apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Clockwise from upper left: sales at Visionary Boutique, Room 4, AlwaysMod, and Russell & MacKenna

Here are all the sales across the country that are fit to print - painstakingly collected by our editorial team of over 70 bloggers across the country. This is only place on the web where they are all in one place. You can also get this delivered to you via email each Friday (see subscription box on upper left)...

During hot seasons around the world, it has long been a tradition that people would travel or decamp to whatever cooler places they could find, whether it was the mountains, the lakes or the sea. The types of homes they would devise for themselves were often of the simplest kinds, meant only for a those warm summer weeks or months that they could get away.

In addition to the coolness this allowed, there was also the enjoyment of a simpler life in these temporary homes and it was often felt that the simplicity and closeness to nature was enriching in itself. This simpler life balanced the complicated, machine oriented life of the cities and was an opportunity to refresh family and community. Why do you escape?

For this week's look into the House Beautiful archives results we've pulled a diverse collection of pics from a flipbook called "Rooms we Love." Each one above is from a slide show below the jump, and we've even pulled out a few good links that stand out in the pics....

Item: 2 Michael Jackson Albums: Thriller & Off The Wall
Value: Priceless

As I continue to clean house and let go of my record collection (in true Cure fashion!), I had to dig into my MJ this week and part with these two legendary albums. Since they're just gathering dust, I want to give them to folks who will actually play them and dance. I'm giving a piece of the collection each week. If you're interested, jump below...

I discovered these during a house tour months ago. It was a Beatles white album, rendered as a pillow with crocheted grooves and perfect embroidery so that you could read the label clearly and see the title of each well remembered song. From that one photo, a reader pointed me to the source, Toggle.co.nz, an online handmade seller out of New Zealand...

To achieve this similar look use Valspar's Ultra Premium Pool Party 5002-10B

Project clock: 31 days of July
Assignment: Paint your own accent wall!

Welcome to our Project of the Month! For the next three months Apartment Therapy is partnering with Valspar to help you transform your home with the help of a little paint. This month's project is all about making one wall of your home completely pop with color. We challenge you to be brave. Break out from the beige-on-beige. By joining in this project with us, you'll automatically be entered to win a $500 gift card from Lowe's. Winners will be selected at random, so all you need to do is sign up!

Jump below for instructions, submission form and color ideas...

In the past year, my top outdoor lighting picks have changed a little, but the number of really good posts from our writers documenting all sorts of solutions has stacked up. Among them is my top pick for this year, a How To from Laure that Sara Kate and I just copied over the weekend...

Me at the outdoor oven managing the fire and getting ready to cook up the pizzas.
 

While in Italy over the past two weeks we did a ton of cooking, a lot of it on a grill, and some of it in a big outdoor oven. Today to celebrate the end of Outdoor Month (Travel is next), I want to highlight three outdoor cooking designs: a very special outdoor oven and the little grill that I saw while staying for a week at a 17th century farmhouse in Chianti, as well as the grill in the USA that I crave (no gas, just real fire). Enjoy!

Here are all the sales across the country that are fit to print - painstakingly collected by our editorial team of over 70 bloggers across the country. This is only place on the web where they are all in one place. Lots of savings below the jump....

Sara Kate likes blue. I like red. If you're a design head like me, and you love to garden or simply be in one with someone else gardening, you will eventually find the plain old American green garden hose cheap and oppressive. It was originally during a trip to Europe that I discovered higher quality red, black and brown hoses, which all seemed very stylish at the time and somewhat more fitting than the green ones. But the grass is always greener....

For this week's look into the House Beautiful archives results we've pulled a diverse collection of beachy, summery home pics. Each one above is from a slide show below the jump, and we've even pulled out a few good links that stand out in the pics....

Item: 13 Elvis Costello Albums from 1977-89
Value: Priceless

This week I've finally decided to clean house and let go of my record collection (in true Cure fashion!). Dating primarily back to the 80's and early 90's, this was a prized collection and a soundtrack to my young adult life. Since it's just gathering dust, I want to give it to folks who will actually play these records. The full collection has hundreds of albums (pic below), but I'm going to give it away in pieces to interested parties. Today the king: Elvis Costello....

Grabbing lunch in this restaurant on Lafayette street, Soho Park, we loved the decor which made reference to the fact that it used to be a parking garage/mechanic shop...

I've used composters inside and outside my house for many years, starting with a wooden one that I built myself and kept under the sink with red wriggler worms (vermicomposting). It was an experiment that surprised me with how quickly and efficiently the worms broke down all my food cuttings into "black gold" without any smell or much work. Now Sara Kate and I compost on a pretty big scale in three places: the city, the country and in the country garden, and it not only cuts down on our garbage output, but it also feeds our gardens and planters with nutritious compost that makes everything grow sky high...