I admire the elegantly minimal interiors I see in design magazines (even if my own home falls a bit short of 'elegantly minimal'). Yet somehow the pictures always leave me cold. I find myself thinking, 'yes, this is beautiful, but could anybody really live here?' Can't a house be simple and modern without feeling like a museum? Enter Apartment Therapy. in 2011, our tours featured many homes that spoke to me with both their simplicity and their vitality. In these spaces, simple color palettes and modern shapes come together with organic textures like brick, wood and leather to create a warm, lived-in modernism.
FIRST ROW
• Laura's Mid-Century Melrose Place
• Tara & Ryan's Swedish-Industrial-Ruralist Weekend Home
• Jen's Minimalist Sanctuary
• lon & Betsy's Clean & Classic French Countryside Home
• Ida's Uncompromisingly Personal Parisian Apartment
SECOND ROW
• Zoe & Trey's Refined Eclectic Georgetown Digs
• René's White-Washed, Art-Filled Renovation
• Laura's Mid-Century Melrose Place
• June's Quaint 1910 Farmhouse
• Greg & Grey's Skylit Studio Loft
Images: See linked posts for full image credits
Must-See Small Cool Homes: Week Two
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shaw's Original Fir...
How to Bake a Potato: Three Easy Methods
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
Great theme & examples!
I really like #1, 2 and 6. The rest have too much stuff for my taste. I love all white rooms with just 2-3 pieces. White to me is calming and serene and that's what I want from my space.
Where are the lamps? Doesn't anyone read?
Great round-up of inspiring spaces. I love a cleaner, less cluttered space. I try really hard to make my space simple but it is a challenge ballancing between comfort + style and battling a small space.
See what I mean, here:
http://dans-le-townhouse.blogspot.com/p/house-tour.html
The link to Jen's Minimalist Sanctuary takes me to Chris and Erin's Farmhouse Add-On. While theirs is also a great tour, I really want to see Jen's! Could you fix this please?
It's absolutely doable. One of my colleagues lives in an 850 sf condo, where she and her spouse downsized from a 2000 sf house. They took their time gleaning down their possessions, but her homes feels so spacious, clean, and welcoming. I love walking in.
These are great! Especially those with the warm colors. We're downsizing from 1800 to 1000 this month, and I'm enjoying letting go of so many things...looking forward to a simplified but comfortable and attractive space.
Tara and Ryan's link send me to Laura's house tour. :(
@ annieh and Eleora...fixed the links!
I veer minimalist, too. Right now we are moving slowly towards adorning our new house, but we both like to keep our main living area clean and clear.