apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Pixie,

I found AT after googling my own company's name and finding a link to here. Been here (both lurking and posting) ever since. Check out my business by clicking on my name. Authentic 5o million year old fossils used as tabletops, artwork, countertops, tile... Thanks

I read about the AT blog in a NYTimes online article back in, I think, the spring of '04 and an addiction was born.

P2, Thanks! I saw somewhere after coming here that you had won. I still was hoping that Maxwell would do more interviews with past and present SCC entries. All the details. Like, uh, how much stuff did you cram in the closet on the day you were taking pictures. ;)

Would you do it again? What did you learn from the experience? I mean, it's like standing naked in public. It takes a lot of guts. And confidence.

Would you care to share your experiences? Or maybe you'd hold more weight with Maxwell in suggesting a series of SCC discussion threads with Q and A , pictures from the entry and your comments.

Pixie,
Google got me here too
I was either looking for windows or a fridge . . .
same week as bathroom contest was announced . . .

Does anyone have the new magazine 'Blueprint' from Martha Stewart? I was hoping that it was going to be a gender-neutral design magazine, but I see lots of articles about women's accessories / beauty on the web-site.

You say "standing naked in public" like it's a bad thing.

well i am so thrilled i just had to share. i'm doing what i call a kitchen makover rather than a rennovation. solely for monetary constraints. saturday i had 'amtico' african slate vinyl tile put in on the floor. it is soo beautiful. everyone who has seen it can't believe it's not natural slate. then yesterday new ss range and matching installed microwave. now on to 2 varde ikea freestanding units; replace all old cabinet handles with matching varde handles and paint all walls the most rich deep ocean blue- benjamin moore 'hemlock'. i will send before and after when completed. i am in approval heaven.

On moving day, I was finishing up some painting and cleaning my brushes when Schnider shut off the water for the building to work on the pipes. So my lovely sage green wallpaint is now splattered on the floor of my tub. Does anyone know how to remove latex paint from a bathtub?

Molly, have you tried Simple Green? I've found that it removes all sorts of paint from most surfaces pretty easily, without doing any damage. Just pour it over the paint stain and let sit for a few minutes. After that, paint usually just peels away.

molly--
I think, once dried, latex paint should come of an enamel tub pretty easily... with perhaps a coarse pastic scrubber and a mild cleanser like SoftScrub or BonAmi?

molly -
I'd say that depending on what finish it is it MIGHT even peel up like a face mask! Like, if it's eggshell finish, which is really just liquid rubber.

obi -
Congratulations! That sounds lovely! And that's about the extent to which I re-did my kitchen when I moved into my place, and I love the idea of changing what you need to change, instead of contributing to the huge pile-up of discarded appliances.

I'd just use my fingernail on paint splatters. Warm water, if in the bath tub. Hey, just take a bath at the same time, a little loofah for the body and then a little fingernail scraping on the tub.

Maxwell, the last I checked, the winners still had no been posted on the SCC page. And they were never posted on last year's contest. Unless I was here last year, I wouldn't have any idea who won, as it only lists the finalists. No winners. No judges comments.

You have the power and the technology to add those things to the SCC pages. You don't even need to make a Six-Million-Dollar Man. Just plug in the winner info.

Obi -

Congratulations! I too am considering a minor ish kitchen remodel. I want to replace the current sheet vinyl tile with a slate look vinyl. Tell me more about the Amtico slate vinyl. Where can I buy it from? What is the ease and cost of install? Did you add the stripping between the tile? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

curtis- thanks for the congrats. yes keeping my cabinets and just adding new handles will make all the difference without tearing out good wood cabinets for no reason. reef- well i live in philadelphia and found them at a local flooring company. installed i paid about $10 a sq ft. but my kitchen is smallish so it was not prohibitive. i'm sure you can buy the tiles and install them yourself if you're handy. go on amtico's website and i think the samples were free. if you're in ny they have a showroom right in manhatten if i recall correctly. i wanted the bits for between the tiles to look like grout but the salesman discouraged me. he said it might look too busy and i think he was right, but that's a personal choice. on the front of their catalogue they show the tiles installed that way an it looks beautiful. best of luck!

What's the best looking window AC (e.g., not split ductless) you have seen? GE low profile?

I discovered quite by accident that rubbing alcohol removes latex paint - I put some on a cotton ball and rubbed and there it went. But I would only do that after trying the fingernail.

realize that Brady & Andrea were there first entry, not the first place winner

Last time I checked, we're talking about people doing something, not the location, right? I'd assume that we'd then use the contraction they're. Or, if it's the first entry the couple ever made, it's be their. Not there.

Thanks for all the advice on the paint removal.

Janice -
Speaking of fingernails, actually I've had some success with fingernail polish remover taking latex paint off the edges of tiles, which I think I posted like a year ago or more. It's a really great thing to do before you even start painting a bathroom, because the years of paint from cheap landlords tends to creep farther and farther over the edge of the tiles, and seeing a clean edge of tiles is such a satisfying feeling everytime you look at them every day, that it's quite worth the hour or so that it takes. Of course, I've also used Zip-Strip which is even stinkier.

Over There/Their/They're:

I think it's supposed to be "the" as in "the first entry" which makes the most sense.

I have auto-fingers too, and the fingers type whatever they want. Like the cute cereal "bowels" at IKEA.

I don't always see my own mistakes. Until I read a post later. Mostly I think it's important to try to get the idea or thought across. We mentally correct to make sense of language. Sort of like this:

During our visit
we ate lunch at the
the bistro along the Seine.

hahahahha, and, uh, Over There/Their/They're:

You said:
"...the couple ever made, it's be their."

"It's be"

Is is be?
Is was be?
The "be" belonging to "it"

How about "it'd be"?
Is that even proper? Hard to say out loud. Comes out as "id be".

Obi! Your redo sounds great! Remarkably similar to what I have been planning (Deep blue paint, SS, and a hit of IKEA). I finally decided that the Varde is too bulky for my small kitchen and I will need to do a total cabinet redo in order to get more storage (and the pull out pantry, with which I have some sort of obsession.) Please post pics when you are done, I would love to see it.

Nice to see AT in the House & Home section again. They must have you as #1 on speed dial.

Expanding on Curtis' discovery, nail polish remover also gets latex paint off vinyl flooring without hurting the vinyl.

I first came to this site as a result of an article in House and Home. How did others first discover AT?

Pixie--
I saw Maxwell on Mission: Organization, and tracked him (and the site) down online.

An addiction was born.

Andree--
If you are still interested in finding out who won last year's first ever Smallest, Coolest contest... I did. :)

CALL FOR BOOKS!
I have a friend going to environment/landscaping grad school facing a monster reading list.
Anyone want to get rid of their old text books?
We're in NYC . . .

Books are along the lines of

Ian McHarg's Design With Nature

Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development, John Lyle; Wiley & Sons, 1994

Eager deaccessioners, I can email you the complete list . . .
guidoo at mac dot com

Pixie:

I'd been here before, someone had posted a link here from BHG when we had been discussing apartments, but I didn't understand how the site was laid out and didn't come back.

Got an email from DWR about AT and the SCC thing, and came over for that. I really liked looking at the apartments! And hope to see more apartment slideshows.

And, has anyone seen Jonathan?

bk - I think you can search for it - we discussed it a few weeks back when a lot of us finally received our copies. It's definitely a magazine geared towards women - articles on how to moisturize before bed, dresses that go from work to the bar, and an article about buying sofas. Definitely not gender neutral....

al (formally of EA?) - love that company. I saw the fossil pieces on an HGTV show. Do you own the company or run it or what?

anne,

Yes,formerly of ea. I run the showroom we have at 51 wooster street. Although we have opened as fossil interior, we are actually part of the green river stone company. Wanna come by?