apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Ceiling fans -

Any comments on Minka Aire concept I44 ceiling fan ?

http://www.fanshack.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=getProductPg&manuf=Minka%20Aire&series=Concept%20I%2044.

Best place for high-end tiles in NYC? Places like Ann Sacks and Stone Source have beautiful materials, but are very expensive (Especially if you are doing a countertop and have them do the fabrication).

strings -

We don't have the Concept I44, but we do have the Minka Aire Como which looks very similar. We have had it just over a year now and it works great. Seems to be very good quality with almost no excess noise/vibration. Overall we are very happy with it and Minka was one of the few companies we found who makes a good selection of reasonably priced modern fans.

We have 3 of the Concept II and we love them. We got them from lampdepot.com, the best price available. Here is a link if it works:

http://www.lampdepot.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=101&idproduct=48

You can see the difference is that the Concept II is flush mounted to the ceiling, while the Concept I has the long pole. We went for the Concept II because we were advised that fans that were not flush mounted were not allowed in our coop because of noise traveling to the upstairs apartment.

Also, oddly - when we ordered them, the light switch control came standard, but the remote was extra. So if you order from fanshack you should check and make sure that you get both, or at least get the one you prefer. They are really attractive and efficient ceiling fans.

Anyone have thoughts on what sort of white to use for window trim? There are so many varieties, some with warm (yellowish or brownish) undertones and some with cooler (blue or grey) undertones, that I'm at a bit of a loss.

abc, what color is the rest of the room? Your white will get part of its "color" from its own pigments, part from reflected light, and part from contrast to whatever it's next to.

After clicking on the link that Matilda provided, I realize that I also have the Concept II... But I purchased it from Restoration Hardware -- which was quite a bit more $ (I had a gift certificate to use up). We've had the fan installed for about a year now and absolutely love it. Works great, looks great. Our ceilings aren't very high, so a flush-mounted fan was a must.

Oh, and ours came with the remote.

dIANE if you are still around and considering the leaning bookshelves here are some pics of ours.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyhollis/sets/72157594171894208/

never mind those shelves--I want the pooch!

Maybe it came with the remote and not the wall switchplate? In any case, we had to order the other. We never use the remote, because the wiring in our apartment is such that when you use the remote in one room, it turns off or on the fan and light in another room. For a while we thought we had a ghost.

And, these fans are so quiet you don't even know they are on. Also they reverse direction for the winter with is great for spreading the heat around a room.

May I just express a small frustration about the security code you have to type in when you post a comment? Even though I KNOW I type it correctly the first time, it always says I typed it in wrong and have to do it over. Does this happen to anyone else, or only me?

hi all. it's been a while. hope all are well. no particular comments about fans or white trim but just an update on my kitchen 'facelift'. slate floors down; new ss stove and microwave installed. next week ikea varde pieces and paint color benjamin moore 'camoflouge'(wonderful pale grayish green). i've been getting lots of help from friends and neighbors recuperating from a detached retina,and today being my birthday people are stopping by and it's been soo much fun getting praise for my kitchen look!! there's nothing like design praise to heal the body and soul. apartment therapy helped me pass the time and avoid 'lying on my right side for 10 day insanity'. thanks at.

i think it times out, matilda.

and thanks for finally saying something! i thought i was the only one, and maybe my typing speed isn't what it used to be...

matilda, it's just that it's been long enough that the first code has expired. I now do what someone else suggested, and just hit 'post' without the code, and then type it in. If you've spent any time reading the thread, chances are the code you see has expired.

Matilda-
Our ceiling fan & remote (different brand than yours) have switches inside that need to be re-programmed when you have more than one of their fans/remotes in close proximity. It was pretty easy to do. Using the remote to turn off the fan during the night (when the temp has cooled) is a great luxury! Just a thought...

as to the white trim - i agree, it depends on the color of the room. i believe it stacks up like this: brighter tones need whiter whites, whereas neutrals need creamier whites.

this is a weird white paint question for yall:

so my apartment hasn't been painted in ages, and nobody knows the brand or exact shade anymore. i have plaster walls with white semigloss paint. as it's been so long (at least 8-10 years), the walls have taken on this patina which i know is from grime, but which i happen to actually like. when i repaint, can i just bring home white paint chips and match to the present grime-induced shade? should i scrub down the walls and assume that the city air will do the rest within a few months? should i give up my dreams of an aged-but-new paint job and embrace the freshly painted look? how does finish play into this - should i stick with a semigloss or go to eggshell?

Jeremy,

Thanks for showing us the shelves. I am still undecided but it looks *great* in your place.

The opoponax,
It sounds like your walls might have been painted with white oil paint, which does yellow in a sort of nice way. So I recommend you try to find out, because if it is oil and you plan to repaint with latex, you will have to prime first. No matter what you do it would be good to wash the walls because then the primer/paint will adhere better (I actually didn't do this once, and the new paint just peeled off).

Does anyone have any tips on cleaning a box window fan? I've been struggling to get all those nooks and crannies free of the dust that accumulated over the winter.

Opopomax -- It's rumored that you can test the type of paint by dabbing the wall with Goof Off. Supposedly it'll dissolve latex paint but not oil paint.

I am posting right now simply to brag. Last night I finally finished my home theater. Other posters who've read my posts on this board know that I'm quite the A/V geek. As part of my major renovation I was finally able to build a truly dedicated space for movies.

Last night I hung the screen (98" 16x9 aka "letterbox" format) and the projector. All the blinky light gear racked in the equipment room was ready to go. I now have a beautiful dark gray room with a textured black carpet, a bright red couch, and a modern ceiling fan and sconces. One end of the room has the couch, the other has the screen and the "speaker box" that holds all the front speakers (plus a little concealed storage). The speakers are hidden behind acoustic transparent fabric. The only bit of visible electronics is the projector. It really is an intimate movie theater with seating for 4, perhaps 6 if everyone is friendly.

Lighting is fully controlled by the remote, with "scenes" for seating, watching the movie, intermission, and room cleaning.

It was a ton of work. When we fired up the projector to watch the latest episode of Deadwood and some clips from Hero it was all worth it.

This weekend we are having the unveiling, with a few friends coming over to have drinks and watch movies. It's undecided if we'll let our nerd flags fly and watch Lord of the Rings, or if we'll go for something a bit more intillectual (A History of Violence? Casablanca? Master of the Flying Guillotine?)

Thanks Wende and Opoponax. I have some differnt wall colors in differnt rooms, but the dominant color (in the living room, dining room, hallways, etc.) is a sort of wheaty color from Benjamin Moore. I didn't pick the color -- it was used by the previous owner -- but I haven't disliked it enough to change it. Even if I do, however, I'll definitely go with a fairly neutral color for these areas, as I like the open modern feel of the existing paint and I use it to set off a wall in the dining room that I painted a deep saffron.

So given the wheat-like neutral, you'd all say go with a fairly warm white for the trim?

Thanks again.

abc--what about something non-white? If I were painting my trim, I might consider other things. Once again, though, it's dependant on what you have on the wall. If you want to go with a white, though, you might be able to find something that is in the same family as your paint, which would make matching painless. Of course, me myself, I never go for the painless route! I'd have 800 samples sitting around like I do for my wall color!

GM, you've hit on the reason I hate having my fan even if I love having the air. I have a stand fan to circulate my air-conditioned air, and it's miserably covered with dust. I am thinking of spraying it with cleaner and then going in with a swiffer duster as well as incorporating some vacuuming. "when I get around to it."

why isn't there a business called "designer for a day" out there? i'm redoing an apartment--walls, floors, appliances, everything. and i've managed to decide on tiles, wood, applicances, and cabinets but am at a total loss with lighting and paint. i wish there was someone i could pay for the day to shop with me and simply tell me what will look good. anyone know of a business like that?

I'm envisioning a bright, pure white -- so no cool undertones, but not necessarily a lot of yellow undertone either.

The real test is pretty simple. Hold chips of your candidate whites next to the wall. If the white pops as a bright WHITE, it's the right white. If it looks dingy or off-white, it's the wrong one.

I'm a big fan of starting with a huge handful of paint chips. At least half of them should be discarded as hopeless when you get them into your room -- but the reason you have so many is that it's difficult to predict which half. If you do a couple rounds of discarding what you don't like, then you get down to three or four chips, and it's much easier to pick The One.

speaking of fans. has anyone heard reviews on chiasso's ziro fan? http://www.chiasso.com/store/Item.aspx?DepartmentId=60&ItemId=50623

abc,

while my intial reaction would be to use a white that has a slight tint, i think the pure white from b moore would look great. my walls are a tan gold/color and the white makes it pop out. the effect is similiar to black colored trip it really pops out.

best to get a piece of scrap trim and paint it and hold it up to the wall. b moore sells the small $4 samples. though 1 quart of paint is ~$15 so if you change your mind it's not that big of a deal.

matilda -- cool! i figure i'm probably going to end up priming anyway as the entire apartment was painted in semigloss which i'm no big fan of. and i believe the conventional wisdom is that if you're changing finishes you have to prime. though may curtis correct me if i'm wrong. but the goof off test is a good one.

and curtis - LOVE your flickr photostream. it's like This Old House frame by frame (i can never understand their instructions because they go SO FAST).

Jessica,

That's what Apartment Therapy does (and where all this started). Though going from 0 to 60 in one day is a bit challenging, we basically consult with people on an hourly basis. Give a call or email if you are interested: 212.966.7174.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/living-room/sale/v

apropos nothing, the 'troy-twin-sleeper' is on sale at crate and barrel.

i think someone in the smallest-coolest contest had one of these. something i'd like but i'm not doing any more major purchases for the rest of the year (she types reluctantly).

Happy Birthday, obi.

Question:
My husband uses a flat-iron on his hair and then leaves it out on a tile ledge to cool. What sort of container can I put out instead that he can put the iron in while it's still hot so that this appliance doesn't stay out on the ledge all the time?

not sure how helpful this is, localgirl, but what about something made for the kitchen?

thanks for the happy birthday greeting bubble.

So NYC is the most polite in the world according to Reader's Digest (BTW shouldn't that be Readers' Digest if we assume they want more than one reader?).
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/20/nyc_is_the_worl.php#comments

I thought I'd give the gothamist link because it does contain the RD link but also because I'd like to think that Patrick from Toronto has a soul mate called Bridget Raff.

What about one of those cylinders people put kichen utensils in? Something simple & stainless steel.

Maybe even a wine bottle holder? I'm assuming a flat iron has the same proportion as a curling iron?

Hey Everyone-

CASA FACILE, the Italian home magazine has a great July issue. Check out pages 24-30 for lots of clever hideaway beds. Brands mentioned here on AT like Clei and Flou plus others.

Skip ahead to page 99 and check out that kewl frosted pocket door (I want!!) And there's plenty of ads for those gorgeous slim European fridges we drool over. True, we can't get many of these products here but it's still nice to see them.

I love Casa Facile because not only is it cheap here in the U.S. (under $3) but they pack a ton of great ideas in it. Everything is fairly modern but comfortable and warm. Along with all the nice pictures of rooms they include floorplans to show how it all fits in. Lots of attention to small spaces too.

I've been picking this magazine up for years and can't read a dang word of it (Italian) but still get lots of inspiration. Along with Living Etc. this is a must every month.

And now I must work....!

Jessica, that's part of what I do. Get in touch with me if interested.

addg1@verizon.net

oooh. i have a question about pocket doors. my kitchen has a lovely one which is virtually always pocketed away. it's a tiny room and so vital to the flow of the space -- one of us is just about always in there. we just don't have a whole lot of reason to ever close the door. are there other ways of showing off our fab 40's era pocket door?

I just installed two Minka Aire Flyte Fans in white. They balance very well, and are of high-quality contruction.

There was one... glitch (?) in the way they are assembled/installed- With most ceiling fans, you install the center motor component, than attach the fan blades. With the Flyte (I cannot speak for other Minka Aire designs) you must attach the fan blades first, then lift the whole contraption up to the ceiling to install. Not an easy task.

On the whole, we are very satisfied with them so far. The contruction is very solid.

http://www.fanshack.com/i/Minka_Aire/flyte/F531-WH.jpg

How to Clean a Box Fan? You can usually unscrew the outside covers and throw them in the shower. I feel bad saying this though because either

a. Yours doesn't unscrew and you're thinking, "duh, if it did I would have surely figured that out."

or

b. Yours does unscrew and now you feel bad for not noticing that sooner.

Either way - sorry.

So'n'so wrote:
> Best place for high-end tiles in NYC? Places like
> Ann Sacks and Stone Source have beautiful
> materials, but are very expensive (Especially
> if you are doing a countertop and have them
> do the fabrication).

Whatever you do, don't buy tile in Manhattan. It is a rip-off everywhere. Where you go depends on what kind of tile you want. We just did a kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom has three kinds of tile that were all bought from different places. A 12" square faux slate tile made of porcelain (real slate absorbs water, and we have a paper-trained dog) that we bought at Marino's Tile of Queens on Northern Blvd. was used on the bathroom floor. What Marino's is really known for is Stone/Marble/Granite floor tiles. We installed gray 12" granite tile for the kitchen floor that also came from Marino's. For the bathroom walls, we did three of the walls in a basic bright-white 6" square. We got the best deal on something this basic by going to Metropolitan Hardware, and special ordering Arctic White (or was it called Polar White?). For the single wall behind the bath, we splurged on a 1" square glass tiles in blue (The come in 12" sheets, with a mesh back). We really shopped around for the 1" glass tile, which can be quite expensive. Quoting in Manhattan, to do the whole 6 foot square bathroom in glass tile ranged from $6000 to $8000. We were going to do three walls in white, one in blue- all in the glass tiles. The compromise was to do the white walls with the 6" white porcelain, and only use the 1" glass squares for the colored wall. After searching relentlessly, I found this amazing store online called Wholesalers USA:
http://www.wholesalersusainc.com/mosaic-tiles-crystal-glass-c-23_76.html

We picked up the blue 1" glass square tile from this website for about 1/3 of the Manhattan prices, and we love the color better than any of the samples we picked up locally. Wholesalers USA express-mailed tile samples to us to help pick out the color. Their customer support was great. They saved us a ton of money.

For installation, we used TILE TIME. We had a tight window, and they did all the work in 2 days, on short notice (on a weekend, at that!). They came in with a crew of four- One guy laying tile in the kitchen, one guy laying tile in the bath, one guy manning the tile cutter which he sat outside and he leaned out the window to use (very clever), and the forth guy worked as a runner- bringing tiles from each of the tile layers to the cutter and back so nobody had to stop their workflow. It was amazingly efficient, and impressive to watch in action. We'd had tile-work done in apartments in the past, and it was always one guy... marking each tile, walk to the cutting table, cut one tile, walk to the room and insert one tile, measure next piece, continue process. By comparison, TILE TIME was a machine! They were really pros, and their price was also among the best we were quoted. They really came through for us. Everyone comments on what an excellent job was done on the tile. Even the other tradesmen, who we have found to be notoriously tough critics of other contractor's work, have all commented on the excellent tile-work.

Oh, FYI- I posted an image link for the Minka Aire Flyte, but that is not where we purchased. Once we picked out the fan, we price shopped it both online, and offline. We found that Lighting by Gregory's website had the best price, beating many other websites by $100 (even beating their own showroom price by $20).
http://www.lightingbygregory.com/

ND in DC:

The Chiasso lamp is actually the Minka Aire F803-MP Artemis, which can be purchased from Lighting by Gregory for $399.95 (~$200 less than the Chiasso version, if I recall). I don't work for them -- I've just been scouring their website for a light fixture I saw in the May issue of Domino that the magazine stated came from Lighting by Gregory. I can't find that light, but really like the Artemis. The light I'm looking for was referred to as "Starburst" in the magazine -- it's a take-off on the famous Sputnik lamp of the '60s, but with shorter arms. Anyone have any ideas on finding that lighting fixture (have already emailed Domino & LBG)? Thx.

localgirl,
what about something like a silpat? maybe one of those silicon loaf pans...they come in several colors.

Thank You All for the comments on the fans. It really helped.

Strings

I’ve got a washer/dryer dilemma. I’ve bought my one-bedroom apartment for 3 years ago, and I still haven’t renovated both my bathroom and the kitchen. The bathroom is not my style, but passable, but the kitchen is extremely user unfriendly - there are only two cabinets (one sink cabinet) that the previous owners left plus a cooker/stove and a fridge. Besides not having ANY storage space and little work surface, my main problem is that I have to put a washer/dryer there (the bathroom is just too small). The washer/dryer is a must as there are no laundromats where I live (Warsaw, Poland). At present I do my laundry at my parents’ house, and my boyfriend at his, which is pretty pathetic.
What do you think about having your washer in the kitchen? Is there some nifty way to conceal it? And is having a small-ish washer in the kitchen ruling out free-standing units, like VARDE one from IKEA (which I love)?
Thank you for answering.

my grandparents have their washer/dryer in a closet in what is basically their kitchen. they're very small front loading units which stack, so they fit in a very small closet-style space. is that an option for you? i have a feeling the closet in question was built by whoever designed their kitchen for exactly the reason's you're looking to hide yours.

Update on the Starburst chandelier: I emailed Lighting by Gregory last night, and they replied today. Great customer service -- they have the light that I want in the showroom, and gave me the dimensions over the phone, as well as the price, which was lower than what Domino listed. So excited!!

I'm been very satisfied with Emerson ceiling fans. The oldest fan in my house is about 15 years old and still runs like a champ. I recently pruchased another fan for my screened-in porch. Lamp Depot offers Emerson fans, but I purchased mine from http://emerson.metrolightingcenters.net because they were linked to directly from Emerson's official web site.