apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I was sold on the "Billy" shelves when I first saw them years ago. Then I finally purchased one for my ever-expanding library. I guess particle board is no match for Phaidon Press because it immediately caved in. Make sure you only put your softcovers on it!!

I have an airconditioner slot in the wall of our living room. It's about 6 feet up, between the windows, and while it's nice to not have to take up a window with the window unit, having the airconditioner in the middle of the wall is pretty unsightly. Does anyone have any ideas on how to cover it up for the seasons it's not being used? It sticks out about 4-5 inches.

Have you thought about drapes?

I have this situation and here's what I did. I put a very long nail in the wall right above the a/c unit. Then I attached a zip-tie to the hook on the back of a framed print to make a loop. Then I attached the loop to the nail and adjusted the size of the zip-tie loop to allow the frame to hang flush against the a/c unit. It's a large print so it covers the unit completely. It looks like the print is mounted 4 inches or so out from the wall, but either nobody notices or they ask how I mounted the picture in such a cool way.

I stopped in at IKEA in Emeryville, California today. I ended up spending a good 3 hours there. I was curious if it dominated New York City as much as it did here in the Bay Area? I personally don't buy anything, but it's clearly obvious the masses are purchasing practically everything they have available.

Besides making design more accessible and more affordable, does IKEA have any redeeming qualities?

I myself worry about the repercussions of the quality of their furniture. Surely over time peopel will start to associate poorly made furniture with IKEA, and then maybe even modern design in itself. Does anyone else feel this way? Am I overanalyzing this?

Hi Sally, I don't want to kill a discussion before it has even started but to get an idea of the pervasiveness or not (or at least quite a varied bunch oof ppls' opinions on ikea in the NE region) try this thread

www.apartmenttherapy.com/main/archives/001188.html

Having said that my 2 cents (because I did not contribute to any ikea threads - I was surprised at how many turned up with a search) is that the US perception of Ikea is very different from the UK perception. This prolly has a lot to do with Ikea being seen as typical college furniture here in the US whereas most rentals in the UK are furnished (yes even the beds - sounds icky I know) so you don't typically go out and buy a load of cheap furniture in your tender, formative years. The other thing is I seem to recall the UK stores being much better designed and "friendlier" than the warehouse type that you get in the US but don't quote me on that because my memory is really hazy on that.

The biggest difference though that I can see is that Ikea in the UK has a reputation for great modern design at an affordable price. Apart from AT.com you don't often hear ppl talking about the actual deaign of Ikea products. The design is ignored and it becomes all about cheap materials (though I think all their drawer slides in their kitchen cabinets are full extension) and the limited half life.

I read a great piece on the new generation of Scandinavian designers once in a design mag and how Ikea did open the door to many of these young designers (I know Arne Jacobson is a household name but I was surprised at the sheer number of great new designers that were getting noticed). If you see any of those designs at least some of you will be blown away (the crowd that likes the modern stuff) and you have to thank Ikea for that for bringing designed furniture to the masses along the same lines as Target did with its cheaper Michael Graves and Phillipe Starck stuff.

As an example of this different UK perception here is a UK design magazine's take on Ikea
www.icon-magazine.co.uk/issues/021/influential_1.htm

Anna - To cover up my old in-the-wall air conditioner when I got a window model I just bought a piece of foam core and made a box that covered the face and the sides to the wall. My walls are white, so the foam core blends right in. Nobody really notices it.

Why is my Aeron chair so uncomfortable to sit in? I downloaded the user manual and have spent hours adjusting all the settings, but I still can't make it a chair that is comfortable to sit in all day.

Any suggestions? Any secrets to making it worth the fight I put up to get one?

jamie pup is right. Ikea is a styling staple in most UK and Canadian design mags, with no apology.

And since the rule "you get what you pay for" applies especially to furniture, I think you actually get a little more from Ikea, since it is higher style than most other outlets anywhere near its price range, aside from the fact Ikea provides some solutions you simply can not find anywhwere else.

You have to shop carefully (and during the week, if you can), and consider what your expectations are. But Ikea has no equal here. Just don't furnish your whole house with it.

anna-
What about a boxy abstract canvas, with enough frame depth to counter for the AC unit's protrusion? Many art supply places have large "gallery style" framed canvases, meaning much deeper stretchers. Or maybe make a similar box-like frame for a leaning wall mirror?

if you all recall, the UK "perception"precipitated a riot!

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4252421.stm

insane. i'm not sure exactly what it means, but it certainly means something serious about affordable modern design, does it not?

I have to admit that I am one of those Americans who feels she outgrew Ikea once I paid off her last student loan. However, I still have my Ikea coffee table I bought 14 years ago. It is the perfect height and length for my needs. But I did alter it about 8 years ago by covering the top in woven leather.

Never heard of an uncomfortable aeron chair... insanely jealous of their owners.

Listen has their been any reaction to the NY Times Design Magazine from Sunday? I was wondering if it was worthwhile... I flipped through, unimpressed.

I have been working at this company where ALL the chairs are aeron chairs. I always thought of them as huge but it's just like a regular chair but heaven. I should carry around my own. Use it on the subway and stuff.

Paul, bless you. I just finished looking through the "t" style mag on the subway this morning and was kind of ranting about it when I got into work. I am so tired of these apts that have not a drop of color in them and these designers who go off on these flights of fancy about materials and products that they then don't live with. I'm looking at the dining room in the Richard Meier bldg, which is just the epitome of this. I mean, beautiful table, beautiful chairs (2!) beautiful terrazzo floor all adding up to a big ol' nothing. Is that a place you can imagine a family dinner, or a party or even the owner walking in in his pjs on Sunday morning for a cup of coffee? I'm just so done with that overly minimalist pretentious look. I want some color and I want some sign of home, of actual human existence.

Still love those lucite shelves, though.

Ruth, read your response on the other thread, just as I was beginning to feel daunted about the project...seems the key to acrylic/plexiglass/lucite is thickness, those shelves are at least 1 1/2" or 2". Thinner looks bad (no offense to Kartell) more research is called for.

I couldn't agree more on the overall blah impression throughout the style mag and I share your ambivalence about the lucite chaise. I think it straddles that razor sharp edge between ooh sexy! and ew sexy, kinda Gucci-in-the-Tom-Ford-golden-era.

Hey Ruth, I read the article on the Perry St loft apt last night and all I could think of was why did they put in a Terrazzo floor? I can see that working in Miami or warmer climes on the West coast - but NYC? I can't imagine what that will feel like in the winter. I doubt that those places have underfloor heating.

I can't remember furniture because the floor was so overwhelming to me but I do recall some of it fitting with my likes. Not the desk and chair that had pride of place in the LR though.

I have been interested in those buildings since I saw the construction starting from the river walkway. It was the first time that I recall seeing an innovative approach to residential building design in NYC. Nearly all residential buildings follow the model of unimaginative design made to fit the maximum rentable/sellable sq footage possible for largest ROI. These were different. Unfortunately only reserved for the richest echelons with initial prices in the year 2000 of $1500 per sqft (for a measly claimed 1800 sqft but real useable 1400 sqft in the north tower - south tower is much bigger). They now sell for somewhere between $2000-$2500 per sq ft. On par with 165 Charles pre construction prices right next door.

Another amazing design only reserved for the (super) rich are the Calatrava towers at the south st seaport. Four story cantilevered cubed townhouses each with a garden on the roof of the cube below on an 800 ft tall backbone? Amazing but also amazingly expensive with the cheapest of the 10 homes rumoured to start at $29MM!

BTW, bit of trivia about the three Meier glass towers on Perry St and Charles st. The guy who owned the land where 165 Charles is going up bought that land just before ground broke on the Perry st towers. He had wanted develop his own condos there but realized he could not compete with those towers once they started going up (he had sat on the land for a while without doing much) so sold his land to some other developers and bought into one of the Perry St towers. He made a huge profit on his land sale that obviously helped his purchase. The irony is that he was instrumental in ruining his south view but I guess he is not losing too much sleep over that.

re-- "T"
My favorite part was the cover. I am infatuated with that typeface now. But I also liked much of the content.

I DID find the whole tragi-hip tone to be annoying but not unexpected, as I find most NYC-based interiors pieces are best categorized with the phrase "trying too hard", in the whole "we're-too-fabulous-to-smile"/Wallpaper kind of vibe. (with AT as a NOTABLE exception, of course!!)

I don't mind when pieces are aspirational, or of a style-bent not necessarily/currently one I share, since I don't mind being challenged out of my comfort zone. But I do like my design passion doled out with a dose of humor and humanity, please.

Does anyone know a good furniture repair shop? I have an estimate from The Furniture Joint, but I need to get a 2nd estimate for my insurance company. (The piece was damaged being shipped.) I'm almost at the point of just writing off the insurance and paying for it all myself, since most places seem to want to see the piece, not photos--which I can understand, but I can't exactly bring in a large piece myself, then bring it home again if I don't want to use the place.

SG, I'm also not sure exactly where the lighting goes in the lucite shelves. Is it somehow embedded right into the shelf itself? Maybe you need to pour the lucite yourself which seems daunting at best.

There was a very telling article some months back in the NYT House and home section about designers using completely impractical materials, ones that needs entire manuals on their cleaning and care. But then when asked what they put in their own kitchen, the answers are things like linoleum that are reasonably priced and practical. They wouldn't be freezing their toes off on a terrazzo floor. And only a tiny rug in their bedroom! Sorry, that pictoral just drove me nuts.

thinking of ikea and shelves and good practical nonpretentious design --
ikea "BILLY" shelves rock. Although I am looong out of school, just last weekend we bought a series of 4 Billies w/ height extensions and doors on the lower halves of the shevles. Now we have a clean clutter-free 9ft tall, 10 ft long library wall at a very cheap price. love it!

Please don't get me started on Richard Meier... He's the only one who irks me more than Jonathan Adler. Talk about a sterile vision of the world. But he's one of the darlings of the modern era of design so I don't want to be sacreligious or hit with a libel suit or anything... I'm glad I really only flipped through the "T" mag... Did not notice that was his project.

Ikea drawer slides

I have 2 ikea chest of drawers. During a recent move,I loaded up the drawers too much and broke many of the plastic drawer slides, so that they popped out of their grooves on the side of the chest and no longer hold the drawers.

I guess I could make some wooden replacements, but will be a fairly big chore.

I've looked online, and cannot find replacements . . . any ideas?