apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I repainted my kitchen yesterday and was totally amazed at the difference a little color has made. It has TOTALLY changed the feeling and energy of the space. I am in love. Here's before & after pics, thought you guys would like to see this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambernussbaum/81503940/
BEFORE

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambernussbaum/81503939/
AFTER

I think it looks so much better with the floor and it makes all the black accents pop. For color accents I'm thinking fire engine red & teal (in new rugs, linens & window treatment).

Also, the paint is American Tradition "Grand Hotel Awning Yellow."

Feedback?

Amber, wow!

This site is such a stress-reducer for me.

Amber, I adore you -- I just got all the pleasure of gazing raptly at a freshly yellow room, without having to paint it myself! It looks great! You have me completely rethinking whether I want the next kitchen to be beige after all.

After being surrounded by that paint all day, I left the house for a couple hours. I came back and brought my boyfriend and when we walked in, we both just went WOW. It's a total transformation. Now he wants to paint every room haha.

Happy New Year everybody!

In the spirit of "nothing you do for your apartment is wasted": I rearranged my living room furniture by putting the couch and the area rug on the diagonal, with a slipper chair on each side. It's the ol' same furniture as when Jill visited me last year for "The Inside Out" but - in my humble opinion - looks SO much better, as well as giving a more spacious feel, than before. Truth is, I was NEVER a "couch-flat-against-the-wall" kind of girl! This is much more interesting!

Also: I didn't have enough of those borders near the ceiling in the bedroom, and after a year, I've finally given up on that Indian store: the guy keeps telling me he's getting 'em in.... yeah yeah sure. So I took them down, put up a fabric canopy that goes halfway over the bed, and now the borders are around that. Again, since decorating is never really "done" and there's always fine-tuning, I like this look better.

Last but not least: everyone else's clean, contemporary spaces have inspired me to re-do the kitchen: I felt the kitchen was too similar in feel to the warm, colorful, cozy colors elsewhere, so I'm taking a cue from my existing classic black & white checkerboard floor, and doing a classic white & black kitchen. I'm part of the way through, and it looks and feels SO good: fresh, clean, and cooler in feel: I figure the kitchen had enough heat!

I've always hated white -- or so I thought -- but although I still adore rich. saturated color... but I'm now coming to appreciate the beauty of white. Really! I NEVER thought this would happen to me, :)

Wish I had a digital camera, though, so I could show you "after" photos, because I like all the changes much better than how my place appeared in the house tour section in September.

Nice, Amber! How did you do the letters/numbers on the wall? Really like that!

Post for Mary:
In one of the OT's I think you talked about the lack of design advice for 40 sqft bathrooms so I thought of you when I was reading NY mag the other day. How about a wet room with no tub and just a shower?
http://www.nymetro.com/nymetro/news/reasonstoloveny/15377/index.html
I know storage would be an issue but those tall, narrow, mirrored stand alone shelving units would provide decent storage in a small bathroom.

Fiona -

I made the design in Adobe Illustrator (the font is Bodoni Poster) and printed it on sticky back vinyl (the kind that's used for window displays). Luckily my work has a wide-format printer so this didn't cost me much. I imagine kinkos could do the same thing but I don't know how much they'd charge.

That apt. in NY Magazine should definitely be on SSBS! It's too bad that the long hallway is pretty much useless space. But they did an incredible job in the layout. And I've always been a big fan of corner sinks. It's a real space saver in small bathrooms.

Oh, and Amber - I agree with the others - WOW! Major difference. Love it!

Thanks, Amber. Looks amazing!

Amber. The yellow looks fantastic. Nice color choice!

jamie pup. Love the 278SF apartment on the NY Mag link you provided! So beautifully done... The first pic of the couple in the space reminded me (in a good way) of a minimalist, all-white space featured in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. The episode was called "New Best Friend" and featured Miranda Richardson as Bettina. Below is the only screen grab I could find online of the Bettina character and her husband in the space. (A memorable scene because the Bettina character and her husband handed back a housewarming gift of a bottle of wine because there was no place they could aesthetically place it in the space.)

http://www.miranda-richardson.com/thumbs/mrabfab02s.jpg

Amber -
That yellow is very fresh and fun, and YES! Strike while the iron is hot about painting every room. You're on a roll and it's best to do these things while you're still excited about it, and while the whole New Year/New Start vibe is still going.

LOL Enrique!

And whoever was looking for a wrap around shelf model, jamie pup has just provided that for you above.

Enrique--
TOO funny. I drew strength from that episode while decluttering, channeling Edina in her pre-Bettina visit hysteria... "See this, sweetie? This is what I DON'T want... THINGS on SURFACES. Objet Central, sweetie!!" :)

Amber--
NICE job, great yellow choice (and yellow ain't easy). What inspired the letters?
Love how the type graphics "make sense" of the cabinet hardware.

Enrique,
I just love that episode of AbFab, especially when Patsy gets cut up after being trapped in the hanging sculpture! She tries to pass off her facelift scars as a result of that accident.

p(too) -
The inspiration for the typography thing was actually a painting by Dee Adams called "Migraine."

http://www.deedee914.com/gallery/migraine_tn.jpg

The large shape in the middle reminded me of the letter O in Bodoni Poster (the font I used), and I just kind of went from there. The cabinet hardware complementing the design was totally a (happy) accident.

Saturday Night Live has a couple of characters who are Euro-ish, and call themselves Nooni and Newni or something and they laugh at anyone who cross-pronounce their names and they VERY call anything by it's correct name in English, and their apartment is filled with furniture that is completely impossible to sit on.

They remind me of that AbFab episode, too. Maya Rudolph plays the wife, and that's one of the funniest recurring pairs of characters they have at the moment.

VERY = NEVER; oy, I've become them now.

Amber,
The kitchen looks great in it's new color. I am definitely a fan of yellow rooms, they make me happy. Also excited to see your from Norfolk. I'm here in Newport News. Looks like everything is coming along in the new place. Kudos to you.

i loved that episode of AbFab- brilliant-
i wish i could be that disciplined to live so minimally. of course reality is that will never happen. oh well, would looks great in the photo...

anyone live in Harlem? how about east harlem? What do you think about it?
Where-what is Sugar Hill?

My boyfriend weighs 125 pounds soaking wet and wears a suit to work.... will he make it to the Subway?

Jon. Thanks for linking up your "faux bois" blog. It's great!

Amber,
GREAT transformation! Yellow can be real tricky -
One thought - For the wall space between the backsplash and the upper cabinets; how about painting it white so it flows into your letter art and ties the upper and lower cabinets together.
Just thinking out loud.

A lurker here, posting for the first time. I like how the yellow makes the white cabinetry and black hardware pop. I really like the type graphic. I think I'd pass on teal and/or fire-engine red accessories. Instead, I'd do something like a black countertop.

Jeffery

Just looked at the link to that 278SF apartment again. It really is a stunner. I aspire to live like that. Seeing those pics makes me miss my first 510SF condo (with the killer view) above the Sunset Strip.

kristian--
He'll make it to the subway, but if he's soaking wet, he won't keep his job very long.

Another take on texting up your walls:

http://whatisblik.com/prose.html

[quote]My boyfriend weighs 125 pounds soaking wet and wears a suit to work.... will he make it to the Subway?[/quote]

Meaning????

[quote]kristian--
He'll make it to the subway, but if he's soaking wet, he won't keep his job very long.[/quote]

LOL! Exactly!


Anyway, the point of why I was posting: Amber that looks fantastic! :D

- Tania :)

amber, this makes me miss my last yellow kitchen! albeit the paint was benjamin moore montgomery white, it actually looked butter-y yellow. i loved it, and so did all my guests. funny because i tried the same paint in two other rentals, and it looked peach. yellows are very tricky. congrats on finding the right one.

i always crave yellow in the cold, rainy wintertime. . .

jamie pup:

Thanks for the link, but I looove to soak in the morning. Too bad I need a sink and toilet in there too...

kristian-
I know some people who live in East Harlem and are quite happy there. One is Puerto Rican and the other is very waspy looking; their condos are each brand-new and very spacious.

The question about your boyfriend is a good one, but that has a lot to do with his personality, etc., and the exact immediate neighborhood situation of the apartment you would be in.

A mixed-race friend of mine who basically looks Latina found herself in a rental in Harlem in a very gentrified part just above the northwest corner of the park, and no, she was just staying in the apartment for a night and hadn't moved ALL her stuff in, and all she had on the windows were blinds, but a guy across the airshaft was screaming anti-white epithets and threats at her. She moved out, but the management company was not in the least helpful and held her responsible for the lease. She managed to find another renter to take over the lease; she was very honest about what happened, and she found someone who felt very much more at home in the neighborhood.

Seems the super hadn't really told her that that building across the airshaft had a lot of Section 8 folks in it.

That same building, though, is chock full of blond Columbia coeds whose apartment windows probably don't face the airshaft, so maybe they haven't happened to have had that kind of unpleasant encounter?

Go ahead and have a look where ever you want to, and make sure that before you sign anything, that you visit the building at different times of day, etc. And ask questions. Many questions.

Mary, you're welcome and sorry about my assumption that it was ok to lose the tub.

Enrique, you describe that eposide so well I wish I had seen it. I also really like that apt and it would be great to see them on SSBS or even here.

Kristian
Harlem and East Harlem are very different. I would say that Harlem (Sugar Hill is in Harlem in the 150's) is more diverse and the more interesting place to live. Go to the craigslist housing forum and do a search for Harlem to get some opinions. In the mean time here is my somewhat "old" opinion on East Harlem from the same site:
http://forums.newyork.craigslist.org/?ID=18547105

Clearly my choices are just getting rid of the tub or knocking down a couple of walls and branch out into the hallway... I'm actually fine in my extremely small tub, I just wish it were a little deeper...

Curtis, something similar happened when I was apartment hunting a few years ago. I looked in Harlem, and some people standing on the sidewalk outside the building saw me go in there with a broker. They were still there when we exited the building, saying, "We don't want white people here" and "Why don't you go live in Chelsea, white b*tch?" The broker hurried me away and knocked some dollars off her fee. "I'm sure the neighbors are nice once you get to know them." Whatever. I didn't know what was worse--the rudeness of the people outside or the broker's fee, even with the discount.