apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This is me. I used to rearrange my room every Saturday morning while my parents were still sleeping. My husband jokes constantly about my rearranging (but stops laughing when he has to rehang pictures and rewire our computer set up and media center). Unfortunately, I feel I've hit on the perfect set up for both our living room and bedroom, so only my son's room is left...

when i was little, i'd rearrange stuff all the time (er, still do)
once, my mom came home from work and the whole apartment was backasswards... (i thought it was WAY better flow, yo!)

a ten year old kid moving a giant entertainment center? yes, it is possible! i swear it. my mom got sooo friggin' mad at me! made me move it all back. ugh.

to this day, i LOVE rearranging - my bedroom in particular, since that's MY space, not communal or whatnot. i do it every few months. this last rearrange was perfection - got rid of the desk, made more move-around room, moved my dresser near my closet for a little "dressing area" space, brought in a bookcase for my knickknacks and made it all cutesy ootsey, repositioned the bed to get the best air-on-me during the summer, etc etc.

i really love it. actually, reorganizing in general is totally awesome. i get the biggest feeling of satisfaction from organizing or rearranging things. it's not quite OCD, but shoot...it's gettin' there! i just like my THINGS to be efficient, since i'm certainly NOT.

This is one of my favorite things to do. Working with what you have is not only green but it also SAVES you money!

something i decided to do one rainy afternoon:

if you have a large collection of books and you need to spruce up your living room--try to arrange your books monochromatically--meaning put book that are the same color together. i also put some extra books at odd places around my cottage...under the telephone, leaning against a lamp. it gived a really lived in feel..

you can also do this if you have shelves in your bathroom. i had a friend put all her blue book (about 6 of them) in her chocolate brown bathroom. she bought a new blue rug to match and poof! a new look to a tired bathroom

That's funny.
I grew up in a home where furniture was only rearranged when a new piece entered the house. the goal of rearranging is to find the best arrangement and best flow.

My sister in law rearranges all the freaking time and it drives me batty! Sheesh. Find the best place for it and leave it there!
I guess if she ever improved the situation it wouldn't bug me - but that's not the case.

When I can't sleep or go back to sleep, I mentally rearrange the furniture in the homes of friends and relatives. Anyone else do this?

Everything coming into my house has wheels on it now, just so I can rearrange. the house is so small that I move things around depending upon what I need to do. It's wonderful but my friends think I'm a dork.

Careen, I do that when I'm staying in the room or visiting them and bored or can't sleep (or when I'm going to the bathroom, I'll redecorate it)...totally understand!

Your mom wears leather pants.

careen! i do!

even when it has naught to do with sleep.

i also like to draw arbitrarily sized squares and figure out how best to arrange furniture in them. whatev. leave me alone.

Careen, me too! Recently I was cat sitting for friends and was so bothered by their bedroom/den that I drew up a furniture plan. They were totally wasting useable space. At first I was reluctant to give my suggestions fearing that they would be insulted. I finally did show them the plan one night. They called me a few days later, said that they rearranged using my plan, and love it!

Careen: me too! I only do it when I cannot get to sleep. Have been doing it for more than 25 years now, and it really works for me (much better than taking sleeping pills!)

I rearrange in my head too. Well, I do it for a living in other people's homes but I can't help but see the mistakes when I go to other homes and especially hotels. I don't know who designs some of these hotel rooms but they're terrible.

Another fun way to give new life to your space is to trade pieces with a friend who has similar tastes. It costs no money and consumes no new resources... my friend Andy and I have traded chairs, rugs and inexpensive collectibles.

Books stored in a bathroom? D: I can't think it'll do them any good, even if it looks pretty.

I love to rearrange stuff. Sadly the lack of power outlets in this house is really limiting, because I really don't want to have more wire exposed than necessary! Roll on wireless power :D

Of course, another factor that limits the ability to rearrange is that I'm still living at home with Mum, and well it's all hers except for my bedroom, where the layout is limited by needing power and a network point for my PC and printer, and the placing of a rather long radiator under the window (which is as wide as the room - lovely for light except that due to the power point situation, it gets on my monitor!)

Careen: I do that too! :) Very relaxing.

Careen, I don't really rearrange the furniture, I replace it. I think, what would I do if that were my house? Guess I'm not alone judging from the comments here.

I have 5 siblings and we used to rearrange our bedrooms all the time. It would cause quite a jam up in the narrow hallway that led back to the bedrooms. I loved it when I would get it looking just right, only to realize I still had 1/3 of my junk to find a place for. (It also reminds me of watching black and white movies - especially Charlie Chan and all those WW2 flicks.)

For all you furniture re-arrangers - i suggest a great HGTV show - Freestyle. The idea is to re-decorate 3 rooms without spending any money - just rearranging furniture and using things the owner already has. For me, that show (and, for some reason Curb Appeal) is a cheap and harmless addiction.

When I had my first child, my husband couldn't stand the tiny, ill-designed hospital room and rearranged it that night. When my doctor came in the next morning, he wondered aloud why the room seemed larger.

I had a set of twin beds as a child that could be configured as bunk beds or a trundle set and I'd change them up every six months or so-loved it! Now I change whole rooms-I just turned my guest room into our living room and let the old room go back to being a dining room.

I love the Arrange-a-Room!

I redecorate and reorganize other people's rooms (in my head) all the time. Although I do move my own furniture from time to time, particularly if there's a new piece, what I do much more is buy paintings or prints and then rehang everything, with things cycling in and out of storage. And my little collections and interesting objects move in and out of view as well.

Does anyone else have a friend who sees something you've done and then copies it? I have one who is also very generous to me with her time and technical advice (if you need advice on how something works and how to get it for less, she's the one; not so good on color or quirky combinations) so I can't complain (too much) but I do see my Great Thoughts being knocked off a lot... reactions?

I love Freestyle! You must have noticed that the FIRST thing they do is get everything out of the room, and NOT everything comes back in. Getting rid of the clutter is at least 50% of the task as far as I can tell. I've taken heed from this because they do it in Freestyle, Design on a Dime, you name the show--they get all that crap out of the way. I have less and less furniture but my house looks better and better because now it's quality--things that are truly useful and attractive--rather than quantity!

Deborah,

I rented a small studio in San Francisco from a firm that had a lot of small apts. for rent. After I moved back here to NYC I just happened to look at the rental firm's website and saw that they did all of their studios the same way I had done mine. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Hey, I'm for hire if anyone's interested!

I love HGTV. But definitely one of my favs is Freestyle and Design on A Dime is my next fav. In principle I like Decorating Cents but then they always have some designer that starts off with promise and then adds in hideous patterns and throw pillows and you are like "WTF? stop you are ruining it! STOP". But really Freestyle is genius in terms of getting people to think about layouts and reusing pieces in a different way. But some of the designers are definitely better than others.

A hobby of mine as well. I, too, organize the books by color--much to the delight/amazement of visitors. Helps me find the perfect solution to additions of flea market finds.

BUT my boyfriend, who I live with, HATES this hobby of mine. Says it makes him feel uncomfortable, unsettled. Anyone else have this problem? My point that it saves money doesn't seem to get me too far.

Does it count that my mother and I used to have furniture rearranging weekends when we lived closer together? (We did stop short of rearranging the furniture at the one set of model homes where we both thought the decorator had done a lousy job... but darn, it was a close thing...)

There are rooms I don't rearrange because there's nowhere else for the furniture to go, but the "best" flow in our living room in San Francisco changed every six months. Here in Phoenix, I think there actually is a right answer, but it took five tries to find it.

I am a chronic furniture arranger, too!!! I moved into this apartment two years ago and have rearranged the bedroom 3 times and the living room and dining area 4 times. I also painted throughout before I moved in, in a typical apartment off-white, just to freshen it before bringing my stuff in. I have since repainted the entire place and used color everywhere.

I also have rearranged many of the offices that I've managed over the years.

I also have a habit of mentally redecorating every place I go, and have done that since I was a kid.

Babette-

My constant rearranging/redecorating drove my ex-wuzband nuts, so I can relate. Now he's married to a woman who doesn't even CLEAN, nevermind redecorate, and that REALLY drives him nuts! I think it's just desserts! LOL

Babette: "BUT my boyfriend, who I live with, HATES this hobby of mine. Says it makes him feel uncomfortable, unsettled. Anyone else have this problem?"

Well, I've had this problem from the other side - I've lived with someone who rearranged the furniture on a moment's whim (and were talking huge changes - like the living room is now someplace else) - and it drove me NUTS. Just think would YOU like someone rearranging your space all the time, especially if you had developed a liking for the way things were? (Or, even more galling, if you were horrified at the design decisions, which were definitely not conducive to good flow - but I bit my tongue.) I can't tell you how many bruises I got in the middle of the night from banging into some piece of furniture that just wasn't in that spot the day before! yikes.

I rearrange furniture in hotel rooms.

p(too), you win.

(the hospital rearranging is a good story too!)

I not only re-arrange the furniture I also change colour schemes, ALL the time. I sometimes think I'm very strange. Nice to know others do this also. P (too) do they pay you to do their rooms over, nice work if they do.

I rearrange the furniture in furniture stores.




Ok Ok, yes I'm kidding....

As kids, mjy sister and I used to pass the time in church by drawing very detailed floor plans (both real and imaginary) of our bedroom, down to the stars on our bedspreads. In college, I printed out the dorm-room floor plan and cut out furniture and passed the time at my interminable law firm internship rearranging my soon-to-be room. And now I pass the time of my oh-so-exciting-Friday-afternoon-stuck-at-work by reading Apartment Therapy. :)

I am VERY relieved to see I am not the only person who mentally rearranges. I do it everywhere... everytime I step foot in someone's home I start moving their furniture, re-painting, and sometimes even knocking down their walls in my head! And my favorite activity at work is to open up my Microsoft Visio and start room planning.... (its much more sly than surfing AT online, I at least LOOK like I am working)!

I mentally rearrange and redecorate every house, office, store, church, etc. that i walk into.

i think i inherited the rearranging gene from my mom. i do it a lot, but i think she does it even more often. it is so satisfying to feel like you are in a new space, just by moving things around.

i mentally rearrange, redecorate, and even remodel my friends' homes all the time. i am glad to know that i am not alone.

I love you guys. The OCD has no limits here.

@Careen

I absolutely do that, but much like Scout, half the time its using new furniture that would suite the space better! A few nights ago, i went as far as to get out the measuring tape and measure the dimensions for a new coffee table, and new kitchen cabinets!

The Eames chair is gorgeous! It could be the only cure for the chronic pain nerve condition (C.R.P.S.) from which I have suffered for 12 years. If not, the beauty and simplicity would distractme from the pain.

Daniel, I worked in a furniture store when I was in my 20s and I LOVED doing the vignettes.

It was extra great when I sold something and could rearrange a new roomset. (We did custom stuff ala Expressions so every roomset was very unique, but swapping lamps and tables out was the best... so cathartic!)

I do move smaller things around now - but the entertainment center is a monster and I have to work around that... and so's my bed. Iron canopy, Tempurpedic. I can't even lift the top mattress alone.

My mother used to do the seasonal thing, too. As a child when the family lived in New York, mom always moved the beds away from the window. But we also moved the furniture every three months because we'd have to wash the walls and change the colors with the seasons. Now that we are all adults, I notice both my sisters and I always change our houses. My disabled mom now lives with my son and me and is always buying new comforters and curtains so we can not only change her room around, but also our own. The problem now is that although she doesn't move anything, she ungracefully "directs" us. -- Move that there! ... No, I think it will look better here! ... No, that's not right, put it back where you started. :) Gotta love her.

Ever do this to a hotel room?
I have...several times...

Can't believe how many chords Careen struck. Thought I was the only one. I've even mentally rearranged furniture during ... during ... well.

When I'm upright and really rearranging, sometimes everything gets spun around the room and comes to rest right where it all started.

My husband and I rearranged the apartment we rented in Paris on our honeymoon. It was like the first thing we did when we walked in the door -- we just couldn't RELAX in a room that was so ill-planned. I always wondered what the housekeeper thought after we left.

Hi, I'm Dahliacactus and i'm a furniture rearranger. I do it mentally everywhere i go and at least every 6 months at home.

Cal, i am DYING "Ohhh baby, i'm gonna sex you up real good... but first can you grab the other end of this settee? It needs to go on the west wall over there"

Not judging... i've been there but the mental image is hilarious.

Those of us who actually HAVE the very real and painful disorder that is OCD would prefer it if people wouldn't make light of it like it's some fun little quirk. It's not fun, it's not amusing at all...really.

I see this at least once a day, and at least three times a week on AT, and I don't appreciate it. Please be mor considerate of people with mental disorders.

"more"

Hate to post late....Careen, I am always doing that at any time I have to kill five or more minutes. LOL - I usually don't tell them since they'd be wondering why but I think my set up on most everyone's furniture would be super.