apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Wow! Everyone has been doing great this week. J-fer Rose, nice job on the hardware. And Wig3000, kudos to you for doing that nasty fridge coil job...yuck. But I am sure you fridge is thanking you for it!

My normal frantic pace has been slowed down by chest cold. I rebounded on Thursday and completed my second pair of curtains. whew. Today I am going to paint the moulding around the bedroom window and hopefully get my dear husband to install the rod.

Holly in DC I agree about the 80/20 color rule. I am trying really hard to stick to it. My accent wall is so strong as well as the color and graphic on the curtains. I am may go over it as well.

What can I put on a green wall with that Fredrika fabric right next to it? Something white? I'll post other choices on my flickr site. A white Kenneth Wingard wall art or a Cameroon Tyn (Juju) feather headress? The Juju hat is $$. So I may have to add that later. Or just photos in white frames?

Got to paint now...see everyone Sunday for updates and more pix!!

http://flickr.com/photos/jjburke/sets/72157604069588155/

Well, it's happened again. I started out briskly and smartly, and now I'm in the old vortex of chaos! Everywhere I turn, there are projects under way, things to be moved, and--unbelievably--yet more stuff to heave out!

I love each and every project I'm working on---but the impulsive wandering from one to another, not so much.

----big sigh---

aulaire
i am in the chicago cure and understand what you are talking about, i for the first time during the cure am feeling overwhelmed, i still have my energy level and excitement, but what to do first and next and then......good luck

Well, it's a good thing throwing away stuff is this week's cure because I'm sooo ready. After Easter celebrations, I wasn't able to tackle the kitchen (other than cooking something I LOVE of course) so here I go for this week. I've also decided to make a last minute dash effort at the bathroom before bathroom month rolls on out...
Wish me luck!
Good luck everyone and happy away throwings! 'Before and After' pics tomorrow.

JonathanB, it looks like you and I share the same aesthetic. I'm having a hard time not having my surfaces and what's lined along the floor look cluttered with the exotica. any tips?

Nice door hardware, J-fer Rose!

I look forward to seeing your style tray, jen64! And, indeed, our fridge is thanking me by running more quietly. It's a subtle difference, but I can hear it.

that is, if you're there - JB. :-)

I have to admit that March is not the easiest month to begin a Cure. We celebrated my ??th Birthday with a big party at home (my husband outdid himself as host), my two kids have their birthdays, and the in-laws came to visit. So honestly this week is my CURE kick-off.

This week I will tackle the style tray and the kitchen/pantry clean out. Mismatched Tupperware - Be GONE!!!

Thanks for the suggestion, Maxwell--and how to go about implementing it. I was really at a loss--RL "Congo Red" was recommended by one site as a Chinese Red possibility, but if RL markets "Congo Red" in Canada, that's not what it's called here.

Didn't actually do much this week.

I tackled all the cords in the basement and made them neat and tidy (no more being bonked on the head!) and I worked on emptying a four drawer legal filing cabinet.
Tossed over 20 pounds of paper.

Purged more clothing and "honoured" those I kept with a hanging clothes protector. Donating 25 lbs just as soon as I can drive them to a drop off.

About projects?
I'm in the thick of them, too, though not so many as previous cures. I don't really have any advice--just don't take on another 'til one is complete!

Good luck everyone.

jennie (regarding the third-from-bottom pic above), the instant i saw your door i thought of a blue-tinted red. bright, bold and strong against the white paint of your hallway.

what do you all think?

I am slowly but surely making progress on the guest room. I have started painting my bed, but it decided to rain today so that has been stalled...I have cleared out some more outbox items and reorganized the toolbox which was overflowing. I am also thinking about changing the layout but don't plan on moving any furniture until the bed is done. Here is a link to my blog and flickr for progress reports:

http://lilkidthings.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilkidthings/sets/72157603952996189/

Good luck everyone! Keep it up!

Giving and taking can be one and the same here, as with creating software and other creative tasks.

Since the Great Burst Pipe of 2008, I have had to give up completely on the bathroom. While the pipe is fixed, there is a big hole in the ceiling and my super needs to install a new medicine cabinet and repaint. So the bathroom will be last part of my cure.

In the meantime I went through one of my bookcases and purged outdated reference books. Next, I did something I have been wanting to do forever, but never felt like I could give it priority - I labeled all of my back up data CD's with printed labels, put them all in jewel cases and labeled the spines. Then I went back to the bookcase and printed labels for all the bound scripts I had (I majored in theatre). After that I went through my file cabinet and office supplies and sorted everything into the "keep' and "toss" piles.

My outbox keeps growing (I have about 10 medium sized boxes full of stuff sitting by the door), and this week I will begin sorting it into categories - clothing, housewares, electronics - as I get ready to donate and sell it all off.

For those of you in the NYC area, who didn't get the flyer in the mail, follow the link below:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/spring2008events.shtml

I am bugging everyone I know too try to put together at least one box of useless electronics or clothes to donate. Consider yourselves bugged.

Everyone's projects are a great inspiration. I know that even if I don't get through everything on my list, all these little tasks will add up...

Everything is coming along nicely for me. It's hard to find time to get it all done though. I'm most proud of my landing strip & the little $1 daffodil plant I bought that is growing like a weed. I'm so in love with its daily growth that I've started talking to it when I get home.

I'll be doing a major clean-up tomorrow as partying has been my major priority over cleaning. Also buying some Craigslist furniture in the next few days that will really be a huge help for storage.

Pictures & updates to come!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/very_lame/sets/72157604087053481/

I am so sad and feel like I am really going to fall behind. I'm in France for a week for work and last week I was so busy getting ready that I just didn't have time to do anything. Luckily, I think my landing strip is in okay working order, but I'm going to miss next week too!! Sad.

:-( it's gotten to the point where i've just been rearranging things and not tossing that which i don't need or even read or use anymore. rearranging the same shtuff is NOT what i'm supposed to be doing but i'm stuck in a rut that way today. ergh... so hard to let go!

Feeling again the pain of being out of town for yet another weekend. I think my priority next week is to get to work by 8am and leave before 6pm. Then I can hammer away with impunity for a couple of hours when I get home.

I've been inspired by Gregory's(AT LA) post on replacing ugly rental ceiling light shades.

MGR

Thank you for highlighting my new chairs.

Heather Leaf

Yes, I am out there – somewhere – south and east of Union Square to be precise. And thank you for your kind words. The art work you offer on your web site is intriguing.

By the way, I don’t think “cluttered”, I think visual density; I don’t think “exotica”; I think bricolage. Given that more than four dozen different cultures are represented in my place, exotica more realistically could be represented by my old four-square California Mission desk.

For the main room, I started out with a simple floor plan and a loose system of grids or zones for the surfaces. To use the picture Maxwell used above, that’s of the middle zone of a wall with three zones. That approach keeps things more or less in order, though there’s always a certain amount of trial and error in finding the right place for an object or the right object with which to violate the grid.

Hope that helps.

Busy, busy weekend. We took a Zipcar-load of donations to Goodwill and have the Salvation Army coming to pick up our old bed, mattress and boxspring, and some other furniture on Thursday before the new bed arrives.

Then it was off to IKEA. Filing cabinets for the office were the goal, since my new hubby and I moved in together two years ago and still have no system for organizing our papers. As of today, we do. We got them home, got them built, and will start filing tomorrow... hopefully.

Throwing a wrench in the works is a week-long business trip to China, followed by a long weekend in LA with my hubby and his brother. Before I leave on Thursday I still have to do my taxes! Not to mention I just had knee surgery six weeks ago and though I'm apt to be running around like crazy right now, I know I should slow down (and take time to do the home exercises to strengthen my leg). So my progress on the Cure may slow down a bit, but I'm so proud of what we've accomplished so far! Before and after pics of the office will go up tomorrow (hopefully) on Flickr.

Phew, that was long!

i spent the day in the coat closet. instead of spinning in circles, i pulled out on thing sorted it into the trash, then the next thing till it was empty. washed the walls, shelves and floor; moved the lowest shelf to the highest in preparation for installing a bar; pulled out a ton of tiny hooks and a big crooked nail.

turns out my plans to move coats in here isn't to practical. it occurred to me that the ironing board, laundry cart and step ladder should all go in here instead. so no more room. but i did get some iron hooks ($2) at Pier 1 to add for all my handbaggage - just need larger nails.

the trash that came out of the closet went to the basement. mostly old sheets i was saving to use as drop cloths, a sleeping bag and sarah mclachlan/lilith fair posters.

Lady J, maybe the old sheets can be donated to your local animal shelter as bedding for the little ones. maybe the sleeping bag too (for the bigger pens).

I really splurged on flowers this week and bought enough to fill four vases!

It's been a busy week at my house.

I bought a hanging organizer for all the gift wrap that has been hanging out in the back of the closet forever. So the gift wrap is now all organized and lovely.

I cleaned out our medicine/linen cabinet in the hallway, purging expired medicines, getting rid of old yucky candles, and old beach towels that we no longer use.

I've also put all my old magazines in the outbox. I'll go through them over the course of the week and pull out any articles/pictures that I want to keep then recycle the magazines.

I also started painting our bedroom. The old turquoise color was just too much contrast in that room and it made me feel jittery instead of relaxed. I'll finish painting next week.

I'll post more pics soon.

Thanks for posting my photo!

This week got off to a slow start, but I got a lot accomplished this weekend (projects, de-cluttering, coaxing light into my apartment) and managed to take photos!

DONE:
- Vacuumed, dusted & swept
- Cleaned & organized all my landing strip areas. This included lining the inside of my Ikea wardrobe plastic doors with a pretty paper I found a PaperSource.
- Ordered the ceiling fan for the bedroom (a friend will help install in a week or two).
- Cooked a few meals (I do this fairly regularly, anyway. I love collecting pretty kitchen stuff- and using it.
- Re-matted print in bedroom and hung another print above the doorway.
- Planted my windowbox garden! I've planted spearmint, pineapple mint and White Nemesia in pots on my north-facing, part-shade windowsill. They're all meant for shady spots, so hopefully they thrive & give us a summer full of mojitos & iced tea.
- Bought some new wastebaskets.
- Donated old towels to the Adams Morgan Animal Hospital.
- Put a skirt around the bathroom sink. Not sure how I feel about it yet...
- Put sample window film up in the bathroom. I like the round Orba pattern a lot - but the price point is a bit steep ($76 a roll!). I LOVE all the light that resulted from getting rid of the miniblinds.
- Emptied out & added again to the outbox.

TO DO (so far):
- Hang ceiling fan (when it gets here).
- Empty outbox (which means parting responsibly with that pretty chair).
- Re-mat bathroom photos.
- Line the nightstand with fabric (i'm wondering if paper would be way easier. and there are so many pretty options at PaperSource. hmmm)
- Sew cover for Hi-Fi.
- Buy window film (?)

Whew! View pics of all my projects and a four-walls approach to the main room of my apartment here:
http://flickr.com/photos/68987525@N00/sets/72157604318239539/

a while ago i had the bright notion that it was okay to store 'dry clean only' clothes in a couple of trash bags and leave them on your closet shelf. and eventually forget about them or procrastinate on getting them cleaned until the money was some day saved up.

gah! nooo! i took everything out and neatly folded them into my laundry bag in preparation for when i go next to the laundromat to have them dry cleaned. word to the wise: storing semi-dirty 'dry clean only' clothes in air tight garbage bags only allows odor to dance and play in there. yeeeeeeeeeeeh, that was not the most enjoyable half hour of my life. but i feel it was worth it as part of my clean and preen weekend. :-)

thanks for the response, JonathonB!

HollyinDC, i love your ikea wardrobes. i've always fancied getting one for my hallway. now that i see how they look in a home, i think i will! :-) i bet it felt great when you finished screwing in that hook on its side. i did the same to my hallway's bookcase and the difference is amazing. makes it so much easier to just slip a scarf or umbrella onto it.

but what i really love is your chandelier print. it looks sooo good there. now you have a chandelier without having to bother with any hardware!

and kudos to you for donating your towels to the animal shelter. first time i saw the suggestion on AT, i knew i had to follow suit (and shall when i bring my Roger cat to the vet next saturday for his check-up). :-D

This has been a very productive weekend. I did the basics dusted, vacuumed,took out the trash and recycled my NP's.

My landing strip did not need too much work, since I did the landing strip last Spring. The main projects were to clean two of my hall closets. I weeded both closets and organized every shelf. I tossed a lot and contributed to my outbox.

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.

I have posed some new pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lffrank/sets/72157604213436452/

The painting is done -- hooray!!!! I was thrilled to have my couch back. Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome, although still a little skeptical about the lime green bathroom. It's certainly lively! Finally -- my home is now filled with color. The pale brown in the entryway and living room warms the place up so much and the green in my room is just what I wanted. Still very much in love with my last minute choice to paint the kitchen walls red.

The apartment has been cleaned and I am slowly and steadily working on little home improvement projects for this week's cure. I'm going out of order, but very happy with my progress so far. Since the painting has finished, I've built myself a landing strip on the inside of the front door, bought some flowers, hung up hooks in the bathroom, changed knobs on the bathroom cabinet to match the hooks, the shelf and the towel bar (not up yet). I bought a new shower caddy, some mini organizers for the medicine cabinet, a shelf for my pantry, a sliding drawer for under the sink, and I made an attempt to manage the cord monster behind the desk. Here are the pictures. Finished off the weekend by cooking a nice pasta with seared scallops, peas, and truffle butter. Now, off to pass out.

Started the deep clean of the kitchen, which was accelerated by the fact that our fridge broke last week. This meant cleaning out the old one and tossing lots of food we couldn't salvage/eat in time, cleaning area where old fridge was, ordering and getting new fridge, and inviting friends over to help us stock said fridge, which was done by candlelight in honor of Earth Hour.

Oh, I also redid my compost and started lots of seeds for my garden in Vermont.

The greatest need we have for a landing strip is a shoe rack. Anyone have any good suggestions?

Alana, if your list is a demonstration of not doing much, I cordially invite you here to not do much. You will be well-fed and pampered, while I actually get something done at last!

added week 2 kitchen photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyjp23/2376623483/in/set-72157604155734923/

Created a landing strip by adding hooks for my coat, purse and scarf as well as added a decorative plate for keys, change and phone. this is going to work out well!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyjp23/2377461838/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyjp23/2376623547/in/set-72157604155734923/

started to organize hallway bookshelves by purchasing storage boxes and magazine holders, and color organizing my books. i cant belive how much crap i had on here that i didnt need!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyjp23/2377461714/in/set-72157604155734923/

injecting more color by adding purple to contrast the yellow chairs.

and im still looking for a nice greige paint for the walls.

any suggestions?

LadyJ--about time you got rid of Lilth Fair posters! Wow ... that's a throwback. I'm just teasing you, though.

I've been moving slowly through the Cure, as my work schedule has been extremely hectic and I'm also in rehearsals every day for an upcoming dance concert. However, I'm researching people to refinish our stairs (they were stripped of carpet and never finished), thinking about color (picked out some fabric to make slipcovers for the two new ottomans yesterday) and cleaning. Hopefully more cleaning tonight!

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.

I think I'm delirious from lack of sleep (hence the sarcasm, sorry); We had industrial sized dehumidifiers, air scrubbers and floor fans running in our place all night. So, yeah, our place got flooded...but at least it didn't burn.

The downstairs needs some serious cleaning (our floor is dry now, but sticky..ugh) and our place smells like smoke and burnt plastic still, but nothing was destroyed except a few rugs that I'll be submitting a claim for (yay for renter's insurance!)

And amazingly, our bedroom upstairs (the one i'm doing my one-room cure on) is completely UNharmed!

Thank goodness for not-so-small miracles. :)

On the cure note..I've made a list of things to buy. And I've decided to go with a solid grey fabric for the chair (an upholstery weight) and make a pillow of the amy butler fabric I was considering. This will solve my worry about it being the wrong weight and will help keep my room from having competing warm and cool tones. I'll be updating my blog and flickr with the latest today.

oh my goodness, what a calamity. I'm really gald the firemen were able to contatin it! I can't imagine living with the smell, though--have you somewhere to go?

Au--thank you. I'd love to come for a visit and be fed.

I'd be happy to earn my keep though, and wipe up paint spills and tidy along behind you as you go. I love creativity and the group cyber-energy. Keeps me going.

sidetiles: Oh, my. I wish there were something I could say or do that would make everything right. At least you're keeping a sense humor about it.

Initially I was having difficulty keeping myself focused and had the tendency to jump around from one project to another. This weekend I feel like I finally got a few things accomplished.
The kitchen countertop is in (woohoo) and so that means finally have a sink again. A shiny new sink at that along with a brand new faucet. There's plenty of details in the kitchen that need to be addressed but we will continue to chip away at them while we work on other projects at home. Also did some major clearing out of the pantry and the fridge, boy does that feel good.
The landing strip is coming along though not as far along as I would like to be. My intention is to purchase a small piece of furniture for that spot but haven't found anything yet that will suit our needs. So for now I was able to hang some hooks in the closet for scarves, umbrellas, etc; put a basket out to be the catchall for mail (this will be replaced soon) and dispose of boxes that were accumulating in the outbox.
I've moved passed the outbox and have no problem gathering up things and bringing them directly down to the trash.

Thanks for the kind words..
Alana, we've been offered several places to stay from our friends, but so far we've needed to be there to let the restoration crew into our place. I've been told we may need to have the dehumidifier running for a few days, in which case we may need to take our friend's offer...our "sleep" last night really wasn't very restful (with 3 huge machines running all night long).
They're using an "air scrubber" to get out the smell--I'm hoping it'll be completely gone soon. In the meantime, I'm laundering everything I can.

sidstiles you seem to have an uncanny ability to see the bright side of the situation

Vertigo, it's easy when you think of the alternative...all our stuff could be bits of charcoal at this point. I'm also operating on about 3 hours of inconsistent sleep and i started drinking wine about 3 hours into the clean up...that may have something to do with it. :)

plus, a tornado came through our city two weekends ago and a large amount of damage was done very close by, but we were spared...I'm starting to wonder if I'm being told to move out of Georgia.

This was our big project of the week. I have until the end of the week to finish that room as it's being photographed. All the big stuff is done now, just have to get it all organised.

We also had a great week for purging stuff. We moved in here with three big bookshelves from Ikea as our last place had no storage built in. Our new flat has a few different built in bookshelves plus big hall closets, so we've been working our way out of the house of Ikea (we can't help it -- our last place was literally across the street from Ikea. Our flat and every other flat in our building resembled a hack job of their catalogue). Anyway, we listed one of the three shelves on Freecycle and found a new home for that as well as a stack of magazines as tall as me. The second bookshelf is to the half-empty stage, so now I'm looking for a sideboard that would offer enough space to hold a few things on there that are definitely not going near the outbox but don't need an entire wall shelf.

The other big decision for this week is a result of my landing strip accident. (I messed up a perfectly acceptable landing strip by hanging a picture in a piece of dry plaster...after the picture was up for a few minutes it cracked and marked the wall, quel saga.) So right now it is primed and we could a) repaint it the same colour as all the other walls b) repaint it a different colour or c) cover it in something likethis. It's only a small wall, I might be persuaded for paper. Still thinking. :)

I was hoping to have pictures up with my second set of curtains hung. But...I forgot to order the curtain rings! That will have to be part of this week's homework. We did remove all of the carpet and now have shiny (yellow!) oak floors.

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.

My husband did some finish work on our backsplash, and installed new outlets and covers. Whew. Now at least the kitchen is up to code.

jen

http://flickr.com/photos/jjburke/sets/72157604069588155/

Since I forgot to post my progress and pictures for last week I'm going to squeeze this in here!

Boyfriend suggested we re-do our entertainment center on Saturday and I wasn't about to say no to that!!! It took us about 2 hours but we got rid of a bunch of wires that we no longer needed, tidied everything up and got it off the floor, and last but not least the PS3 now lives inside the unit. woohoo!
Photo detailing progress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suziegoombs/2375375454/in/set-72157604069466780/
Also, it totally makes tv/movie-watching better. And my OCDness has subsided now that the TV is centered on the unit.

On Sunday I tackled the Landing Strip.
Photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suziegoombs/2375453670/in/set-72157604069466780/
I'm really happy with is right now and boyfriend and I have both vowed to really try to use it correctly (i.e. put things in the right spot as soon as we get home). I also went through some stuff in our hall closet too and added a bit to the outbox. I still need a better box for scarves but I'm hoping to get that at Ikea soon.

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?

A little late but here are my week 3 flowers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsamio/2388839542/