apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I can't really get an idea of how the place is laid out from the photos but what I see I mostly like. We need more photos of the other spaces in the apt.

Oooh I see a kitty (plus pts for that).

Bedroom is gorgeous! I love the wall color (is it the same color you used in the living area?) and the way the green lamps stand out against it- wood of the bed and wall decor as well.

The setting you've creatd in the windowsill is really nice - very serene - and the sunlight pouring in just completes the look.

Floating cabinet is interesting...wish we could have seen before pictures of the kitchen though! (since you mention how hellish it was to change it).
Not so much into the living room (what's "Hi Bob"?) but the cute dining nook and the bedroom definitely make up for it!

I'm impressed!

I like the living room—it's playful and I like the bright colors. The bedroom is nice too. Where did you find the bedside tables?—I'm looking for something like similar where it will hold books inside, but doesn't look clunky.

Your kitty is pretty too.

Not bad then, mate. Very cool generally. Minus the green phallic thingy in the bathroom - or is it meant to keep the puddy tat in check?

Then again I am listening to Le Tigre, have just downed a mug of sage and chrysanthemum tea on top of 4 beers so what do I know?

Another nice place. What we are seeing is a series of places where people have done a good job of editing/eliminating their clutter. I think an interesting additional piece of information would be to know how many cubic feet of storage space these entrants have in addition to their apartments shown. It's not difficult to do 500 sq. ft. well if you have several hundred cubic feet of storage somewhere to keep all your long held mementos, collections, papers, sports equipment, grandpa's big old desk, etc.

Who's a minamalist, who's an editor and who's a squirrel?

I LOVE CATS. Anyways, enough about that. I honestly like the feel of your apartment the best. I like the colors, I love the kitchen and the use of space in it, and I love the sunlight. I could absolutely relax here. Having said that, I now understand the difficulty in judging this contest. If it were the 'which one does Matt like?' contest, then it would be easy. But I have to admit that the 'cool' aspect of the contest is what I have really been hoping to see in entries. Something innovative, something eye-popping and successful that enriches my idea of what a good apartment can be. I suppose this is why the before and after shots have been very helpful, to understand the changes that have taken place and thought behind what we are enjoying/taking for granted in the pictures.

The idea of choosing a wall color that lights up in the sunlight was a very cool choice, in my opinion. Color is reactive to light, and always has to be chosen with that in mind. I also enjoyed seeing the shot of your kitchen that looked straight back into the fridge area. You could really see the combination and variety of materials, which I think works very well. The cabinet stain looks great against stainless and the white floor tile.

Thanks for sharing!

I love this apartment. I am now really regretting listening to my husband when he wouldn't let me get a cowskin rug I encountered in a vintage store because it was "gross" to have something from a dead animal in your house.(Ironically, he's a meat eater, and I'm not--but I figure the cow's been dead a while anyway if she ended up in a vintage store.) Really like the colors, and in particular, the kitchen.

I am really digging that refrigerator! The kitchen really reflects all the effort/love that went into it.

Millions of extra points for the sweet kitty.

I bedside tables rock. Vintage or new? If new, where?

The bedside tables rock. Vintage or new? If new, where?

Everyone else loves the kitty, so I'll give extra points for the McCoy planter he's keeping company. McCoy made a wonderful variety of rich greens in a wide range of styles.

I really like this apartment too. I think that the precise style and colors are not all to my taste, but in terms of layout and furniture arrangement I would feel absolutely comfortable there. It looks cozy, but not cluttered, if that makes sense. I love the way the wall curves around the dining nook, and the cabinets in the kitchen look wonderful. I also really like the bedside tables...

My hat's off to this apartment... Cozy and formal... comfortable looking, but definitely put together with a great eye... I really like it, even if I hate living things... I said it before in the bedroom contest... Cutesy kittens are not winning points as design elements. Neither are Poodle shower curtain hooks.

This is funny - I looked at the pictures twice, and I was like, where is this CAT everyone is talking about?

But now I see him... and he/she is really beautiful!

The white on white got me.

I love the kitchen you've created, really nice job. I am also interested in finding out what colors you used on your walls. Such a beautiful cat...

I like this space; it's very personal and well-thought-out. I agree that the photos do not give a feel for the entirety of the space. I would wish that the headboard wasn't so tall, then the screen could be lower and look more "attached" to the bed. Great kitchen. Definitely shows care and intent.

Finally, an apartment I LOVE! I especially love the kitchen cabinets and the kitchen floor.

Really like the kitchen and the bedroom. Where did you get the bedside lamps? And where did you get the couch in the living room? I dream of a leather couch but most seem too big or too "manly" or something. I like the look of yours. Cool place.

i really love your kitchen! warm and modern and clean... yum. the bedroom is sweet too. The living room is a bit scattered, though. (what's the bob thing?) i do like the idea of the matching matting on the photos, but the colors seem a bit jumbled. the dining area, also, seems a bit undercooked. i guess it's just the bare walls that give that impression. but maybe a nice runner or something too? anyhow, i think you've got a really nice apartment, and you both have been through a lot with it! it's important to take your time with these things, and i think your work has really paid off!

Seriously -- that kitchen is great. It's very modern, and yet somehow very human. The stain on the cabinets is to be lived for.

There's very little in the whole place that I would change, except maybe add something else to the wall in the dining area. The colors in the whole place make me smile, and although in person, the cat would make sneeze, in the picture it's beautiful.

Lovely apartment - the kitchen is fantastic - everything looks so calm and serene, yet totally welcoming.

I too own (excuse me, the cat owns me)a cat who sunbathes in the living room window and agree that your cat adds to the overall effect of the apartment.

I can't stop fixating on the "Hi Bob!" now. I figure it has to be a reference to The Bob Newhart Show, possibly to the drinking game. (Simple rules... whenever anybody on the show says "Hi, Bob!", everybody calls out "HI BOB!" and takes a very generous drink of their beer.)

Or am I regressing?

I agree, this is finally an apartment I love. The living room chairs & rug, the paint colors, the Mccoy jardinierre (sp?), the cat, the lamps in the bedroom, the Mission style furniture are all very nice. Not crazy about the photos on the living room wall. It is on the whole very serene, the way the light compliments the colors.

Where did you find those great throw cushions? (on couch)

The first picture in the slideshow isn't a good indication of the loveliness of this little place. LOVE it. Great job.

I do tend to give extra points for pets (all of them are cute, really) because it does add to the sense that someone actually lives there. A house is definitely made more of a "home" with an animal running around; a little cat hair (or dog hair, or chinchilla hair) here and there adds distinction!

1. "We've done all the cosmetic work ourselves (including mixing our own kitchen stain, applying it and three coats of poly, painting, and design)". AWESOME.

2. Your apartment is pretty! I love the use of color. I said "oooh" aloud when I saw the wall with the cluster of framed art.

3. Where'd you "learn" how and where to hang stuff on the walls? I think my place could use some, but I'm scared to hang it wrong. Please share.

Nice place.

I love the round dining table! What's the diameter? Is it vintage? I would love to find one like it.

i really like all your paint colors.
can you please share the kind of wood and stain on your handsome kitchen cabinets?

Greetings from Sharon! Thanks for all your incredibly lovely comments! Here are some answers to your various questions-
Re Hi Bob - Doug got it! My hubby got it at work as a promotional item for the release of the first season of Bob Newhart on DVD. It's also special to us because one of our very best friends is named Bob and we sorta greet him in that "Hi Bob!" tone of voice from the show. I also love it because I love a touch of humor in a room.
JonathanD and EBrown - The apartment is laid out thusly - you enter next to the dining nook and as you move forward the kitchen is on the left, the tiger oak dresser with the paiting over it is on the right just past the dining nook and the livingroom with window is straight ahead. Turn left just past the kitchen and enter the hall with the bath to your right and the bedroom straight ahead, windows on the right once you enter.
Miya and Christina - The bedroom paint is Martha Stewart Everyday "Climbing Rose" remixed in Benjamin Moore paint and the livingroom behind the couch is Martha Steward Everyday "Honey Dew" mixed in Ben Moore. The living room color is much more green than the bedroom, but doesn't really show in the pix.
Miya - The kitchen before was a galley closed off on three sides by walls, like a cave.
Anna and Todd - The bedside tables are vintage from a shop in Hudson, NY.
Russ - Another writer nailed the "phallic thing" as you call it. It's a McCoy pedastal vase.
Peter Davidson - We have a smallish coat closet next to the front door and three-fourths of wall of closets in the bedroom. That said, when I moved into Matt's space, my stuff was piled in the living room to the CEILING. The result in the photos is from YEARS of careful editing. I work very hard at it CONSTANTLY. Plus, our building offers a little space in the basement which we use for sporting equipment, Christmas decorations, etc.
Fiona - Keep working on your hubby about the cowhide rug. Matt's doesn't eat red meat, but came around to the idea that it is an ode to the American West.
Paul - The kitty pix was NOT staged, honest. She just happened to be there when I got to that area and I didn't want to disturb her.
Michele - The lamps are vintage from Home Anthology in Oella, MD. They have a Web site.
Seema and Curtis - I'm still waivering about something to add to the dining nook to warm it up. Suggestions?
Miranda - The photos in the livingroom aren't for everyone, but they are very special to us. They are all of family - us at our wedding, our great-grandparents, us as children, and one of me taken by a dear friend and Pulitzer-Prize winner who recently passed away.
Ellen - The cushions are Jonathan Adler. He has a shop in Soho.
Karen - I admit to being an old Martha Stewart addict. I learned to hang photos from one of the magazine articles that urged making paper cut-outs of the size of the pix, then taping them on the wall before you nail holes. It took a whole day but was worth it!
Maria - The table is 42 inches and vintage. Not terribly hard to find if you keep looking.
Orangered-I mixed the stain myself. It's three parts Minwax "Provicial" to one part "Oak" with three coats of Benwood Interior Wood Finishes poly in low lustre.
Whew! I hope I got everybody!
Sharon

P.S. Orangered - The cabinets themselves are red oak.

man oh man I LOVE your kitchen. fantastic job!! and I love the greens in your bedroom, though I wouldn't live with a green bedroom myself, you've made it really work. and I love the altars. so nice and simple. and the beautiful cat. so smart to find the perfect cozy nook.

as for your dining area... love it... maybe you'd like to warm it with color or with more on the walls? you're great at both!

I agree with a writer above... all these different apt photos make me think "how often does the housekeeper come? where did it all the stuff go?" but it makes sense that people are going to clean up and put their best online for all of us to see.

great job! enjoy your gorgeous home and wonderful marriage.

Not crazy about the place. I'm not a fan of art deco modern--I see pictures of stuff like this and I automatically think that the place must reek of cigarette smoke, no idea why, but that's the indelible association.

Too much brown, cow hide rug is hideous, that leather couch is ugly, too dark and too small for the space (although it's hard to get a sense of the space from the photos, which is a common thing for the entries, no biggie). Plastic chairs the color of a MacDonald's...omg. The pictures arranged with a sort of asymmetry above the sofa--kind of a weird idea. Kitchen has that too-dark color motif as well. You did a great job on the kitchen, it shows a lot of skill and time, but the end result is kind of lodge-ish.

Bedroom is icky, too. Hate the linens, the lamp, everything. More dark wood on the headboard! Sorry, I'm in the minority here, but your apartment, while original, isn't all that lovely. You have all those high walls in the dining area with nothing on 'em, not even paint, to show any personality, and that table, again with the dark wood.

Julia- To parrot Patrick (the other one) to Jim I believe you mean M-c-D-o-n-a-l-d's. 'Nuff said.

"'Nuff said" about what, exactly?

Excellent flat. Individualistic and quirky. Great use of color, space and light. Not very consistent design, but still nice.

"'Nuff said" means I could take time disputing a post that includes the words hideous, ugly, weird, icky and hate with respect to my home, but why would I?

Sharon -

In the dining room -- for the wall on the left, you could put a craftsman style what-not shelf, unless you're afraid it could look and/or become too cluttered. Home decorators has a "single three-shelf" one on their website and an in their catalog. It's hard to tell in the picture whether it has the right "line weight" to live with the table and chairs, but if you measure, etc., you'll be able to figure it out.

If the scale of that seems too small for you, though, you might move the cat picture to that left wall, and then where it currently is, you could actually attach flat against the right-hand edge of that wall on the right, one side of a folding screen, so that when it's folded up against the wall it just makes a nice composition, but when you sit down to eat you could fold it out, so you're not so aware of the door behind you.

There might be others out there, but that same company has one in a craftsman style, which is a darkk wood. Or, if you felt the need for more lightness, you could either get one of their shoji screens, which has "panes" that are more of a craftsman proportion than usual. Crate and Barrel also has something nice with actual ribbed glass panes in it, but the shape of those panes might not be elongated enough.

If you think about those possibilities, your mind might leap to something else that might work even better for you visually or viscerally, wrought of some completely different style that merely echoes those elements accidentally.

And I'd say a color on the wall would be good intead of the white -- either a muted mustard, slightly-peachy beige, or a slightly olive-like sage. OR... if you're brave, "wallpaper" it with vertical, rectangular regular-proporationed, irregular sized strips of brown craft paper soaked in a solution of latex-based clear glaze mixed with one of the above colors. In fact, perhaps the color they get soaked in should be the same, or on the same chip, as whatever color is in the adjacent space, so the only difference is the color of the brown craft paper showing through.

I must reiterate that my need to see that piece of space fleshed out only sticks out in my mind because of how complete and well-done the rest of the place looks.

Curtis, what an interesting idea. I can't quite envision the strips of paper, but it sounds like it could be really cool if done correctly. Sharon, I agree that the only area that is at all lacking in this apartment is the dining room, just because the walls are a little bare. Otherwise, I truly think this is a stunning apartment--very welcoming and a cheery. It's a real home.

Julia--

You are DEFINITELY in the "minority here", since the MAJORITY of posters on AT use diplomacy, tact, constructive criticism, wit and imagination.

Curtis- I'm really interested in your suggestions and will definitely check them out. I've long been stuck on the dining nook, having tried various pieces of art there. We even put up (and took down) wainscoting at one point. (That was back when the shabby-chic me was fighting the totally post-war lines of our place.) I know it's the weakest link now, so am very appreciative of your positive ideas!

Patrick (the other one)- I love you. And your place. I voted it a super-cool and now you get a super, SUPER cool for bolstering my spirits!

That wall covering of birch trees--I think design sponge posted about it recently--might look nice in your dining nook.

Sharon--
AH! My evil plan is working!! ;)

Lovely, warm, engaging. What a marvelous, balanced and fun feel. The kitchen is amazing for such a small space - it totally combines excellent, exciting design with mood and pragmatic style. The apartment radiates freshness. It's also relaxed, clean and hints that the occupants not only have an intellect, but a wonderful sense of humor and great creativity. Congrats to a fab abode.

There is probably some how-to thing somewhere on the HGTV website about that brown craft paper treatment, because I'm pretty sure that I've seen it on one of their shows, but the way they tend to do it, they tend to have you tear the paper into random shapes, using the clean edge only at the edges of the walls. If you did use my suggestion, you might want to borrow a paper cutter, so the lines will be straight enough to really echo your dining chairs. And of course, you might want to use a level when you put them up.

By the way, AT has easily become my favorite website on the web. It's kind of like a updated version of a barn-raising, with neighbors helping each other improve their homes. OK, that may be taking it a little far, but still it's VERY fun.

I'm sorry that I upset you, Sharon. I just don't like what's been done with your apartment, and I tend to be brutally honest about things, which is why people never ask my opinion about stuff. ;)

Okay, no more icky, bad, hideous or ugly. I'll distill it into one idea--while your space shows a lot of work and personality, it doesn't have a lot of honesty about it. It seems a bit put-on.

But what do I know? I'm sorry, I won't upset people again.

an extremely honest, open and welcoming home, obviously designed by a couple who understand great design and above all what it takes to make you feel a part of their environment. i'd love to see more and from what i see, i'd love to meet matt and sharon. you guys truly rock and your apartment is utterly fierce. i hope you win!!!!!! the sugar shack rules!!!!

Julia - The funny thing about that comment is the totally personal nature of the possessions in our apartment. The bed and lamps were bought for us by Matt's mother. The screen above the bed my father bought at the antiques market when he lived in Taipei. The Buddha is wooden and Matt bought it for me for our fourth anniversary, which is represented by wood. The dresser was found covered in paint by my father when I was six years old. He bought it for $25 and stripped it and refinished it himself and it has been with me ever since. The photos framed above the couch are all family. The purple vase was bought by my grandmother in Paris in the 50's. The cat poster was a gift from me to Matt because our second cat, his baby, is black. The reason our apartment is so eclectic is precisely because there are so many things, in addition to those we have purchased together, that are so old in our families that I can't stand to part with them even if they don't "go" with everything else. I don't know how someone could interpret them as "dishonest" when they are so very sentimental. Everything we have is either loved or useful. I try to put together those pieces in snippets that make sense. I'm sorry that seems staged to you. To me, they are beautiful and warm.

You go, girl. You're the best!

YOU go, Mom! Very sweet!

I have to chime in and say I couldn't disagree more with Julia's assessment -- rather than looking like a forced tableau like many others do, this place strikes a nice balance between personal possessions and good design sense. Then again, I'm a huge McCoy and cat fan, so I might not be totally objective!

The only thing I'd quibble with is the photo arrangement over the couch -- I agree it's a clever idea, but something about it strikes me as off-kilter and I couldn't tell if that was on purpose. I'd be wanting to reach over and compulsively straighten them all the time. Maybe they need a tad more spacing between each frame? Also, I agree with the idea of shelving in the dining room -- ideally, something spare and clean with a couple treasures artfully placed. Another McCoy, maybe! Nice job.

Sharon,
You do have a super cool apartment but mostly, I think it is super sweet.....in a good way. You can see that two beautiful loving people live in that home. I am impressed that you did the work yourselves too. While I can design the hell out of things, I don't attempt to realize my vision with my own two hands. It would be a hugely frustrating disappointment.
Thanks for the vote.
robert

I really don't see the cat. where is it?

Hi Matt & Sharon -
Love your kitchen. I would like to talk to you about the fridge. (sorry if this is a re-post, I'm new to the site)
Thanks,
jslotnik@msn.com