apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Even though before and after pics of my bathroom remodel from our old place have already been shown on AT, is anyone interested in the down to the studs progress pics? If so, how many pics is too many? I have hundreds!

Ahhh, but is it lived in by the person who submitted it?

And who decides it's Bathroom Month?

Next month then will be "Andree Month" and I'll invite you folks to please send canned goods, good meatloaf recipes, and coupons for auto parts. Thanks.

For next year's contest, I'll be entering lots of small spaces that I don't live in, didn't design, and have no part of. Like a display from the local IKEA. hehehe

I put up pics of my horrible bathrrom on flickr, but I don't know if I want it to become everyone's project, just based on the feedback from the Cure 0.3 page...

Um, OUR HOST decides. Go to the time and expense of creating and managing your own blog, and you can make every month "Meatloaf for Me Month."

And while I do agree that the contest should be about primary residences, WHO CARES who lives in it/submitted it... as long as they had some hand in making into a contender?!

so if it is bathroom month then where are the entries? - i was a little confused during the bathroom month also, where are the pictures.
or does this mean that we are supposed to discuss bathroom stuff in the open threads?

What does it mean to be "X" room month?

sorry meant i was confused during the bedroom month.

It means there is a higher-than average concentration on bathroom-related links, products and slinks.But I don't think there is a contest for it this year, so ne "entries."

Sorry-- "no 'entries' "

Andree: Your comment really pissed me off. I try not to make personal postings on this blog, but I just can't believe the amount of carping that has gone on related to smallest, coolest and other recent initiatives.

Of course design-related mud-flinging occurs, and that's all par for the course. But no one paid to enter the contest, no one pays to visit this site, nor is one forced to visit or participate in this blog.

If you don't like a certain contest, don't vote. If you don't like a certain featured topic (like bathroom month) don't pay any attention to it. If you feel put upon by the way AT is run, don't visit it anymore, or write a reasonable email to the blog hosts.

This is a forum designed, managed and guided by a group of people. I believe they have certain privileges related to editorial judgement calls. Is the contest just for apartments, or are houses of a certain square footage allowed? The worksheets were promised on such-and-such day but, oh, the wife is pregnant, my cat got sick, a business client is in trouble -- stuff happens. I am sorry but I don't think any of the contests are rigged to favor architects/owners/people who spent a lot of money/artists/east coast entries/Scorpios/mid-century modernists etc.

Of course slavish devotion is not required (despite what some people seem to think) but does one really need to demand that all editorial direction is explained ad nauseum to your satisfaction?

Sorry to rant and write so much (I generally try not to) but I am kind of angry.

And if one suggests something politely, Maxwell takes it seriously. The contest-judging format used to be different -- it changed in response to reader comments.

One thing I've learned in teaching is that however you set the rules, and whatever you plan for, you're always answering the concerns about what happened *last* time, and what happens next time turns out to pose completely new problems. My impression has been that readership and publicity have been snowballing over the past 6-12 months, which would make every contest a whole new ball game.

I agree with JenDC and wende.

Kvetching about contest rules and/or how the site or contest is or isn't run seems like complaining about the buffet and bar at a *free* party...

And if you are also concerned about the contest entries, ENTER THE NEXT ONE and see what THAT experience feels like.

Yes, a lot of work goes into putting together a site like this, and if you come here, you should appreciate that. But at the same time, it is a design related site and people who live for design tend to have high expectations. (I think that this is good; my two cents.) Changing rules, dates, off topic headers, and hard to find links are frustrating. Any designer worth their salt will tell you that good design is intuitive, that goes for site design as well. The bar may be *free* but the booze really should be good too.

Let's be fair, people who haunt Blogs seem to be possessive, and get a little nuts, a little too easily. Everybody take a deep breath and enjoy the show...

I still think you should not look even the most design-oriented gift horse in the mouth.

And the "booze" here is generally pretty good. AND free.

And puh-lease, designers are among THE WORST procrastinators (self-included), and I've NEVER seen a design contest where the deadline for entry was not extended... so don't know why a deadline extension is seen as a bad thing.

Sure, there is sometimes a bit of a "make it up as you go along" vibe to the site and the contests, but big whoop. Um, this site is HOW OLD again? Let's allow for some growing pains, folks... AND let's let Maxwell do this all in *whatever* way insures that our daily fix keeps coming...

And for the staggering amount of new content posted daily on this site (for which Maxwell does not get paid, per se) the site, headers, and links are REMARKABLY glitch-free.

There is an absolutely AWESOME bath redo at the The Inside Out feature:

"Patty and Chris' Stripping Down"

There is an absolutely AWESOME bath redo at the The Inside Out feature; see:

"Patty and Chris' Stripping Down"

So sorry everyone -- don't know what happened -- received message that there was a delay to post due to malicious postings, etc., to try again shortly and each time I tried to post I received a new code to enter.

Okay, so there are SOME glitches. ;)

I thought it was a good way to change the subject. ;)

Also, just because someone is a great space designer doesn't mean they're an expert web designer. I'm a photographer/visual artist - doesn't mean I can design a website or my space that well. Everyone has talents. Everyone has lives. This is a blog, a great resource - just because there are people that are really living breathing people who answer emails in short order doesn't mean that you can demand extra from them. When was the last time you called the author of a book or a magazine article to complain about the way they wrote?

Give them some props for what they're doing, acknowledge that some things work organically, and chill out. This site seems to be getting less fun - not because of the site, but because people are getting really aggressive about it. Aggression isn't pretty or aesthetically pleasing.

Whoa there!

If I put an "LOL" after somethings, I am assumed to be a crack-smoking comment maker. If I don't, I get jumped on. Holy cats!

My thought was...if one person paid for an apartment update, and the other person did the work, but it's owned by the first person, who gets "dibs" on entering the contest...getting the prize? Two different people shouldn't be able to enter the same thing, right? I mean enter the same contest with the same apartment. Not that that happened. But that's what I was wondering about. Geez.

Next. Bathroom Month. I didn't know if it was Bathroom Month because, like, uh, Hallmark made a bunch of "Happy
Bathroom Month" cards. Or if it was some kind of national or international THING where EVERYONE promoted bathroom related items. Like is it "Bathroom Month" at Home Depot and Lowe's and Target and DWR? Or is it just HERE that it's bathroom month. Here as being AT.

Is that the same as Poetry Month? Is it Poetry Month just here on AT or if I walked into the local library or bookseller, they'd have big displays announcing APRIL IS POETRY MONTH.

I mean, there's Black History Month, and that's everywhere. You can buy all sorts of related products, learn about ancestors, explore history, etc. I don't know who decided that either. Who DOES get to decide what months get a new name/purpose?

March was Smallest, Coolest Month. See, says so right here:
http://tinyurl.com/g853s

So when April is Bathroom Month, I wondered if it was another contest. Notice that PeaceLamp wondered the same thing. Nobody jumped on that person.

Jen, I was unable to vote for any of my choices in any way at all. Everytime I tried I got nothing in the newly loading page. I attribute this to doing it late at night when perhaps the site was down for maintenance.

I did write several times to Maxwell about the site issues and did not receive a response. I also wrote repeatedly about not understanding how this web site was set up, where things were, and what exactly people were supposed to do.

I also asked that same question on the Open Thread areas and no one was kind enough to help me to understand how this web site operates. No one.

Just because the folks (who jumped on me) may know EXACTLY what is going on here, that does not mean EVERYONE knows exactly what is going on here. It doesn't even mean that it's in an understandable format. Which, in my initial visits, was far from being user-friendly.

Like anything else new, I look for instructions or tips, and think it should work a certain way. When I can't find an explanation, when I can't get any help with my questions, when I write and plead for help and no one bothers to even TRY to help, ....well....

Don't take out your entire batch of frustrations on me alone. It's not my fault I don't understand how things are done, and when I try to learn about them, I shouldn't be jumped on for lack of knowledge.

There were several people that commented on the way the contest was run. I didn't even notice changing fonts or whatever it was on the "rules" page. I did try to look things up on the rules page for other people that asked about when contestants would be notified. And I was confused that the stated rules didn't seem to be followed, but I didn't say that. Because, after all, I don't know where anything is on this site or how it works anyway.

Here in this post...it's titled April is Bathroom Month, but it goes into detail about last month's March is Smallest, Coolest, and talks about the finalists. Huh?

That doesn't make any sense to me.

It's a blog. The format is what it is because it is a blog. It's using software (and hence organization) that many other blogs use.

The title is "April is Bathroom Month", there is a bathroom photo, some discussion about bathrooms and bathroom sources, encouragement to send in bathroom questions, and then an explanation for why there are 13 finalists for last month's contest. Blogs are informal and "of the minute" that way.

In general, in the beginning (think Usenet), it was considered polite to hang out a while and figure out how things work on your own before participating like crazy in a given internet community. Some of this has carried over to newer forms of online communities. Also, it's considered a little bit impolite to ask questions you get get the answer to very easily by using your favorite search engine (your poetry and bathroom month questions for instance).

I'm sorry that you asked for help and didn't get it. You might try being much more brief in your comments and just sticking to one thing (like asking for help) instead trying to put everything but the kitchen sink in every post. You also might consider abstaining from comments about your above average intelligence. That would tend to alienate someone who might be able to help you. I truly mean this in the kindest possible way.

regards,
trillium

As useful and as helpful as your posts generally are Andree, they are very very long so I certainly don't remember reading any questions from you about how this site is run.

I also found your first comment in this thread very surprising given your posting history. It seemed so not like you. Even with your explanation it still seems like you are on a different, um, plane or something.

I find it almost unbelievable that someone could mix up something like black history month and bathroom month on a design blog. I guess that's why ppl found your thing about decreeing "Andree month" provocative.

Stop thinking of things so rigidly (your last two paragraphs) and your frustration quotient should go down.

Andree--
I really don't think we were necessarily jumping on-- or solely on-- you. I think we may have been responding to your comments and complaints based on other (far more) negative comments posted about the site or the contest on other threads. So I think you may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the proverbial Brokeback Camel.

And I agree there potentially can be some confusion about who "owns" an entry. I would trust most people here to indicate when a collaboration (landlord and tenant, previous owner and current renter, architect or designer and owner, etc.) yielded the end result. But making a case out of it seems a bit moot, since I agree we've not really been overrun with that problem/issue in this or past contests.

Sorry if you seemed singled out. You obviously bring a lot of energy, thought and enthusiasm to the site, so it would suck if it felt like you were getting your hand slapped. It wasn't my intention.

Unfortunately your first comment on this post came across very differently than what you seem to have intended Andree. Trillium makes some very good points as does jamie pup.

I think we all have our ideas on how the design/organization/layout of the site might be improved, but it isn't our site so we can only make suggestions. I would absolutely love to see this site eventually morph into a main AT site with accompanying sections for the blog, magazine, tv show, etc. I would also love for there to be one main parent blog, non-city-denominational, with additional city specific posts. Each city could have its own blog with the general topic posts plus city specific stuff. They each have their own RSS feed so if someone only wanted NY-related stuff plus general topics they could have it. The main blog could have everything. I want to be able to read all the AT sites without having to go to each separate blog. But you know what, I wish I could quit you AT but I can't. So I deal with the small inconveniences and treat them as eccentricities and enjoy the valuable resource and community that the site offers.

We did enter and that experience feels like: um, mixed. We are flexible. We were regular readers of the site before we entered. We entered knowing that it was a crap shoot and that's the risk with any contest - lottery included. We don’t regret entering because the contest forced us to do the 8-step cure in record time.

But, the sliding and ambiguous rules have been bothersome (even though we know that the intent is fair and good) and the quantitative judging (votes) is a total mystery to us – percentages, total poll, clicks (we could have been as high as #3 in rentals in the East depending how you count)?

This is a contest about details. How people detail their space, how detailed they can be in 100 words and in a floorplan, what detail they have for design. And details matter. Our comments section was messed up and our site page was down the weekend after we entered. S*it happens with technology. Whatcha gonna do? Next year will be better.

NestWest--
I don't agree that the contest is "all about the details" necessarily. I think it is also about total net effect. Sure, the vignette. But also the big picture. And while I believe in fair and equitable rules in a contest (to which people should indeed stick), I don't any of the changes made midstream knocked anyone out of the running.

And given how much site traffic falls off on Saturdays and Sundays, I don't think you were handicapped at all by being down on a weekend.

Plus, if you were earlier in the postings, those getting posted later could say you actually had an advantage of the time of exposure.

But I think most of this all evens out. And the cream rises. In spite of judges and tallies and glitches and issues of "advantage."

I would like to see the next Smallest Coolest contest have NO prize. Then perhaps it would all get less analyzed and wouldn't get so yucky in the final days of voting and armchair quarterbacking.

Cream rises - wow.

Look, I don't think the technical errors caused us problems. And I didn't use the word advantage.

But I do think details matters if you want to run a contest.

Did you even read the top part that Maxwell wrote?

"Now, about those 13 finalists. This is what happened.


First we decided that taking 5 from the East and 5 from the West was silly, since we had more entries in the East and if we were really looking for the BEST, we shouldn't be limited to location. So we looked at the voting scores of all 102 submissions and decided to take the top 12 because we wanted to be generous with such an amazing pool. Along the way, we had to remove two finalists (one is a DWR employee and the other submitted a guest house) and wrote to tell them so. It turned out that we were wrong in one case, however. The guest house turned out to be lived in full time, so it was, in fact, a home. So, feeling generous again AND conscious that our rules did not rule against this, we brought this one back into the finals with our blessing."

It was like one of those "And then this happened, but this happened so we did this and then this other thing happened and then and then and then and then..." and it cracked me up. But also brought up the wondering about the "who can enter what space" question. So I added on to the "and then and then and then and then" with my "Ahhh, but is it lived in by the person who submitted it?"

Trillium, I'm dumb as a bag of rocks. that's a saying one of the bank managers used (not necessarily on me...er...all the time), and I don't really know what THAT means either. I don't know what USENET is. If you were looking for a specific thing, and I was new, and I knew where it was, you really want me to sit around and wait for a month or two to see how things go? How about just trying to help out? Am I still supposed to sit around? I don't do that.

I pull over at accident scenes to ask if I can help. Nope, I'm not a doctor. But I can direct traffic and have done so. I could put pressure on wounds. I could comfort someone. I could move debris or flag down additional assistance. too many people just sit around and wait for someone else to do something.

Rachel, the last author I wrote to was Scott Turow. I was confused with his writing and the way he handled his characters. He wrote back, by the way. I haven't checked to see if he corrected his writing (I'm adding the LOL whether or not anyone likes it). LOL!

By the way, my posts aren't long. Everyone else's posts are too short, contain far too few links, and don't get specific enough. LOL!

***Shrug***

***Walks away***

NestWest--
Was not aiming the "advantage" issue at you. But you did cite issues specific to your own posting, which had the *tiniest* tinge of sour grapes to it. Apologies if I misconstrued that. I did not mean to offend.

ANYONE who enters is okay in my book, btw. So congrats on that, for sure.

I was attempting to explain a little nettiquete and history, in fact, I was indeed attempting "to help out". No one is telling you to just sit around, but I am suggesting you expand some energy to answer your own questions. It takes no longer to find out what Usenet is then it does to find peony stencils, I promise.


regards,
trillium

Andree,

i think u are very funny. think about today like you helped someone out - jenDC was probably having a bad day and took it out on you or something!
I thought all your post's were very funny...especially IKEA, shrugs and walks away!

Lighten up people, its gorgeous outside and even though i've been stuck at work - i'm glad i have a window seat with reflection water view!!! :-)

I'm not sure if all issues raised here today were resolved, but doesn't it feel like all these postings were a bit therapeutic? By that, I mean that people were working toward clearing the air. I'm almost expecting someone to call for a group hug. ;-)

At any rate, I nominate this thread as the "Longest, Coolest and Most Therapeutic Thread" of this week.

"So we looked at the voting scores of all 102 submissions and decided to take the top 12 because we wanted to be generous with such an amazing pool."

I'm confused. Going by voting scores alone, doesn't this give an advantage to entries posted earlier in the month thus receiving more exposure time for votes? Seems pretty unfair and sketchy to me.

Alan -- There's no clear pattern on the number of votes versus time posted. The last five entries on each coast tended to get fewer votes -- but not fewer than much older entries that just hadn't elicited much passion. And in the more crowded east, the sixth-to-last entry attracted a large number of votes compared to entries in general.

There's no difference at all between being at the beginning and in the middle. Voting patterns seem to much quirkier than just timing can account for.

Alan, I would assume most people who entered their apartments at least read the rules, and knew how the contest was structured. And like Wende said, voting doesn't seem to necessarily correspond to time on the site. Plus, it seems as though the West Coast site doesn't have as much traffic yet (though it may well have more), so one could argue that those contestants were penalized.

I have to admit that this time, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of entries and didn't vote at all. Maybe that's shameful, but it's true.

Hey Patrick,

You don’t know us and we will likely never meet. So I don’t think it’s fair or friendly to label us or be nasty. It’s a risk, of course, to be the only people who speak our opinion (and it’s only opinion) on *our* personal experience in this contest. But, the discussion was out there and no one else had spoken up yet. And we aren’t anon people, so there you go.

I really wasn't labelling you or being nasty. Sorry if you interpreted my comments that way.

And my hat is sincerely off to you and all the other entrants.

Can we continue to clear the air?

JenDC:"If you don't like a certain contest, don't vote. If you don't like a certain featured topic (like bathroom month) don't pay any attention to it. If you feel put upon by the way AT is run, don't visit it anymore, or write a reasonable email to the blog hosts."

If it's true we should ignore or leave things we don't like or don't understand, how come you didn't just ignore my post?

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Trillium:"No one is telling you to just sit around, but I am suggesting you expand some energy to answer your own questions. It takes no longer to find out what Usenet is then it does to find peony stencils, I promise."

But I'm not interested in Usenet or it's history. If everyone knew everything and could answer their own questions, there wouldn't be any need for this site. There wouldn't be a "Good Question" section. We'd all be able to look up the answers. And telling people to look up all their own questions will scare people off from ever posting here.

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JamiePup:"I find it almost unbelievable that someone could mix up something like black history month and bathroom month on a design blog."

It's not a mix-up, I'm just a big doofus who doesn't buy into holidays and months that are aimed generally at a specific group of people. It's always a good time to learn about things that are interesting to you, whether it's bathroom fixtures or black history.
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Jeremy: I totally agree with the one big site and not a lot of branches. I also think there is room for a message board. Yes, the magazine would be fabulous. Yes, a TV show would be great.

Can you imagine (ooooh, ahhhh) how incredibly cool it would have been to have all the contestants featured on TV? Interviews with them. Having them show us how things were done or set up or worked. Every single apartment is an hour-long show! I'd be totally glued to the set...after I actually paid for cable. And I just might do it too, if AT becomes a TV show.

Wait...wait...

THE AT NETWORK. ALL AT. ALL THE TIME.

There could be all kinds of shows. Things that could be done with rentals. Things that can be done with owned apartments or other small spaces. Do It Yourself. New product previews. Shows featuring one store or one style or one designer. Educate me! Enlighten me! Inspire me!

Sort of like PBS, where the shows come on several times. That way if I miss the afternoon showing, I can catch the one at midnight.

Makeover type shows...but this time where the people who live there are actually consulted and have a hand in doing it. So they don't end up with a dark brown room when it used to be sunny and happy.

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Where's Jonathan?

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Kitchen sink!

So that's not pictures then?

Or rather, no pictures.

I'm late on this thread, but I've got to say that for a design website, these threads can reflect some pretty poor design. Weird that the changing rules didn't merit its own post rather than an asterisk on an unrelated post. I wonder how many of us would have bothered ranking our favorite five easts and wests if we'd known AT wasn't going to use the format they'd given us.

Since somebody brought it up (was it Andree?), I'll add that the sliding rules here with this contest did bother me. I entered my apartment ("Rob's Apartmequarium") and received mostly kind or constructive comments. I was thankful for that after seeing how some others were treated.

Still, it bugged me that the rules changed throughout the contest. By the time my entry was updated when the contest went from three pics to five, my entry was already old news. Maybe that's the danger of being first. It also bugged me seeing David and Im's entry getting hacked down after it was posted so it would be rules-compliant, even while rules were changing again and again.

Like Patrick, I'd prefer to see this contest with no prizes next year. It seems odd to have designers winning prizes meant to better a home. Not that designers don't have homes too, but this is Apartment Therapy, after all. Somebody made an analogy somewhere on here about playing flag football against a pro football team. Once the designers started showing up in the contest, I didn't feel so good about having my place in the contest too. I wouldn't enter a science fair if at the next table were a few guys from NASA competing against me to win $200 at The Discovery Store. I never expected to win of course. I just liked showing off my home because I'm proud of it.

Then again, maybe this contest is headed into pro territory next year anyway. I expect to see more Alisons/Waynes/Gideons than regular people in years to come, because, as AT grows, there's good press to be had. I ended up being interviewed by a newspaper for this contest (article linked to my name). I thought it was flattering, but I guarantee that to people who do this for a living, publicity is worth more than a DWR gift certificate.

I apologize if I'm ruffling any feathers here. I don't mean to. I really love AT and the effect it's having on my home.

Getting back to the original post, I for one happen to LOVE the 'month' thing here. Bedroom month, bathroom month, yes yes yes! I can't wait for lighting month, because I totally buy into the effect that great lighting can have on a home, and I could really use some help on that front. Dedicating a given period of time to a topic really helps to focus a discussion. In many ways, AT feels like a classroom or community workshop to me. I learn with each new course, so bring on Lighting 101!

By the way, I'm the first to admit when I'm wrong, and as the finals unfold, I can't help noticing that it isn't a who's who of the pros here. It's regular people with small/cool apartments. LOVE that!

How do I send before and after pictures of my bathroom in for Bathroom Month?