apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

So... what do you think is the most ubiquitous furnishing in AT apartments these days?

- White EAMES rocker
- Zebra rug
- Foo dogs (especially blue)
- Graphic poster ("Like For Ever" or "Keep Calm, Carry On")

i'd say it's a tie between white EAMES rocker and Foo dogs

New topic: I need drywall delivered into my apartment (elevator building in Harlem) -- not just to the curbside. Does anyone know a store that does that?

I keep seeing those posters everywhere.

I have "Keep Calm, Carry On" so maybe that's it. I love it, though--it's such a handy message in NYC! The zebra rug seems ubiquitous in the apartment contest, but I also love the way that looks.

Has anyone installed their own Murphy Bed?
I want to relocate my Murphy Bed within the apartment - it is the classic frame that is screwed into the floor (concrete slab) I had planned to hire someone to move it and am getting price quotes of $300 and up - which seems pretty high for about one hour of work. The price seems to be based in part on the 1.5 hr drive each way they would need to do to get into the city!!
One of the stores will lend me an installation video - and I am pretty comfortable around power tools and fairly DYI so I thought to borrow the video and have a couple relatively handy friends over to install it. I do expect it will take a bit longer to install (2x or so) than a 'pro' - but I think my friends will willing help if margaritas and food follow. Has anyone done this and is it doable over a weekend afternoon?

Thanks in advance!

The zebra rug is this year's Eames splint (it's not actually ubiquitous, but it's showing up surprisingly often), while the posters are this year's Eiffel Tower (where you start trying to spot it in every entry).

And gray is the new green.

It would be interesting to do a count of repeat objects and colors - a kind of where's waldo

Hello

Does anyone have a recommendation on where I can get drapes sewn up? I have the fabric and hardware. Zarin's was too expensive and Mood's was in between seamstresses and couldn't get me an estimate. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Last year, I did a count of recurring details on the weekend after all entries had been posted, and I'm OCD-ish enough to do it again this year.

Besides zebra rugs, Eames rockers, those posters, and Foo dogs, what else should be counted? I'm thinking dominant color schemes (oops, WHITE is probably the new green) and a rough split between MCM and neo-Baroque... other ideas?

alan: it's rare to find a place that will take it up...but maybe if you give the driver a big ole tip, he'll help? in my experience, drivers have said they can't "legally" (yeah right) do it, so they just leave it curbside. have you called all the bigguns? park ave, dykes, etc? well, try some of the smaller establishments...they might be more willing.

or hire/bribe/force someone to help you carry them up (i despise carrying up sheetrock......huge, awkward, heavy....not my cup of tea...) but for cashola usually the super will help.

Shag rugs are pretty abundant this year too. I can't remember seeing so many last year, but I could be wrong.

Wende: I love your OCD streak ;-)

Alex in DC,

I installed my own murphy bed. I got a "library bed," essentially a murphy bed plus a very complicated cabinet to enclose and surround it. I installed it myself with the help of one friend. I am NOT very handy. It took me almost an entire weekend to assemble the cabinet (like I said, it was complicated), and a couple of hours to install the bed. It sounds like your job will be much simpler than mine, so I bet it is doable on a weekend afternoon. But I think it is always safe to assume it will take longer than you think.

link of a photo to my murphy bed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7301500@N04/417761873/

Cats.... Cats are the "furnishing" that seems to be showing up in so many of the AT apartment postings. Cats prominently displayed on the kitchen table pretty much blew it over the top for me. If I see another cat prominently displayed in a photo with poster comments of "oh how cute", "love your cat", etc., I think I'm going to BLOW.

wende--more power to OCD! Here's some ideas:
rent v. own
clutter v. no clutter
very small v. less small
design/architectural professional v. amateur

These are all issues that come up for debate every year during the small cool contest - specifically, that you have an advantage if you're a ______. I don't think it's the case at all (except maybe for design professionals, actually).

Also, how many entries have prominently displayed pets (live, not zebra rugs, which are personally very distasteful to me when they're the real, dead thing) and whether that is related to winning or losing.

I'd say zebra rugs are a sub-set of animal prints -- upholstery, pillows, throws seem to be tiger or zebra stripped or leopard or giraffe spotted as well.

Neutrals over colors; saturated colors over pastels.

Books that furnish rooms instead of minds.

I envy Wende's OCD power. I, alas, have to rely on memory which is increasingly becoming a forgettory.

Wende in Phoenix,

Thank you so much for recently calling our attention to the book House Thinking by Winifred Gallagher. I have been studying my library's copy and finding lots to think about.

One of my favorite quotes, so far..."Traditional interior decoration and design mostly focus on aesthetics and efficiency. Since the later twentieth century, however, different kinds of research have helped illuminate the important of the connection between the individual's personality and meaningful places from the past in creating a just-right home. From this perspectivie, the living room's goal is not shelter magazine perfection but a deep, gut-level feeling of identification and comfort."

This is very comforting and helpful to me, as I have zero chance of achieving "shelter magazine perfection" anyway!

Agree with JonathanB - books arranged by color has to be on the list.

Keep 'em coming! The list is fabulous so far.

Looking at pretty pictures and turning them into quantitative data, useful for extrapolating trends and answering management questions, is basically my idea of nirvana, so we all win.

J-fer in DC-
Thanks. I been telling myself it's do-able but I was a bit worried about taking the bed down, not being able to install it and spending about three weeks waiting for someone at Hardwood Artisans to come over and fix my mess.

Has anyone out there ever tried to convert the IKEA Docksta (http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=35194) dining table (the faux Saarinen Tulip Table) into a coffee table? It would appear that there's a middle joint that could be left out in the assembly process, but I'm not sure that the top and bottom pieces would match up evenly without the middle joint. Any experienced hackers out there?

sorry, the link for that Docksta table was http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=35194

Maybe this has been asked before, but in lieu of the exciting AT State of the Blog Address I was wondering: Maxwell and Co. Are there any plans to start up an AT Boston?? I live in LA now, but have plans to re-locate to Boston this year. I'd love to get the AT perspective on the Boston scene.

wende,

AT should hire you to provide in-house full-length analyses of trends and correlations -- answering management and lots of just-plain-interesting questions that require synthesizing a lot of visual data, formulating and defending various hypotheses. I'd imagine there's enough data on this site (starting with the contest entries, which could take months to fully analyze) to have a regular blog feature.

jamjaree

I seem to remember that an AT:Boston is supposed to be launched sometime soon. However, until that time, check some of the back posts and asks questions. There are several of us -- myself included -- who know Boston, have posted about design scene there, and can probably be easily lured into posting about it again.

What about ampersands (&)?

Pixie,
I totally agree about the Zebra-skin rugs (or any animal skin). Even when they are fake, why do you want a fake dead animal on your floor? I don't consider myself a militant animal rights-type, but I find it distracting and gross.

I'd have to say cats. I thought a couple recent postings were bordering on ridiculous. Furballs? A mesmerized cat staring at the camera? People laughing out loud at their computers? I would think cats would not be so great for a small space--they poop in the house (pee yuu eee). I would like to see one of those naked cats though, the hypo-allergenic ones.

The animal rugs are not such a bad thing. At least they are going somewhere other than an incinerator or leather thong factory.

Wende, what about that pillow with the red cross on it (or plus sign?). I know I have seen that more than a few times. Can we get a pie chart at the end of the contest with your findings?

Also: birds in various shapes and forms?

About cats: our cat is an essential part of the household. He chased all the mice away. ;-) But now I feel bad about having the cat on the bed. Is it really a big deal to show the pets in the photographs?

I look favorably on any space with a pet.

pets are such an integral part of the home, that if you have one...ya gotta include the lil bugger! it doesn't change the way i feel about the SPACE, but it does show me the cuteness that is all fuzzy wuzzies. it's minimally a bribe ;)

I'm ambivalent about pets in pictures. On the one hand, they can be decorative, but in a way that's cheating, because they can make a place look better than it really does.

On the other hand, they do indicate that someone really has burrowed in and made a home.

Since I'm allergic to cats, and since being the kind of up close with them that people tend to need to be to really enjoy them, I tend not to idealize them.

I've also known people who allow pets to practically be their only social interaction, and that just gets too sad for me.

Curtis, it is interesting that you said that they make the place look better than it is. I had 2 photographs of our bedroom, practically identical, one with the cat, and one without. I chose the one with the cat as (a) it shows that we own a cat (b) shows the size of the bed/room (c) I admit to thinking AT would like it. :) Which I guess is what annoys the people here?

Sorry about the weird grammar in that 3rd paragraph.
I meant:

Since I'm allergic to cats, and since being the kind of up close with them that people tend to need to be to really enjoy them just makes me sneeze and itch, I tend not to idealize them.

I'm also allergic to cats and so, even though I like them (in theory!), seeing one in a photo doesn't give me the warm fuzzies like seeing a dog does.

That said, one thing I love about Martha Stewart Living is that the photo spreads of Martha's houses always include her pets. It definitely makes the place seem warmer. That said, I think a picture of a cat staring straight at the camera is perhaps a touch manipulative.

not a fan of the isn't my pet cute pictures myself, but that said, I must add that I would rather see a live cat on the bed than a dead zebra on the floor.

Ha. JonathanB - I couldn't have said it better myself.

The presence of animals in these pics doesn't bother me at all, but things like animals on cooking/eating surfaces, and litter boxes in kitchens and living rooms really do bother me.

I feel like if one's place is so small that it's impossible to find a discrete place for a litter box, it's probably too small to keep a pet cooped up anyway. I hope that's not too judgemental of me!

Or you could just measure Ikea vs. DWR, West Elm vs. CB2, Anthropologie vs. Brocade... or count the number of Jonathan Adler pieces.

I look unfavorably on any contest entry that prominently displays a pet, apparently with the thought that's going to rake in the votes (and maybe it does). But for me, it's your physical space that impresses me (if it's good) NOT your pet. Thus any space, however beautiful it may be, with a prominently displayed pet automatically receives demerits from my perspective.

Personally, I don't like to see leather sofas and chairs any more than I like to see a zebra-patterned cowhide rug.

Cats show up frequently because a large percentage of apartments don't allow dogs. Cats show up frequently in the photos because it helps to combat the "it doesn't look like anyone lives there" and the "it's too sterile" look.

wow, a strong anti pet-display sentiment.

my sincere apologies for displaying our cat in the photograph then ;)

My cat Donovan and I think cats in the photos are a nice addition for the above reasons..although I can relate to some of the anti-pet comments regarding where the pet is photographed.

Animals make many people happy. It's just strange when they are the actual focal point of a photograph in a design contest. If the cat were somewhere in the background it would be different. But living rooms designed around cat boxes, artwork made of cat bilge, 50# cats, cats hypnotizing readers, goo-gooing, etc. etc., cats have become just as ubiquitous as any of the other things. It's just a little peculiar. It was only a matter of time before this issue would be coughed-up.

Didn't anyone see the Hatch Design blog's trendy items scavenger hunt?? She proposed a drinking game. I'd say we'd all be hammered by day 2 of the contest.

http://blog.designpublic.com/2007/03/17/trendy-object-scavenger-hunt/

http://blog.designpublic.com/2007/03/27/trendy-design-objects-scavenger-hunt-drinking-game-part-ii/

If you own a cat you know there is simply no way to keep the cat out of the photos short of locking him into another room.
Cats have the unique ability to be exactly where you don't want them.

That said, I don't think cats or dogs are negative in apartment photos. Nor do I find animal skins/fur, real or faux, to be objectionable in someone's apartment. But I do find that ugly pets do influence my opinion negatively of your place ... and feel guilty about it later. (Keep your ugly pets out of photos - and if you have to ask your friends if your pet is ugly - it is.)
In comparison, I DO draw the line at people (dead, live or faux) as part of the photo as imagining myself (not you) in the space is a huge part of the AT fantasy. (If you are George Clooney or a look alike, I will make an exception)

Does anyone think that arranging books by color is a reference to Everything is Illuminated?

(In the book, there's a key moment when a character reveals that they know how another character organizes their books - by color. It sounds super weird if you haven't read the book, but it was a good moment).

Or is this just a trend that's spread beyond any real reference?

S, i think it is just a trend. I know that someone (Chris Cobb) made an art installation ("There Is Nothing Wrong In This Whole Wide World") in a used book store (appropriately named ADOBE bookshop in San Francisco) where he, and 20 volunteers, resorted all the books by color. (and then back after some time). If you google "sorting books by color" a number of interior-design related blog posts by a variety of people pop up discussing how its pretty to sort books by color.

(personally, I resorted our measly 2 shelves of books by color, because there really was no better way of sorting them. They are too diverse, esp. for only 2 shelves worth of books).

Alex in DC: that's a really good point - the fantasy that you could live in that space.


On which note, I wonder: when people vote, do they focus on how *they* would feel in the space, or how is the space *used* for the ultimate function? I'd bet the first, myself included.

Wende:if birds are a new trend, for once in my life I'm ahead of the pack. The only reason we bought this house is because the backyard was an untamed wilderness (good for birds nesting) and behind our house there is an abandoned field (good for sparrows, all 70 species of them). Dh is a birder, and I'm swimming in them. Some I treasure, some I would gladly sneak them out to the outbox, if I could get away with it.

Olya: When people vote, do they focus on how *they* would feel in the space, or how is the space *used* for the ultimate function? I'd bet the first, myself included.

For me, definitely the latter. I already have to abstract away from the distortions and biases of the medium of photography, in order to try to really get a sense of the space as it is in person. It's then too much to ask that I also must want to live in the space for myself. People have different tastes. I can at least try to separate what's good design from what is my particular taste.

(Just like I can also make an effort to tell what's good art, or literature, or music.... without wanting to have that item in my house or to read it or listen to it at home.) I've loved so many apartments here that I would never be tempted to copy in my own living space.

Lucite tables?

I'm wondering if you can help me. I am searching for an inexpensive floor lamp (the kind that stands on its own) to give a fair amount of lighting to my studio and for reading -- it'll stand next to a sofa. Can you suggest a reasonably priced store for such a floor lamp in manhattan. Thanks so much.

I always go for function when I vote--there are lots of apartments that I can be completely amazed by without ever being able to live there. But I do like knowing it's a home, and not a catalog, so I like people's cats, books...their beloved things (note--not just stuff).

But after my initial impression, I go back to the floorplans, and ponder how to jam my grand piano and (non color-coded) books in!

Renee, Sea: Good to know that you look for the function :-)

Any remarks on best "function" items so far?

(personally, I'm drooling over step-ladder-bookshelves. Table AND bookshelf in one! and pretty! and floor space is tiny! aaah, sigh)

Olya,
Oh, I definately imagine myself in the space. It is, IMHO, an opportunity to mentally try on another life or what I perceive of it from the images. It's probably a bit similar to flipping through JCrew or Restoration Hardware catalogues and thinking about the lifestyle that is implied and what it would be like to live it. I view it is a mini vacation of sorts - don't necessarily want it full time but it is nice to visit. I don't have a baby, don't need an office at home, don't play guitar, don't need to share my closets with a partner, and well the list goes on - but I love to see how someone might live that way. The variety of solutions on this site is awe inspiring. I really try very hard not to view every apartment in comparison to mine (or my idea of mine since I live in a construction zone) or my lifestyle - but it is probably, in all honest, probably impossible to separate myself completely. Of course, if I find something that resonates with my own life ... all the more prefect that I can add the image to my style file!!

A few years back Faith Popcorn was popping up all over making predictions and identifying trends, I recall that there were people making big bucks in giving marketers the scoop. GO WENDE!

HARMLESS, I saw a great looking floor lamp for $9 in Home Depot the other day and plan to go back & get it. Don't know if it is regularly priced that low or a special sale. I guess your Depot is like mine.