apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Anybody out there do hand-drawn interiors renderings?

I'm meeting my boyfriend's mom for the first time in a few weeks and I want to spruce up the place before her visit. My two bigggest AT-type questions are -- Any ideas for a cool table setting for the "evening drinks" party I'm having for her?

And, I want to put new curtains in my bedroom. The bedroom is painted dark brown (Ben Moore's Hasbrook Brown, flat). Right now I have "natural" curtains in there.

I'm thinking about going with an "espresso" silk curtain from Pottery Barn or maybe velvet, but some people have told me I don't want brown paint with brown curtains, but I think that unbroken band of color might be a good thing. The bedroom is small and the windows and view are unremarkable.

I used to really hate curtains, but in Brooklyn they are just about mandatory.

I LOVE when curtains match the wall color!! Go for it!

And ohdeargod a tabletop question!!! My secret obsession unlocked!!! Tell me more about your apt/style/desires for the allimportant meeting! I can no longer concentrate on my work now!! (ps-- I am NOT being sarcastic, btw!!)

Patrick, are you SURE you aren't really Martha Stewart? Just kidding! I wish I had a tabletop obsession. I did just buy The Art of the Table, but it's more text-heavy than I thought it would be.

Chris, I think the brown walls/curtains could be very cool, as long as there are other colors in the room, and we aren't talking an all-brown room (which I doubt).

Chris--

Just saw these napkins on Target's Red Hot Shop...
www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_6/602-6611998-0489413?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0007Y196I

Perhaps a possible starting point? Oh, and maybe splurge for a professional flower arrangement?

Fiona--
If you saw my napkin ring collection, you would be more fearful than impressed.

Patrick (Other one), you should start a table top blog! I wonder if my napkin ring collection rivals yours? I have chickens from Mexico via grandma, silver crowns, rope loops . . . I would LOVE your help with this.

I was thinking of doing 2 blue table runners, running the "wrong" way across my pine barn wood farm table, with a low glass bowl of blue hyderangea?

Fiona, it's not an all brown room. It's a very small room with brown walls, bed with solid "natural" duvet and sheets. One red side chair and two black nightstands and two tiger oak dressers. One huge red and brown modern painting and one circle mirror with a white frame.

I really want these espresso silk curtains from PB, but they are expensive and probably not so cat-proof.

Paint color question -
I'm jumping the gun here because we don't quite own it yet, but my new kitchen-to-be has terracota tiles (alternating orangey and yellow-mustard) on the floor, what I would call forest green laminate counter tops, and very light maple cabinets. I'm a little stumped as to what color to paint the walls. The current color is very dark green, almost black, trying to match the counters I guess. But I would like something lighter. Also, this is a galley type kitchen. Help! Thanks ;)

On the table-- Try placing a mirror (or several ) flat on the table and grouping candles or flowers on top.

(Can get your boyfriend to score some photos of his Mom that you could add to the arrangement, since the event is in her honor?) Or include flowers or yummies that you know she likes. Marzipan?

Chris--
My head is going to explode. In a good way.

It sounds like you are off to a great start, and the Hydrangeas is what I'd take all other cues from. I also really like grass green/chartreuse mixed in with blues, and I am loving square all-white plates at the moment, plus really dark wood chargers, if doing a dinner versus cocktail nibbles.

Canadian House & Home every month has a really great tabletop feature, and they recently (this month and last) showed two really nice (and really do-able) schemes, one of which was centered around and inspired by little vases of Grape Hyacinths. They picked up the periwinkle blue color in just the napkins, and everything else was pretty neutral, but it was really fresh looking.

If a nighttime thing, and you're shooting for something more New Yorky/cocktaily/swanky, I'd go more formal with the flowers, use lots of tealights (unscented if dining), and bring some silver in for sparkle, and I second Lisa's mirror idea here.

ps-- make sure she has no flower allergies!!

Chris--
I know those (beautiful) curtains well, and assuming they are a pretty dead-on match to the wall color, I think it's a no brainer, especially since you really seem to like them. And the brown-on-brown wall-to-window jump will actually make the room seem bigger.

Other Patrick,
These are the curtains I want
ww2.potterybarn.com/cat/pip.cfm?src=shpcprwwinsol%7Crshop%2Fshpcprw%7Crshop%2Frmscrom%7Crrooms&pkey=cprwwinsol&gids=p3554

I maybe could get by with 2 panels, but that's still $200. Right now, I have 4 sail cloth nautral panels . .. ho-hum.

And now on to the place setting . . .
I love the Target napkins too, but for one 55 year old mom (mine) and one 70 yo mom (his), I almost think they will seem dated.

My dishes are Fostoria American (tons of pictures in Ebay). They were my grandmothers so I want to use them. They are clear glass, with star like edges. I have tons of it -- candle holders, plates, salad plates, saucers, shot glasses (could hold little flowers), etc.

Off topic question (is it allowed?)

What does everyone think of color painted on the ceiling? I've been in a couple bars lately that had done that in a way that I thought was successfull. I know convention is to paint the ceiling white, but what I saw was a dark blue and a brownish color. Maybe you need high ceilings for it to work.

Pete -

My vote, leave the ceiling white. Ceiling colors are indeed interesting - for an hour or two, which is why they're good in places that you visit for only an hour (on that same thought, if you must try it, start in the bathroom). Keep in mind it's one more color to match in the room (with your art, with your furniture...) and if you tire of it it's a pain to repaint - which you'll learn when you put that first color on. I'd focus your energy elsewhere in the room - for example, try throwing a really strong color on one wall and see how that feels.

One more thing - if you decide to do it, take the time to clear as much of the room as possible and mask absolutely everything. It's a messy job...

Painting the ceiling is fine, but you need a big room for it to come off right. A high ceiling also helps, because it'll make the ceiling visually look lower.

My ceilings were yellowed when I moved in because the guy before me was a smoker. Just repainting everything white opened up the space and made the whole thing feel bigger. Painting the ceiling really is a chore -- I couldn't stay there over the weekend while I painted. If you want to add something visual to the ceiling, why not add swags of fabric across it or something...

I am actually a fan of the colored ceiling these days, in any of the following "formulas"--
-- the same exact color as the walls, but flat paint
-- "half" the color of the walls (1 part white to 1 part the wall color)
-- a related pastel to the room (robin's egg blue, pale turquoise, pale lavendar, dove grey, being colors I think would work; painting the ceilings of porches a pale blue is an old technique, actually), as perhaps the only color of paint in the room, but relating to that same color as an accent, though fabrics or rugs or pillows.
A highly personal choice, though.

Chris--
Ha! One person's retro is another person's "old." Too funny but so true!
And, sorry this took so long to acknowledge, but TOTALLY cool and sweet how you are putting so much thought into this for her.
To me, the inspiration offered from the Fostoria pattern is the repeating grid pattern (I think, in quilting, it is called the "Tumbling Blocks" pattern, maybe?). I could see squared off silver napkin rings on Hydrangea-blue linen napkins, as a way of nodding to the traditional but keeping it fresh yet slightly formal?

Other Patrick is right about painting your ceiling with flat paint... All those bumps that you can already see on your ceiling will only be magnified if you use anything even slightly glossy.

Other Patrick, what about two table runners going across the table? One side of the table runner would become a placemat for each of the four settings. Not totally casual, but not so formal either. Crate and Barrel has solid light blue table runners that seem like they would work, but I'm worried the blue might clash with the flowers?

Table runner sounds great. Are we talking the mixed blue/purply/pink hydrangeas?

This is very random...but does anyone have suggestions for this-

I have a cat who likes to drink his water with his paws (dips his paws in the water and then licks it instead of drinking like any normal animal)...after a couple licks he'll flick the water off his paw and all over the place. He's always done it since he was a kitten- but the problem is now that I moved, his bowels are in the dining room because my kitchen is open/walk through and there isn't any place to put them- but I don't want water spots to show up on my walls. Any suggestions on how to protect my walls from water spots without having to screw an ugly piece of plastic to the wall? Preferrably a method that doesn't look out of place in a dining area (if it helps- color scheme in there is browns, black, gold, and bamboo green)...*sigh* of course my pets wouldn't be normal.

Thanks for the input regarding the ceilings. It's quite a large room with high ceilings (10ft). I guess considering the amount of work, it's not something you want to redo!

opps...bowl* not bowel sorry...

Your cat needs a backsplash!

Miya-- I raised my cat's bowls up off the floor and he stopped playing with his water.

Miya wins for funniest typo.

Other Patrick -- Definitely! There's a reason we have cats in our apartments and not poo-splattering monkeys.

I wonder what would happen if you raised your cat's bowels off the floor?

hello all,

Long time reader...first post. I have a question regarding curtains. At each window, my apartment has square shaped radiator/AC units that stick out from the wall about a foot, and are 48 inches wide.

I want to get full length window curtains, and like the way it softens the room and frames the window. However, because the radiator sticks out so far, I cannot close the curtains without it looking kind of goofy.

I was thinking about having a double curtain rod, and having two additional (maybe sheer) panels that I can open and close, that just stop above the radiator...

What do y'all think? (Sorry, I am from Texas)

Any suggestions?
Thanks for your thoughts!

Why not hang a wall of curtains a foot out so that they cover your walls and the radiators? You could hide thin bookshelves behind them too, and get some extra storage in the bargain. There's a tutorial on this site about how to hang curtains across a space...

www.apartmenttherapy.com/main/archives/000829.html

I haev painted my walls bright Orange on one side and offwhite on the other sides i would like to know what colour curtains will go well with the french windows we have; its a spacious living cum dining area with quite a good lighting.