From SidStiles: I've got an amazing de-cluttering motivator...you ready?
First the apartment next to yours has to catch on fire, then their sprinkler go off and then fire department comes and hoses the apartment down, and then, wait for it... your apartment gets flooded! Its crazy the speed in which you can de-clutter your place when everything touching the floor gets wet.
Soooooooo slow to catch up with you, but I'm back. It's been particularly busy here with the contest and the traffic zooming upward since Monday (you can see it here). That means that a lot of folks are watching you from the gallery and cheering you on. BTW, keep the Strength Machine postive, give as much as you can (and anyone can give).
This Week's Assignment: In the Deep Treatment we tackle the Living Room. For some of you this may be a big deal, for others it may not be as much trouble. Either way, this is probably the time to tackle your BOOKS. These are a very pesky element that can be very hard to edit. Your are also cooking at home 3x this week. If you would like encouragement or recipes, head over to The Kitchn, where daily support and inspiration is provided...
The One Room Workout gets to tackling shopping and considering Carb and Protein furniture if you haven't already. I urge you to buy quality when you shop. In addition, if you are entering prices into a shopping list/spreadsheet, don't forget that we have these available here for you to use.
From Jen64 who is moving right along: I did buy a new quilt for the bed today. I was set on the West Elm duvet. I went into Macy's today since I had a gift card from Christmas and decided to take a look. I found a Martha Stewart quilt and shams set reduced from $250 to $70! It's not too "Martha", and has a modern vibe to it. Most of all it isn't clashing to much with my curtains.
Top Tips for week 4:
1. Be practical - Have you bitten off too much? Then scale back and move on.
2. Get brutal - Are you being too careful when you should be getting mean with your stuff? This is your chance to make a difference. Don't lollygag and perseverate over cleaning and editing. As Nike says, Just do it.
3. Get inspired - Everyone else is working hard and having struggles as well. Share yours and see what others are doing to make their change. Also, if you'd like an inspirational story, check out this one about the founding of Patagonia. Rock climbing is a good metaphor for what we are all doing.
Another great project from Shimelle: She built this studio table from two kitchen cabinets secured together.
Welcome to EmilyJoyce, who has a great little apartment. She's still looking for a nice greige paint for the walls. Can anyone make a suggestion?
Check out how nicely Lynn F's doing (although she got a bit of a leg up in the last Cure). I particularly like this: I also made a nice Shrimp and Zucchini pasta last night, and now I am cooking Brussel sprouts with walnuts and balsamic, to accompany my chicken. Red tulips were my splurge of the week.
___________________This Spring NY Cure's Posts
>> Week Three - Weekend
>> Week Three - Entryway
>> Week Two - Weekend
>> Week 2 - The Kitchen
>> Week One - Weekend
>> Week 1 & Getting Going
>> The Class is Filling Up! - 3.6.08
>> Getting Oriented & Week Zero - 3.4.08
>> Join Us Next Week! - 2.29.08
_________________All The Info
Basic Info:
The Cure posts will go up twice a week, allowing for plenty of comment space. We will be pulling comments and pics to the front page post each week and everyone is urged to take pics and post them to this great Flickr pool or simply tag them with "apartmenttherapycure." See our old pics here too.
For all NY posts go to the The Cure Archive.
Where We Are:
>> Chicago Cure & their Flickr group
>> San Francisco Cure & their Flickr group
>> Los Angeles Cure & their Flickr Group
>> New York Cure & our Flickr group
Please choose the site nearest your home to join, but feel free to browse on all!
Note:
We lost our old Book Blog page in the redesign, so we're relying on our straightforward archive here. Here are some other pages that the Book Blog highlighted:
Good Links:
>> About The Book
>> Rave Reviews from the release
>> About The Author and Contact
Excerpts:
>> Excerpt I
>> Excerpt II
>> Excerpt III
>> Excerpt IV
Veronica & Keith's Handmade Chic 
Before & After: A Bathroom Goes From Pinky Peach to Sleek and Chic
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Hunslet Dinner Plate
A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Easy Pitcher Cocktail Recipe: Strawberry Basil Margaritas
Comments (19)
about how much should i budget for my party? maybe 10 people. i was considering dinner at a restaurant and desert at my place.
is it okay to only serve wine? what do you do about mixed drinks if you've never made them before?
I rearranged the living room last night: I like it much better and it seems to be working. All the furniture is now pushed to the perimeter of the room, though!
Still working on getting some of that paint for the coffee table trunk. We're a one car family!
Lady J, just wine is perfectly fine. You're hosting a party for friends, not catering someone else's event. (Of course, you should have soft drinks as well -- even just bottled water and a ginger ale, plus coffee to serve your guests before they leave). If you really want to offer another option, something popular and simple is a nice vodka and bottled tonic water. Have ice and lemon and lime wedges available, and guests can mix their own. Have fun!
I'm in need of some motivation this week. I've been under the weather and not felt like cleaning.
I did line the inside of my nightstand with some great paper. Pics of that coming this weekend.
And speaking of this weekend... the ceiling fan has arrived and will be installed on Sunday. Exciting! Does that require a drill?
http://flickr.com/photos/68987525@N00/2374911918/in/set-72157604318239539/
I also recently went through my books and DVDs & got rid of a bunch. My CDs & LPs, I cannot part with. Don't even bother asking (I'm a dj & collector). I think I will just wipe down the shelves, then organize & alphabetize them.
The lot:
http://flickr.com/photos/68987525@N00/2333719570/in/set-72157604119875207/
I did manage to send out my invites for a small MayDay party (just snacks & drinks) - now if I could only figure out what to put in my maybaskets... Also, I've invited 7 people, but I really only have spots for 4 (maybe 5 or 6) to sit comfortably. How do I encourage people to stand around rather than sit in a circle? I once rolled up the rug & fit 30 people into my little place for a birthday party, but this is different. Did I invite the wrong number?
if you invite more people, that will give the standers more people to mix with and also encourage the sitters go to get up and mingle.
thanks for the advice. i wanted to have the party at home but i feel overwhelmed by ending the Cure and prepping the party in roughly 3.5 weeks. also, i was going to replace my stereo for the party and that plus providing all the food = $$$.
I have a table cloth that looks exactly like Laren's shower curtain!
My favorite greige-beige-y color is Gourmet Mushroom. One person at work used it, and now about half of us have Gourmet Mushroom somewhere in our houses.
HollyinDC,
If you were in NY I would suggest using my tactic. I am sure you can find a service in DC that offers it.
But I a company I actually found through an apt therapy chat room, Greenhouse Eco-Cleaning helped me tremendously. I will be honest, I have a 3 floor row house and its was just too much to do by myself. So I had them come in and just help me for the day. It was nice just to have someone do projects for me, like going through the bookshelves and cabinets. The extra hands was definitely worth it. Its nice opening a closet door everyday and being pleasantly surprised for a change. I even had them help me make some green changes as well because I wanted to repaint and redecorate. One word for you Divorce, just starting a new!!! Hope this helped at least in regard to you finding a service in DC. Good luck lady!!
Alright the bed is painted! http://lilkidthings.blogspot.com/2008/04/and-were-back.html
I have made some real progress. The only thing left to buy for the bed is a bedskirt. Still working on that one. Also, I organized my toolbox and it is SO user friendly now I could do projects in my sleep. Not that I will but it's nice. I also have been sneaking the Cure into our livingroom and bedroom, specifically this week by purchasing Orbit chairs from pier 1. I'll post pictures of that soon. I need to finalize the paint color for the spare room and clear out a few more outbox items. I am also collecting my old frames and I think I will paint most of them white with one or two in a bright blue/green.
I love the cure! It makes it so much more fun to do these projects alongside everyone else. Keep up the great work!
I'm way behind. How about a 12 week cure?
I am literally feeling the weight of our belongings after moving boxes and furniture to and fro. Our outbox has helped to expel many things. A clothing swap, freecycle.org, craigslist, ebay and our local thrift stores have also kept the vast majority of our purge out of landfills. Woot!
Purchases for our home are definitely getting more studied. I like room to breath, or would that be, rooms to breath?
The biggest challenge: editing our extensive CD and LP collections. Baby steps, right? I have a pile of CDs that are heading out for resale this week.
No pictures this week, I'm afraid, as not much has changed since the weekend. I'm warming up to the lime green bathroom/striped shower combo you've pictured -- so much so that I think I'm going to return the (boring) plain white one I ordered. Am also considering hanging some simple prints to highlight some of the other colors in the stripes, like hot pink and orange. Why not?
As for the living room, I got a headstart clearing my books before the painting started, and I definitely cleared out at least 25%. My enormous TV and TV cabinet are going to their new homes next week thanks to Craigslist, and part of that process will be cleaning out the CD's/DVD's on Sunday night. I sense a full outbox on Monday! After that, I'll be rearranging furniture. That will determine next steps for the living/dining area.
Haven't been cooking dinners, but have been eating leftovers from Sunday night, and making my lunch each day to take to work (does that count?). Still going strong with the flowers.
Am enjoying my new landing strip and am happy to report that I've been using it! I'm off to the wilds of Maine for the weekend, but am sending energy to my fellow Cure-ers!
i feel so validated !
ive been having a great time purging & cleaning. i have so much to get rid of still. its hard without a car & little time off from work.
i am more than excited to paint & am narrowing down my choices for the mid-month action. i feel it will be a real turning point in how everything comes together.
FYI, AT. The worksheets are non-existent (i.e. the links on the worksheet post don't work). You should change that. :)
This was the first time that I felt like I was able to click Give Strength instead of Get Strength.
I haven't taken any new pictures yet, I'll try to remember to do that tonight. Though my pictures probably won't be to exciting to anyone else but me. I cleaned out the entry closet and hung hooks on the door so no i have a place to hang scarves, dog leash, umbrellas, etc. The closet looks so nice and empty I'll have to resist trying to figure out what to stash in it. I'm still working on a landing strip (outside of the closet) but at least now I have more of a clear vision of what it needs to accomodate since I now have a home for some of stuff that used to live there.
Kitchen countertop is in and now on to figuring out what to do with the backsplash. I'm leaning towards glass subway tiles but deciding on a color is tougher than i thought. I'll have to post some photos once all the samples arive so I can get everyone's opinion.
This weekend I'll be sorting through all the books and trying to find a home for them (it would be far to painfully to ditch them) Also on the todo list is getting a library card so we don't just accumulate more.
AndreaU, great color on your bedframe!
Just wanted to make a suggestion (that I'm surprised Maxwell doesn't recommend in the book), get yourself a slow cooker. Coming home to dinner that was ready to go on the table last night made it sooo much easier to get other things done.
Melissa, I'm so with you on the twelve-week Cure. Life has not been made any better by the fact that I'm sick again.
Thanks Vertigo! And I COMPLETELY second the slow cooker! Here is something that is SO easy that it is a crime not to try it:
Put 2 frozen chicken breasts (yes frozen) in the slow cooker and pour a can of chicken broth over it. Add some garlic, Worcestershire Sauce, spices, whatever and just make sure the top of the chicken is covered with liquid (ok to add water) Then leave it on low while you are at work (8 hours)...
When you get home boil some water and add couscous and 5 minutes later dinner is ready!
flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/lilkidthings/2387468950/
blog: http://lilkidthings.blogspot.com/
I've decided that I'm going to focus on the living room in the Fall 08 cure. Its not terrible and I certainly don't mind living in it the way it currently is but there are certain things I would do differently if given the time and $$. A lot of that also depends on if we are staying in this apartment for another year. so! I will be cleaning the Living room a bit this weekend and focusing on our bookshelves. We re-did and organized our entertainment center last weekend so I'm looking forward to giving our bookshelves my complete attention :)
My landing strip is ok now. I've already had a hook next to the door, where my bag(s) go when i arrive at home. Coats, jackets and shoes are stored in a built-in closet in my office room, which works fine since i've moved into this apartment (2 years ). A metallic plate is fixed to the door, where i put my keys, some bags and, as it is magnetic, i put invitations, reduction vouchers etc. This works fine, too.
Mail is sorted through right away, invoices are put into a tray in the office, and once a month i do my payments.
Junk mail goes right away into a container under the bench in my kitchen and then goes to the recycling center on saturdays.
This upcoming week i hope i am going to finish my liveing room ( a trip to IKEA on thursday ), and next saturday i'll host my birthday dinner. So i want the livingroom to be finished for this occasion.
A few new pictures are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36m2/sets/72157604068598538/
(i'm off to the recycling center...)
Have a nice weekend !