc.

Hi everyone!
I plan on using the Cure to do some much needed Spring cleaning and to finish up all those little projects that have been languishing. I will definitely need some help with furniture arrangement in my living room, and while I know I won't have the time or budget to re-do our bedroom, I'm hoping for some inpiration so I can start making a plan for that room!

heylucy,

we're looking forward to helping you out! we're looking at creating a vision this week so you might want to slowly start collecting images for your bedroom's style tray and thinking about what to name it (even if you don't get to it this cure, you've got a reference). send us some pix of your "before" bedroom and living room, measure & graph out your living room's fixed features and send that to us as well and you've taken the first step in curing your home.

Hello!

I'm planning to work on my home office. It's got heaps (!) of files, piles, and aborted decluttering systems. As a historian, I have trouble letting go of documentation and personal "artifacts," plus there's always more pressing activities and deadlines. A job change caused a recent influx of boxes and lessened my time to deal with past stuff. I am hoping this Cure will focus my energy and provide a much-needed catalyst and new ideas for structure and organization. It's been weighing me down for so long. I can't express how bad it is! (You'll see the photos.)

valleygurrl,

an old school resource on decluttering suggests putting on a timer for 15 minutes and going until the timer buzzes. i like to put on 5 songs instead. the only rule: when the music stops (or the timer buzzes), YOU MUST STOP. do this every day and you will see progress before too long. and check some of bethz's posts on organizing; she's our resident expert. in fact, she's got a workshop on organizing on saturday 3/21 at the edendale branch library from 10:30-12 if you need a little extra help.

Hi-

This is my first time doing the cure. I moved into a new place about 9 months ago and am still living with makeshift living room furniture, no window treatments and only two pieces of art on the walls. I'm hoping to actually make some decisions this time out, I hope you guys can help.

Thanks Abby, I'll measure and take pictures over the next few days. My living room is quite a challange, with three doorways (including the front door, which opens right into the room), and a large hearth with a wood-burning stove. And a piano that I can't seem to sell, and sort of want to keep.

valleygurrl, ditto what abby said, a little at a time is key! Have you heard of flylady (flylady.net)? Don't let the cheesiness of the website turn you off, she basically says to clean 15 minutes at a time. Her systems has helped me immensely, and it's very simple, no special tools needed!

flylady! Yes!

What about Asia? Where can we post to? Australia or Los Angeles? I always get confused.

hey lucy,

ya outed me. tis true: old school resource = flylady! what can i say. it works.

my lr has 3 doorways too (front door, door to hallway, door to kitchen) closet ginormous picture window small window. my solution: couches, etc. are NOT against the wall. consider that as an option (my lr's in the house tours if you want to see how it works and here's a link to the floor plan on flickr if that helps.)

oliviatokyo,

you've can post here and if we get more folks from your neck of the woods, we'll open up a new discussion board for asia!

Thanks Laure. Funny thing is...since the Fall Cure, I've continued to work in my apt. I've had a bunch of things I wanted to accomplish and I blew through a ton of them this past weekend! I rearranged the whole living/bedroom! I bought some lamps second hand, fixed them up and we're up and runningalready. I may get my new loveseat tomorrow. I'm way ahead of where we are in the book, but I'm on a roll! Although I blew off cleaning the kitchen like I wanted to...oops. We've got a whole chapter for that, right? Right?! Hahaha, I need to pace myself!

Do we upload our style tray images here then? Or just progress photos and we keep our style trays to ourselves? I did post a lot of style tray images over at our old flickr account.

Has anyone ever had a steel tanker desk refinished? I bought one off CL, and the bones of it are good. It just needs to be sanded and painted. Anyone got a price range on this? I am hoping that it is under 250, because that is all I alloted.

Also, The desktop - I don't know what it's made of but it's wood grained, can that be painted as well? I was thinking maybe it would flake, but I can always make a glass cover for it.

The desk is fairly large, you can see it at Flickr, I am chusmabilly in the Flickr pool.

How's everyone doing?

It's a little slow here, but plugging away nonetheless....

So, this is my first cure and I'm a little shy about posting, but I have a question for all of you.

I share a little one bedroom apartment with my boyfriend. God bless him, but he is making working on my landing strip difficult this week. Our door open up to the living room, and the first thing he does when he get home is take off his shoes and leave them next to the door. He has a lot of shoes. For instance, there are 5 pairs of his shoes there as I write this (ok, and one pair of my own).

It's his house too so he has to be okay with any solution, but I can't picture what kind of shoe rack would work and look nice. I love the idea of a bench, but there isn't really room. I guess the other solution would be nag him about it and make him put them in the closet.

Does anyone have any ideas? I can post some pictures to the flickr group if that would.

Post some pictures to the Flickr group! Everyone there has great ideas and will give you some suggestions. I'm looking for some sort of small shoe rack too. I've been considering some of the Ikea options, maybe see if anyone those will fit in your space? http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=shoe rack

Laure posted about this one the other day, and it is on the smaller side. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40049684

Or, submit your picture to AT using their link, and they might post it for all readers to provide comments/suggstions. I forgot that is an option also. :-)

Ok, thanks for the support, a needed a little push to get my pictures up! Here's one from the flickr pool..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8688251@N03/3409222807/in/pool-homecure

I was thinking about it last night and came up with a new idea. I could move the end table/magazine rack to the other side of the sofa, get a taller table for next to the door and put one of those ikea shoe racks under it. A taller and larger table would give me more room to sort mail ect. Any ideas?

I like this idea! You could do a small table with shoe racks underneath, or even shoe racks with a shelf mounted higher up on the wall. For shoe racks under a table, I like some of the options that are more like shelves on the wall like this one: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60062472

Just make sure there is enough room for the anticipated number of shoes, I think. Looks like 5-6 pair from your photo. Not bad, I have that many myself by my front door and I live alone (doh).

zoeb,

another idea, that i use in my own home instead of a rack of shoes, is to use a large basket, bowl or pot. Especially in the smaller space v lots of shoes dilemma, this is a good temporary solution because it both looks neat and corrals shoes.

abby

I second the basket, it's what we do with the kids' shoes and it's a life saver!