apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Random IKEA question... why are a lot of their promotions not available at certain locations? I'm thinking here of their oft-included note "Prices may vary at IKEA Houston, IKEA San Diego, or IKEA Seattle."

Who knows the scoop?

I'm not sure if this is the reason for the other stores, but the Seattle IKEA used to be a franchise. I never noticed the prices to be that different though.

Longtime listener, first time caller..

Anyone have any info on floor stains? I've heard that Minwax isn't all that and if I were cool, I'd use Solar-Lux (maker is Behlen or somethin) or one of the other brands I've never heard of.

Any info? Or any floor sites you can recommend? My "floor guy" is my downstairs neighbor who has done this once before so our collective knowledge is a bit thin. Also, is staining a loft floor a green-tinted ebony just flat-out crazy?

I also feel the need to brag about my weekend. You see, I spent it with a doctor.

And not just any doctor, either...

I spent it with the RUG DOCTOR.

I love my ivory carpet once again.

Caveat: I do NOT recommend it for upholstery cleaning, though. I rented the upholstery-cleaning attachment in addition to the carpet-cleaning machine, and no matter how I mixed the upholstery cleaning solution, the attachment spewed foam. And not just on my couch, but my furniture and my walls and my clothes and my newly-immaculate carpet, too.

One especially frustrating aspect of the upholstery project was that when you rent the upholstery-cleaning attachment, you're also supposed to buy the Rug Doctor brand Upholstery Cleaner solution. And, like a good consumer, I did, along with Acid-Based Stain Treatment for carpet and the carpet-cleaning solution. The carpet products all worked beautifully.

HOWEVER.

The Upholstery Cleaner foams (and it did, no matter how much I mixed it and applied it - then dumped it and remixed it...AARGH.). The kicker was that Rug Doctor recommends that you buy a product called Anti-Foam when you buy the Upholstery Cleaner, and add it to the wastewater tank AND continually to the cleaning nozzle. I did; it foamed constantly anyway.

Wouldn't it be easier to just formulate the Upholstery Cleaner so that it doesn't effin' foam to begin with???

By the way - the chemical solutions for carpet and upholstery cost more ($32) than the machine rental ($24.99), so buyer beware.

I'm really happy with my carpet, though.

All I can tell you is that I think that if you're going to stain a floor, you need to sand the hell out of it, so none of the old wax or poly or anything is on it, if you want it to be at all consistent.

And I say that that color will be lovely if you have decided that you will probably live out the rest of your life there, and that you are now, currently, fairly young.

But the chances of the next person keeping it that color is kind of slim and it could hurt the value of the place, because greenish-black floors don't have that wide of an audience.

Personally, I think that if you're going to work that greenish black in a drop-dead way with everything else going on in the word, and you have the courage of your convictions and will always stay true to your vision, you might really have a very striking home once it's done. And if your hair is auburn, it will look especially good "on" you.

Last week I posted about the copper countertop project. I'm putting it on the backburner for now to decide if I really want it. I was going to just "live" with my peeling laminated counter, but now I am thinking about having a wooden box made that is missing a side (the side that will go against the wall) and will fit over the existing countertop like the cap on a tooth. I was wondering if it would be easy/fairly inexpensive to get something like that made. The top of the "cap" would be recessed slightly so I could put tile sort of like a tile tabletop. Then I would just use some sort of sealant along the wall. (The countertop is more like a breakfast bar, which I think makes this project easier than trying to cover a regular countertop where you only have access to the side facing out into the room).

I rent, so I want to invest in a nice-looking solution (the LL will NOT repair the countertop) that is also temporary and not insanely expensive.

Anyone see any holes in my theory? Thx. Sarajane.

Bliss Spa -- the one in SoHo -- had really drop dead green ebonized floors. They did when they opened. Haven't been there in years, but ohhh... those floors

Anne in Dallas. Re: IKEA Houston, San Diego, Seattle. I believe that these locations are actually franchised, and not wholly-owned IKEA locations. Pricing/promotions may be different. But I've noticed with the San Diego location, they sometimes bring in merch from Europe that doesn't normally hit the sales floors of other locations. Also, they tend to put new merch on the floor as soon as it arrives (as opposed to waiting for the date dictated by the corporate's promotion/sales calendar). Hope that helps.

sarajane, I was looking into doing something similar with the counters in my kitchen. I found a company that uses a solid surface material to build a cover for existing counters. I thought it would be cheaper than replacing the counters, but they said it would be $2000 to $4000 for a small kitchen. Unless you know someone who could make the cover for you, I think it will cost you more than you think.

You might want to look into covering the counter with contact paper or laminate floor tiles. It won't be permanent, but it will be cheap and easy.

NewHere:
My recommendation for the actual stain is Olympic from Lowe's - not sure if you have those in NYC though. I put in unfinished oak floors and then stained them with Olympic's ebony stain. It works really well - certainly much better than MinWax. I have also used some of the left-over stain on an unfinished pine dresser and was very happy, and pleasantly surprised, with those results as well.

Saw these chairs in the window of Housing Works on 17th St. over the weekend. My jaw just dropped because I liked them so much. I just had to post this link. The photo doesn't do them justice.

http://www.housingworksauctions.com/lot.cfm?lotID=6165

I knew they did those as auctions, but it's fun to see how those work! I like that they really make those windows work for them.

- Curtis

Hey,

I seem to be search-engine challenged today. I'm looking for a post that was on AT in the last year about an artist who painted blown-up images of food with lots of detail. I think one of the examples posted was a giant chocolate chip cookie.

I remember two entries on this person. One initial mention, as someone had seen her art at a cafe, and another fuller entry with her Web site address. Does this ring a bell for anyone? I checked the archives and did a bit of Googling but came up with zip.

Ok, so:

Angela Adams hall runner. "Carb" or "protein" furniture, in the AT lexicon?

And Curtis:

If I did make a tile countertop, do you think there is a way to design the wood part so I could salvage the tile when I move out? This will help when deciding whether to hand-paint the tiles or buy prefab ones.

I'm going to make some frames myself, entirely from scratch. Does anyone know where I can get long pieces of wooden frame moulding that I can cut myself? I can this on the internet but I would rather have a look at the real thing before I bought it, so an actual shop in Manhattan would be great.

Angela Adams hall runner? I'd have to see it, but I think of things like runners as carbs that are to key off the proteins, but once one had one, it would probably be considered a protein, depending on the pattern.

If there's some kind of jog, or irregularity in the front face of the edge of the counter, you might need to do it in kind of a modular way, but I think your "dental cap" concept is a good one, basically. I think I would get some kind of flat metal strips that are a little bit wider than the thickness of the wood that will sheath the front edge. Drill some holes in that metal in such a way that they coincide with the center of that wood at the edge (not the center of the metal strip) so that you can screw them into that underside, and yet their lip will secure them from coming up, and since you'll do that on three sides (except for the back as you pointed out), I think that should be pretty secure. And then, if you MUST remove the whole thing, you can probably just unscrew them and lift it back off.

When I wanted to make a little kitchen-approval morsel of flooring in the tiniest studio, when I lived in Chelsea, I did something KIND of like that, in that I attached vinyl floor tile in a black and white checkerboard pattern (a bigger version than the real tile that I did in my current place) and then I used the metal threshold stuff they use at the edges of carpets, to screw it into the floor, so I could just remove it when I moved.

Jessica -
Most frame shops are notorious for mainly only selling that stuff as part of something they're framing; I used to work at one, but there's a place called FrameMasters (I think there still is) where you might be able to get it from. It was just like a block or so East of the Meatpacking District when I last saw it, but that was years ago.

Jessica, Maybe try the Lumber Boys on Second Avenue?

Thanks, Curtis.

The existing "counter" sits atop a half-wall that divides the kitchen from the living room. When I looked at the underside, it looked like someone sort of tacked it onto the wall with L-brackets many years ago. There is no jog at all, which is the beautiful part. The only trick to it is that the corners are rounded. I was originally going to cover it in sheet metal, but the "cap" concept is even more simple because the cap doesn't have to conform exactly to the shape of the counter. (think of a U shape. If you are looking at it from above, it looks like a square-ish U, sans serif, with the open part representing where the counter attaches to the wall). So my frame dimensions need only be as wide and as long as the existing counter, because the underside will not be visible, for the most part. It might even give me a tiny bit more counter space. I recently added some stools, and now we use the counter as a table whereas we used to use it for mail, food, umbrellas, etc. due to its prime location as the first thing you see when you enter my apartment.

Whether the tiles can be salvaged, in whole or in part, will determine whether I do a small colored glass mosaic tile (a la hakatai) or fewer, larger hand-painted ceramic tiles. Right now I don't know how tiles are "cemented" in place, so if there is a medium that will let me pry the tiles out later (like some sort of vinyl sealant rather than grout, or grout itself for all I know), I'd rather use that.

I directed my question to you because of your amazing "curtis place" tiles and figure you know all about smashing and replacing and maybe repurposing tiles. Thanks for responding.

As for the "lip", I was basically thinking along the same lines-- a wooden box with no bottom and one side missing, with a frame tacked onto the top that is the same height as the tiles will be when they are installed.

I promise to do my homework and go look at glass tiles in "person" before I make up my mind.

sarajane!
Dear, dear, dear, sarajane! Is THAT why you asked me?

Because if you read the text surrounding those pictures on my little flickr thing, you'll see that, no! I did NOT do actual tile for that! I painted those walls to LOOK LIKE tiles! A tricky little dance involving kind of a lot of tile-shaped bits of blue painters tape and the patience that is usually granted exclusively to geniuses and certain extremely mentally ill people and/or both.

I've actually executed the kind of project you're talking about it, per se, but I'm pretty good at figuring things out, so that's why I offered my ideas.

Holy trompe l'oeil, batman. I feel stupid now. Maybe it's jimkk. I remember that he wanted to make a backsplash with tile for a rental.

God help us renters who want to have customized homes but don't want to/can't buy an apartment.

Again, I'll do my homework, but I am still hoping for words of wisdom from the AT community, which is so much more creative and genius that you can find on other sites, imho. I mean, paint by numbers walls, hand-painted "wallpaper",

Thanks, sarajane, but meanwhile, I do stand by every word I said about how I think your project could work! And I hope you keep us up-to-date on the progress.

Offtopic (as always!)... nyc is just around the corner! I arrive Wednesday evening and will be there through Monday. Anne (and other AT'ers), are you still up for a west-coast-meets-east-coast toast? Maybe Thursday night? We are staying near Grammercy Park, but I'll leave it to those in the know to pick a nice spot!

I can't wait to get there!

Thanks Curtis!

Like I said, it's going to take some homework first. Also, the more I research, the more I resemble Homer Simpson when he sees donuts... except it's over tile.

I am beginning to get a sense of the look that I want; the next step will be picking a color (or design if I go the hand-painted route) and then choosing how insane I want to get. My favorite look so far (at least that I think I might be able to duplicate) is by Roger Brown, but his website has disappeared (and spawns mucho popups if you try to go on it). I saw his work on the hakatai website. Looks like he used a tile cutter to make his designs.

Which then makes me think, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." Tile cutter; that sounds both fun and extremely dangerous.

If your kitchen is small, why not spring for a new countertop? You are living there now and a new laminate countertop would probably be less expensive and certainly less time-intensive than any ad hoc solution would be. If you have a fairly good relationship with the LL, ask if he would object to you doing this repair and if s/he has any suggestions re: workers, colors, sources, etc. And would s/he be willing to share some of the cost.

aquarabbit (I always hear brierabbit in my head when I see your moniker) - YES! let's get together. I think there should be at least one or two others here that might want an excuse to have a drink. But my hand is up. Let me think of a place to meet. You should email me and let me know what your plans are and we can meet at a place where you end your day or at a place you've read about and want to try.

ANYONE ELSE??

addg1@verizon.net

Sarajane,
I think your tile cap idea is good. Depending on how the edges of the counter look and how large the counters are, you could also get some slabs of butcher block and/or granite and just sit them on top. Obviously, this would be a better option only if you had a small countertop area.

ebrown,

Springing for new laminate was my original fantasy. But my LL is not willing to work with me on anything, ever. Let's put it this way: the super lives in our building, yet for a good three months you could FREELY enter our building because the FRONT DOOR didn't close automatically. THREE MONTHS.

I must confess I have also been harboring a tile thing for a while now. I love mosaic. So it's probably a bit more expensive to tile this breakfast bar, but I think it is a worthwhile investment. The bar is the first thing you see when you come into the apartment. It is also rapidly becoming the new "kitchen table" since the old kitchen table is the soon-to-be craigslist table. I think it will be labor-intensive and horrific to build it. I think it will make me cry at least once, and that it will cost twice what I estimate. But when I am eating at it, or just gazing upon it, I think it will be worth it in the end. And who knows? Maybe when I move, we can affix a 4th side to the box and throw some legs on it to make it into a sofa table or sideboard or part of a garden.

I was also thinking about rigging up a similar piece to join the countertop on either side of my stove. Impossible to explain in words, pretty simple to understand when you see the stove. My LL does not care how something looks (evidenced by the worst paint jobs in history), whereas I care very much.

I will try to do before and after pix.

Sarajane, it amazes me that a LL could be so completely short-sighted and, in the case of your LL, negligent. If the LL were willing to work with you, he would end up with a kitchen which would imcrease the desirability of the place. O. Well. His. Loss. Big. Time.

Did you see the tiles that Kate used in her winning "I've Got Color!" entry? Yummy.

Sarajane - this has nothing to do with countertops but you brought up something I think of while watching TV ---- does anyone ever notice that people just ring the front doorbell and not have to go thru some kind of security. Seinfeld and Rhoda are the only shows where there was a buzzer or security to get up to the apt. Look at Frazier, Friends, Will and Grace, etc... I always wonder how such high end buildings could be portrayed to let people just walk into the building. Brownstones, yes - highrises, no. I know, I know - I should get a life and I look like an idiot for posting this but I still think it's odd.

anne... that's so funny because "aquarabbit" is itself my total mis-hearing of something someone else said.

We haven't nailed down any timelines, schedules, of any sort yet. I think it will all start to come together on the plane ride. But I think Thursday night should be a safe bet for drinks. I haven't done much research yet on good places to go, so I'm totally open to suggestions. I'd probably lean toward something un-touristy, a good local spot.

IKEA's countertops are less than $100. why not just buy one of them?

Keri-

is this the artist?

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/091505/visual-artists-photographers-painters-etc/katarzyna-modzelewska-painter-003939

Change of topic -- sorry, but I'm craving something I don't even think exists. A Pentagram-type calendar, but for a Filofax. You know, large, cool typography, but on small insertable calendar pages. Has anyone ever seen such a thing?

Please say yes.

Hi. Question for the therapy crew: I've been looking for a stylish solution to house an extensive CD collection (2000+) that will hide them in drawers or cabinets. Have looked at wall units and floor units, but haven't found anything that appealed to me. Any good recommendations for hip media storage? Thanks.

popstarr... is there a reason to hang on to all 2000+...? I'd vote for taking the ones you don't listen to as often and saving them digitally. I know it can be hard to let go to things you are so attached to!

I've only recently moved toward this, because I have a very limited space for storing CDs. Anything I am sure I won't want to listen to in the car goes on my computer and doesn't stay in the house.

I know that's not the kind of help you're looking for! But the difference between storing say, 1000 CDs vs 2000 can make a huge difference storage-wise.

popstarr - I'm assuming you want to store those cds in their original jewel cases? they're a lot easier to store in books, but not as easy to get at.

I saw a decent setup in an early issue of Readymade, which basically involved using bracket shelving and running holes through the boards to string wire through to keep the cds from falling off the ends. No doors on that, though. You could run a decorative curtain in front of it with a ceiling-mounted rod.

Might be a ton easier to have something custom-built, if price isn't much of an object. Or get existing plain wood bookcases with adjustable shelves, have some extra shelves cut for them (the shelves will still be too deep, but at least they won't be too tall), add doors, and paint it all one color.

I think Ikea might have a wood shelving unit with cd drawers, but storing that many cds isn't going to be inexpensive via ANY method, alas.

I know, I know. I'm mostly digital on my collection, but I can't give up on cover art and alphabetized jewel cases. I've looked into the IKEA options - might have to go custom. Thanks.

hey apartment therapists,

i just bought this great poster series:
http://www.buyolympia.com/q/Item=nikkiposter2

and what a price, right? i love mcclure and i love these prints. so here's my question: in the january AT spirit of putting art i love on my walls, i want to frame and hang all six of these. but i'm poor. even the cheapest frames at this irregular size run about $20, which multiplied by 6 is pretty much over my price range. any creative ideas for the cheap-->free range of hanging these? i think they make a great impact, so even if i had the cash i wouldn't want to do much beyond a simple glass and brackets or black frame. so how do i achieve such a look without stooping to the dorm room thumbtacks approach? i think these prints deserve more than the college issued "starry night," you know?

thanks.

Question on Washer/Dryer Combos -
Does anyone have these at their place? What brand and are you happy with it? Does it really dry clothes or do you end up hanging clothes all around the places afterwards.

Thanks.

HELP!!! I've looked everywhere for a modern, grown up looking sofa bed with some form of a storage box underneath. They seem to be every where in Europe (or at least every website I've managed to find), but very limited in the US. the closest I've come is Klik Klak "Tornado" but it only seems to be available in North Carolina. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. Can anyone recommend a place to look? I'm starting to get very frustrated!! Thanks.

stefanie
I'm sure those will look great hung together. I'm not sure of the price of the "format" brand of frames--they have a small black plastic and front-loading (glass pops out). I'm not sure how much these would go or if they're available in your size. However, you could buy the next larger size and back them with black paper as a makeshift mat. I prefer these to the also inexpensive clip frames which can kind of dent the art if it's not matted in something. I think you'll be hard pressed to find anything much cheaper than those options, if you want it framed. If you don't mind it getting dusty and being exposed, you could mount them with foam core board or mat board and hang them in a line on a wire with clips. I think that could look pretty nice.

PeaceLamp,

Both my sisters overseas do not like their washer/dryer combos. I've not met many people that are, and those that are 'happy' end up being blown away by the dryers we have here.

i suggest you test drive before using them.

thanks christine! both ideas sound great. i'll look up that brand of frames. with the foam core board--would you mount them with glue or can you think of anything less permanent?

thanks again.

Thanks Minh!

I have natural butcherblock kitchen countertops.
I want to seal them and I don't want to use mineral oil. Can anyone recommend something that is food safe and will protect from moisture?