apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Could anyone help me with a design question? The room that I am moving into is 10x8. It has one interior brick wall that is 10 ft in length and one window located in the adjacent wall. The bricks are a deep red and the floor is dark brown wood. Currently the walls are off white with white crown moulding. The ceiling -which is no higher than 8.5 feet, and doors are a bright white.

My question is what color(s) would you recommend for the other three walls? I have been trying to figure out a nice color scheme for the room that will give it a modern look while at the same time trying to make it appear larger than it is. I have yet to purchase any furniture to go in it so I am working with a clean slate. I have been searching for inspiration and ideas and am literally at a brick wall (no pun intended) Thank you so much!

EAK! help!

My mothers day still hasn't ended yet. It started innocently enough and just kept expanding. (it's out of control at this point)

1st it was send mother away on vacation for a month...then it turned in to new oven while she was away, then a totally revamped kitchen (they had a super sleek stainless steel thing going on however, it seemed intimidated her so she never cooked, hence the revamp, new kitchen in under a month)....then it turned in to landscaping, then increasing the range and the peremeter lights,then new office, then the convoy of trucks started rolling in...(a delivery a day for the last 2+ weeks) At this point we have a 10 page list of things that needs to get done and are documenting things we are doing for 2 reasons.
1. we will never recall all that we did (to claim proper credit)
2. we will burn them on a dvd and give them to her .

we have about 16 tons of dirt(yes dirt), 40-ish tons of stone, 10 tones of pebbles , all new appliances, all new light fixtures , GE reveal bulbs all around (if any one here wants about 100-ish bulbs of all sizes, few energy savers , let me know, some old brass light fixtures as well) new computers, some new furniture, new accent lighting (installed from scratch..meaning all new wiring) ,new plants, new tiles,

After being electrocuted 5-7 times (the wrong breaker being off each time...so much for the theory that the blood of engineers courses through my veins)

The oven didn't show up! (Whirlpool polara)
Lowes only informed us 3 weeks after we ordered it, on the day of delivery that they would not be able to get it.


So I throw myself at the mercy of the AT gods and ask...

Whirlpool Polara in biscuit delivered to CT?
where? (Yes i know about the one in Tacoma at the sears outlet for the bargain price...but they won't deliver)

We considered another viking but are really trying to stay away from SS, and if anyone has been to a home center lately...everything else looks the same!

Did I mention the contractor didn't show up ? ...yeah...they said they would be a few weeks. We have done most of the work ourselves to date.

Dear me of me- You've spent so much already, forget looking for delivery of the stove. Go to Craig's List, hire any "man with van" and have 'em go fetch that stove wherever it may be in the tri-state.

The flood of German Spam was mentioned on AT last week. Did anybody find a solution to this pest? I got 173 of them today alone.

Hi! Does anyone have any tips for cleaning veryvery sticky unknown gunk from the surface of a non-stick waffle maker?

I've loved the other cleaning tips given on this site lately so hopefully there are gurus still out there....

Thanks!!

Has anyone tried Laundry Spa? If so, how have your experiences been?

Long term solution Chucky that worked for me was to pay for Yahoo's premium service that allows you to set up unlimited aliases all going into the same "inbox". The theory is this, you sign up for a service or give out your email to a friend but you use to specific alias for each time/friend/groups of friends. If the service sells your ID or one of your friends gets hit by a worm/virus that copies their address book such that you are now on spammers' databases, you simply delete your handle and start again.

A pain I know if you do this with friends but works very well for web site sign ups.

Why is this better than simply setting up tons of free yahoo/gmail/hotmail accounts? The main advantage is that you only have to sign in once to check all email. You can color code each alias (up to a small limit) to make it easier to filter visually also.

I'm sure the other email providers have a similar service.

BTW, I never got any of the German spam and the email I use here is just an old account that I occasionally check (sorry for the late and non-replies folks) that is indeed full of spam.

Ami, a couple of endorsements are here
www.apartmenttherapy.com/main/archives/001943.html

chickpea,

ammonia and water will remove sticky in a flash. your best bet--put some ammonia in a metal bowl. put the bowl and wafflemaker in a sealed plastic bag. leave overnight. (the ammonia fumes attack the sticky.) the next day, use water and ammonia in dilution and a wet white scrubby sponge to remove the goo.

this is, by the way, the oldschool method of oven cleaning.

kwj -- I'll give it a shot. Thank you!!

Chucky -- they eventually trailed off for me. Alert your admins and ask what they're doing about it. You might wanna send them that link that someone added to that series of comments.

~Sharon

oh if it was only that easy!

you see...
1. The polara is a refergerated range (meaning it has a compressor and what not) thus it can not be laid in flat, thus it can not fit in a standard cargo van.

2. I can't find it in stock ANYWHERE!

They are comming out with a new model that has built in wap/ home networking type deal

(IE; if you are on the other side of the house and want to turn on the oven(via the network), or if you have something
in the oven being kept cool and you want to have it heated up by the time you get home, you call home and tell the oven to heat it up at X;00-ish
so it's ready for you when you get home, the oven will also call you/notify you via the network when dinner is done.)

thus they are trying phase out the old model

I found one unit...at a sears in tacoma.
(for a bargin price of 1,100usd!!! )

My brother is going over to lowes with our stacks and stacks of recipts and talk to the manager (no oven=return everything)

It's raining so I retreated to NY, (have bills to pay here too)

Tara -

One way to make a room look bigger is to for the eye not to have to stop suddenly anywhere. And

You could...

- find a color chip that has several shades of a color that's near one of the colors of your brick, and choose one that's maybe only about one shade lighter.

- or... take a chip like that and paint one of the darker ones on the window wall, and one of the lighter ones on the wall opposite the window wall, so that when the light from the window shines on it, it's even more dramatic and then a middle version of the color on the other non-brick wall. The effect would be KIND OF like having the whole room painted one color, but it would be sort of a more dramatic version of it, which might make it look bigger. Also, having that one wall lighter, would make your eye not have to stop so short between it and the white ceiling.

- or ... take do a similar thing to that, but where two of the walls are lighter and lighter-still versions of the floor color, and the other wall is a color somewhere between the ceiling white and the brick color.

That's what pops into my head at the moment.

Wow, me of me, and here I was excited to have an oven that seems (so far at least) to cook evenly on all sides, unlike my rental oven, that required me to methodically turn whatever I was baking. Who knew that you could turn on your oven from out of the house? (Although my husband would be convinced that the house would become a fiery inferno anyway.)

Hey Me of Me - Did you call Levi Capland of Cyebye.com? I passed along his info to Maxwell after he got my ConServ fridge delivered in two days. His prices can't be beat and he is extremely efficient. I would give him a call. If you search for him on this site you will find his contact info. I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to get you the unit.

But then again, that IS the hottest range out there right now (no pun intended). Combining a fridge and an oven...only in America...

One more spam note. Put in a URL - any URL - when you comment here or elsewhere. Even if it's just www.google.com. Or apartmenttherapy.com Even though you have to leave your email too, the URL will take precedence over email in the display, and your address can't be scavenged off the page. Your email is still available to the site admin, but it's not public.

I comment in lots of places, but that one thing saves reams of spam.

For Mary and other Roomba fans, just found this on engadget.com
www.engadget.com/entry/1234000537044345/

Scooba - Roomba's cousin for cleaning hardwood/tile/lino floors
Due at the end of this year

Thank you jaime pup! Now I won't have to mop either...

Curtis,
Thank you so much for your wonderful ideas! I really appreciate the thought and time you put into answering my question. I am definitely going to try out your suggestions and see what works best -they are all so good it is hard to decide! Thanks again! Sincerely, Tara

Tara,
Curtis' idea looks like the answer.
(But just for fun, if the grout is grey, perhaps dove grey and raspberry (ick?) walls and bedcouch cover. Mirrored centers of each wall. If you ever tire of the brick, you could hang mylar, saris, the right rug. or fabric.

OK, so I sent this to curbed on Friday but they haven't picked it up yet so I'll try here to get some opinions on the decor. That nice green couch certainly seems small enough to fit in a tight space.

Found originally here
httpcolon//pdberger.com/?p=267

Link to listing here
www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=787053

Actual picture here
www.corcoran.com/images/media/UnitPhotos/140184.3.jpg

I stumbled on this site a few days ago -- what an incredible find! Now, a shopping question for the cognoscent (hope it's OK to post this sort of query here). West Elm sells an item, Rolling Storage - six fixed cubbies, that's real close to what I'm looking for. In an ideal world, I'm hoping to find a similar styled, similar sized unit, that stands vertically rather than horizontally and isn't on castors. Prefered finish would be birch, maple or something similarly light. I'd really appreciate any feedback - thanks!

www.ephemeranow.com/decor/decor038.htm

Look--it's Faith's turquoise appliances!

kwj -- Thank you for the ammonia cleaning advice! I tried it and it worked like a charm.

Anyone know anything about the quality of Ashley furniture? I am considering buying a sofa made by them.

yum!
(e.n.'s decor section, room shots!...thanks Joan!)

My sister furnished her living room and bedroom using Ashley furniture and she absolutely loves it

tara--
Would you consider painting the brick? "Red brick" and "modern" don't really go hand in hand for me. But maybe the vast expanse of brick can also be addressed in a modern way by placing large leaning mirrors along it, where appropriate? That would also bounce the light around and do some eye-trickery regarding space issues.

Another route would be to have the red brick be the only color in the space, and go ivory (or grouth gray) with virtually everything else in the space.

clive--
IKEA, Bo Concept, and The Terrence Conran Shop all offer a very similar cubby/grid storage unit, but alas, all an overall square shape. Not sure if all are also on casters... the one from Conran's definitely is. Try maybe Hold Everything for something more modular you can combine into the shape/configuration you need, and perhaps visit IKEA with the same approach.

Sorry, "GROUT" gray.

Thanks for the suggestions, Patrick (the other one)