apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Jennifer your place has inspired me. The idea of taking a motif and sprinkling it throughout your home is pure genius...how did you transfer the motif from the rug to the wall? What was the process?

Great blue! I really like the motif and the harmony!
You've got a great blue carpet too!! (from??);-)

bravo!

What are the fuzzy looking circles on the wall made of? I love them!

Wow, where did you get that carpet?
I have the same colours in my place...
Amazing job!!

I've seen very similiar knockoff version of this rug at my local Target. Here's the link from the Target web site. Note that the colors from the Target web site are off (like the reviewers from the web site mention). The mums in the rug from the actual version in the store is a cross between aqua and blue gray. For a 5x8 rug at $100 it can't be beat. I almost purchased it but it doesnt go with anything in my house.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_42/602-4981942-6971811?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B000COATFU

Kim

I like, but am confused about how this is a studio. That rug really is lovely.

If you look closely, you can see the very foot of the bed in one of the pics of the seating area. It's all one long room, I think.

nice! tell me more about the blue flowers behind the bed. how was that done?

The original rug is here:
http://www.companyc.com/html/rugs_pg1_cid26_203.htm

it's easy to beautifully furnish an apartment when you have lots of money to spend on quality pieces...

That's not always so, spcy -- sometimes people with the most money have the ugliest stuff.

Money doesn't buy good taste! It is a very special gift to be able to put together an entire apartment harmoniously. Urban Outfitters had very similar rugs for really cheap.

Spcy, I don't think there's anything particularly expensive in here...all nicely chosen pieces and lovely--but it's not like she's had tons of custom cabinetry built in with high end pieces or anything like that.

I particularly like the seating area---lots of seating and a very comfortable layout without bulky pieces. Nice! Very soothing colors too!

I agree, there isn't much "expensive" things in the space - a few good solid furniture - dining table, bed, dresser and side table. And some fun design elements. The key is she stuck to a color/theme which made the space feel more expensive. :)

With that, I love the fuzzy circles on the wall! (rugs? towels?)

perhaps y'all are right...looks can be deceiving.

please tell us, jennifer, about the blue flowers painted onto the wall behind your bed. if it really is cheap (and easy), then i want some for my apartment!

Rasil, I KNEW you'd ask about the flowers. Here's my guess: Trace and transfer. Trace the design by making line art...so it looks like a stencil. Then transfer the design to the wall after cutting out the "holes" where you don't want the paint. Then it can be stenciled.

You might be able to do that with the design you looked at on the red kimono, print out the picture, have it enlarged, then make the stencil...basic ideas here:
http://www.glidden.com/inspiration/article1001460.jsp

Spcy, let's do it for less! The rallying call for doing a room in similar theme for mere cents. Okay, it's more than cents.

Nope, I can't afford the lovely area rug either. The usual tips are to know where to splurge and know where to scrimp. Unfortunately I can't splurge anywhere at all. And don't I know it! LOL!

Let's work on it...the rug at Company C is too expensive. The rug at Target is reasonable, although "not available" right now. Still, let's say $100.00 for the rug.

Next, the bed and bedding area.
Fold the KILAN bedspread over the base of the bed, Brown/beige reversible, $59.99


Just click; triple dresser, $169.97; queen bed, $269.87; night table, $62.87
http://www.walmart.com/search/browse-ng.do?ics=20&ico=0&ref=125874.184461+500726.4293802128

Intense solid color sheets, Queen set, $26.99, Aqua Blue:
http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/productlist.aspx?cattyp=DEP&deptid=25436&pcatid=29622&catid=29650&RefPageName=expressions%252Easpx&RefDeptID=&RefCatID=&cmAMS_T=U&cmAMS_C=C1&CmCatId=HomePage

You can browse tables and chairs for a dining area all day. Here's a wood set at JCPenney, 6 chairs and counter height table, $649.00:
http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?DeptID=25438&CatID=25982&CatTyp=DEP&ItemTyp=G&GrpTyp=ENS&ItemID=0daaf6a&ProdSeq=12&Cat=wood+sets&Dep=&PCat=&PCatID=25980&RefPage=ProductList&Sale=&ProdCount=26&RecPtr=&ShowMenu=&TTYP=&ShopBy=0&RefPageName=WindowSolutionHOM%252Easpx&RefCatID=25980&RefDeptID=25438&Page=99&CmCatId=25438|28029|25980|25982

I personally don't need or use a dining table and so I don't have one. Many of the sets are HUGE, and you'd do better to ONLY ACCOMODATE THE NEEDS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE...like just a couple chairs:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15564&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=36255&langId=-1&parentCats=15564*15652*15656

And a square table:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15564&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=34811&langId=-1&parentCats=15564*16225

Are you seeing how you can get a nice looking place without spending a fortune? Oh, it's not all the same wood and it's not from a fancy place, but it will still be attractive and have a similar look.

And isn't that what you want? That LOOK? You could have a plain white cotton blanket over the bed with JCP sheets and IKEA bedcover. Or you could have imported sheets made from linen, a hand-stitched custom-made white bedcover with an eiderdown (with the down plucked from the abandoned nests of birds in the arctic wildness by National Geographic employees) comforter. It's still going to be the same look. Aqua sheets, white cover, brown at the base.

The key to duplicating any look is BROWSING!!!! Ahhhh! I can't say that enough times. FOLLOW every link you can find. Order catalogs. All kinds of catalogs. Stuff you're pretty sure you'll never be able to afford to stuff you can afford and really wouldn't buy. Because you never know what look you might find, and what things you might find that will duplicate that look for less.

It's way easy to spend more. If we had unlimited amounts of money, we could find Jennifer, and find out all her sources, or offer her a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy all her furniture and have her do the wall painting for us. That's way too easy. There's no challenge in having a lot of money.

The fun part is being broke and wanting the look and being able to get it. That's a challenge. I like challenges.

this really is lovely, although I'd love to see the bed in white, and the other furniture a lighter tone (the chaise longue is perfect). the painting on the wall and the colors are so ethereal; the dark wood drags it down a bit for me. I normally like contrast -- black and brown against white -- but here I feel like I want everything to float. It's probably not realistic to expect you to strip and stain and paint all your nice wood furniture though (but if you do send a picture!). But overall: just wonderful, and the flowers behind the bed are fantastic.

Andree,

Your posts are very informative, but please consider:

tinyurl.com

Hey, DC folks! Big spread about partment Therapy (featuring P2's place, the blog and the book) in today's WPost Express.

What a great space. It is the exact feel I want in my place, calm, serene and pulled together. Clean and clutter-free without feeling too sparse. I think you've done a fantastic job.

I finally realized why everyone is always recommending tinyurl.com in these threads - most of you must be using Internet Explorer. At work, we have Mozilla (the firm disabled IE for security reasons), and at home I use Opera, so these long URLs are never a problem. Don't think that everyone sees these pages the same way! I came to this site using IE last night and was quite surprised to see that the long URLs widened the page. Mozilla & Opera show the links inside the boxes of the messages and you can scroll the link inside the box - but they don't screw up the whole page width. Instead of recommending tinyurl.com, I recommend trying a browser that is more compliant with web standards. Mozilla and Opera are really cool.

Thanks JenDC--it's online at:
http://tinyurl.com/dr6a5
Click in the upper right corner on "Download Today's Edition."

Page 49 - Healing Your Home. (Don't try to search for any key words to find it - trust me.)
With a pic of P2's place.

Henrietta, thus far, none of the "tinyurl" things have actually worked for me. Let me try to make one of my own...

Okay, paste doesn't work automatically like it says it does...oh, that auto function is for Windows.

http://tinyurl.com/klm85

So, instead of just selecting all and copying and pasting, I now get to click a link to tinyurl, select just the new tinyurl text link, copy, and paste that. And I lose the original page in front of me, and now will have a tinyurl page. So to view what I was viewing, I have to click the back button again.

Did I mention I'm on dial-up?

See if that tinyurl thing works. I'll try it after this message posts and see if it works for me too.

And this is what I got for my first attempt to load the link I just made:

Could not open the page “http://tinyurl.com/klm85” because the server “tinyurl.com” could not be found.

Worked the second time. I never tried to do it twice, I just assumed it would never work after the first time. Because the above message is what I've gotten everytime before.

Okay, I'll give it a whirl, add in more steps for me. Personally, I like to see where I'm going before clicking on a link. I've ended up at some very interesting places by clicking on "click here" links.

OHHHHHH, Thanks dIANE, I didn't realize that these areas got the jumbo width from the jumbo links like the Prospero boards do.

On MY browser, I'm on Safari, the message box remains the same width consistently, and the jumbo links disappear on the right side. Whether 40 or 400 characters, they all disappear off to the right and don't add width.

Sorry about that, folks. I had NO idea that was occuring here for others. I will make it a point to do tinyurl links from this point forward.

Thanks again, dIANE for explaining the WHYS. It's so easy for me to assume everyone is seeing the same thing...even though I know we aren't seeing the same colors or have the same tools. Silly me.

I apologize for the giant links! Forgive me!

Oh my goodness, no need to be so apologetic. It's true that we who have succumbed to the hegemony of Internet Explorer should experiment with better-designed and more secure browsers. And it is a pain in the neck to have to open another window just to create a tiny url, especially if you're on dialup.

But IE is the most widely used browser. Maybe there's a tweak to wraparound urls.

Jennifer! I'm in Boston also - a big hello to you!

GREAT SPACE!

Holly

Still waiting for Jennifer to share how she did her walls!!!! Please share! Inspired decorators are dying to learn.

A tweak for the long url problem:

http://tinyurl.com/af72y

andree -- and i'm in awe at your ability to link together a budget knock-off, there's a business opportunity right there -- i can believe someone can do the stenciling, whether *i* can is another story. but miss (links) thing, have you (or anyone else) seen such a pattern in bedding that wasn't exorbitant?

i saw the urban outfitters knock-off rug and i wasn't moved -- not bc of the materials but bc the pattern itself didn't seem as pretty, distinct, chic. i saw this rug at kate's paperie in red and swooned, i had to fan myself with overpriced paper to remind myself that red wouldn't quite go in my apt.

Thanks Rasil! I do what I do because I can do it. Being in pain all the time, and being home all the time is no vacation...it's more like a prison sentence...but worse. I'm considering a short life of crime, just to enjoy the advantage of prison, like color-coordinated outfits, free food/lodging/bed linens/electricity/water/sewer/garbage, etc.

I have a NEED to be productive, but a "regular" job isn't going to work with my pain and inability to sleep or stand or sit or...hah!

So I do what I can do to help others get the looks they want on a budget they can afford. Folks that can afford to hire decorators or interior design consultants already have done so. Like I said, there's no problem getting the things you want if you have an unlimited budget.

There's a whole bunch of people out there that would prefer to do it themselves. They enjoy the shopping or putting things together, but don't always have the time to FIND all the stuff (yeah, like those socialite designers said too...).

And there are people that can't afford the time or the money to find the things that would work.

So that's where I come in. I have the time. I'm always browsing and looking for new sources (thanks to everyone here, I've found a gazillion new sources to browse!!!).

But charging for such a service? Right then and there, I eliminate a bunch of people I like to help. The people that don't have the money to hire someone. Being moneyless myself, I don't think that's fair. It's JUST NOT FAIR.

Hardworking people trying to make a living, tend their homes, and have a nice home...they shouldn't be penalized because they can't afford some pricey furnishings and a pricey designer to go with it.

I'll find links, pictures, products. The other person has to buy them, move them, and make the ideas work.

I'm confused about what you said...you want a bedding pattern somewhat like the rug? In those colors? Brown/aqua?

Sounds like a challenge. I'm on it. But post if that isn't want you meant, because I can spend HOURS looking at things online until I find the right one.

that's very sweet of you, andree, and i'm sorry to hear about your chronic pain. i feel naughty imposing my daydreams on you -- *brief pause* -- but since you asked, i meant bedding as in flat and fitted sheets in that sort of bold, abstracted, vaguely asian flower motif. colorswise, orange, pink, gold maybe. my quilt and canopy are salmony pink, and i have a lot of orange in my apt as well.

http://www.companyc.com/html/rugs_pg1_cid26_202.htm
this really delights me, but i think the red is too dark for my place. if company c made this pattern in a slightly sheer lamp shade, i'd be swooning.

what i actually *need* are some floor lamps and a kitchen reno, instead i spend hours googling on "Botan Karakusa"!

Andree --
You're a doll.

Rasil, colors are probably not right, but check anyway:
http://tinyurl.com/n8td3

Not real inexpensive, but not real expensive either. Remember, you can always get the pillow shams and use solids for the sheets...because nobody SEES the sheets if the bed is made.

Still looking but I have to go to the store...

Haven't left yet...similar to the above, with a smaller pattern and brighter colors:
http://tinyurl.com/rhp9u

There's also a shower curtain in the same pattern, $33.00.

it's true, andree, you really are a doll... and the company store people should be shot for doing that pattern up in *five* colors, it could have been so nice.

http://www.graciousstyle.com/images/chrysanthemum_bedding_large.jpg
^^^ a bit muted, a lot expensive, but so pretty

http://www.graciousstyle.com/images/chrysanthemum_bath_large.jpg
^^^ my, my, my. so that's what a 60 dollar bath towel looks like.

but truly i go back to this:
http://www.marlamallett.com/k-5653.htm

which, like the sachi poppy, is too red, but still. the propensity of sino/japanese design to use red over orange and pink drives me up the wall.

Rasil, by george, I think I've got it. What we can't find to buy we'll just have to make ourselves. Necessity IS the mother of invention, and I think a craving for something will work just as well to inspire.

I know you have a computer. You're here.

Do you have a printer?

Do you have an iron?

http://www.allcrafts.net/computer.htm

That's just one of a gazillion sites with some info on using your printer and fabric transfer paper to iron on images to the fabric of your choice.

There was a section in BHG awhile back (yeah, that's why I keep all those old magazines) on decorating with your computer. Just using interesting fonts, you can create a custom bedding set, with shams and bedskirt in your OWN pattern. You can do the sheet edges. You could do a whole duvet. ANYTHING you can iron, you could create your own masterpiece.

You can use clip-art. Line drawings. Create your own design from scratch using a computer paint program.

Here's something I was looking at in the wee hours:
http://www.aussino.com/ss2006_us/bedding_senze.htm

I found their company through a trade publication online for textiles.

Anyway, what I want you to look at there, is not so much the bedding (unless you find something there you LOVE LOVE LOVE), but the BACKGROUND.

The aqua with the white flowers. Those are totally "doodle-flowers". I KNOW you could do that freehand. You might have to practice, but it wouldn't take long to become a doodle master of flowers.

I mean, EVERYONE doodles (uh, don't they?). And wiggly worm shapes are pretty easy to doodle. Scallops are easy to doodle. You just arrange your wiggly worm shapes and scallop shapes into a flower.

Then make the leap to the computer, and when playing with a pen/brush width, you'll make it wider, so you'll actually have something to TRANSFER onto the fabric. Those thin lines would be a waste of ink and transfer paper and might not show up so well on fabric.

Try a few little ones on scraps of fabric or old pillowcases/sheets that you were going to toss anyway.

Next, you pick out a duvet or shams in your colors. And fire up the iron and create your own bedding (we'll be looking for your line of AT bedding Spring 2007).

Here's a colorful "for instance", if you used the doodle flowers either in white or in your colors on top of this IKEA item (use the pop-up to select the RED colorway):
http://tinyurl.com/87jap

Spread the colors and patterns throughout your space with the bigger pillow for chairs or floor:
http://tinyurl.com/q76gl

Of course, use that imagination!!! You get to decide the base color of your sheets or pillow cases or shams. And then you get to choose the accent color of the flowers. You could have a blast doing this, and your home items would be ONE OF A KIND!!!

By the way, WHERE IS JENNIFER??? It might save a ton of time if she would please help us with all the details. WE NEED DETAILS!!! We must know EVERYTHING about the space. EVERYTHING!

Rasil:

Looking only at the pillowcases and shams, this is sort of what you could do with the iron-on transfers:
http://tinyurl.com/pdkzx

But are you sure it wouldn't be more fun to have this?:
http://tinyurl.com/qvmja

You know you're obsessive-compulsive when...

Hey, at least I use my powers for good and not evil!

I started searching BHG to see if I could find the article that was in an older magazine, found a couple links so you can see at least an example (although not the article I hoped to find);

Postcard Pillow:
http://tinyurl.com/zwgcu

Trendy Transfers:
http://tinyurl.com/ejw47

Didn't I just see that chair here somewhere?

Painting Bed Linens:
http://tinyurl.com/elfxq

Check out the grommet-eyelet curtains from the third page of the above story. I'm thinking that's a great solution for curtains that suddenly, mysteriously develop a hole.

***cat skulking away***

Which I'm now thinking could be used on anything. Pillow covers for throw pillows. Denim jackets. Lamp shades. Aw, crap, there goes my million dollar idea. Look for that line of products in the AT Spring 2007 Collection, with someone else's name on it.

I am *dying* for that rug, but just can't afford the real one, and the Target knockoff appears to be out of stock.

What do you think of this one from J.C. Penney? Close, or no cigar?

http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?GrpTyp=SIZ&ItemID=0ea152f&RefPage=ProductsHOM&CmCatId=25438|28241|28899&cmOrigID=0ea4632&cmPosID=1

Well, shoot, the J.C. Penney rug isn't in stock... which I didn't find out until trying to check out. :(

I like it, Amanda! You could always try calling a local store, and see if by ANY CHANCE they carry it in store.

wow how amazing that i am using the same exact motif for my bedroom...and was inspired by the rug purchase at Target!! I must repost my results as I am actually painting my walls aqua at the moment and will be using the chocolate brown as the accent. the rug IS in stock online by the way as of today.