apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Does anyone know if Portico has closed all its New York stores?

I have a question and a rant. I really would love to find a wood oval shaped dining table, modern only. Everything is glass. And wood only seems to come in rectangles. Help please!!!
Rant - The Future Perfect has had the same promise of "full e commerce coming soon". Well it is not up, and I feel very lied to and it hurts. Guess I will have to get my big butt off the computer and actually go see the store. Is it worth it?

Raquel, Future Perfect is nice, but not worth a trip for that alone in my opinion. I went last weekend, and it's tiny. Nice but tiny. I was kind of disappointed. It's not the "next Moss," as it's so often billed. However, it's definitely worth it as part of an outing.

I don't know if the outlet store in the Chelsea Market is still open, but the UWS, Flatiron and Soho Portico stores are all closed. I am told that they filed for Ch. 11, so I would assume that they all suffered the same fate.

Thanks Fiona, as for Portico it is no longer in the Chelsea Market. The space is empty and I cant wait to see what shows up.

Raquel, have you seen Home Portfolio's compendium of oval dining tables? Of course, every piece that looks drool-worthy is $6,000 and up, but if you can point to the specific look you want, maybe there will be more ideas on where to get it. (Or maybe $6k is your budget... I'm your basic penny-pinching thrift-store shopper and have no perspective.)
http://www.homeportfolio.com/catalog/Listing.jhtml?superCatId=1&catId=135&avId=11926&index=1&itemsPerPage=151

Two questions and would appreciate any advice for either!!

1) Does it make sense to have my landlord re-paint my apartment white as a primer before I paint in color? Or is just plain white paint over old white paint not really primer? The walls are really dirty in some areas and scratched up in others.

2) I bought a vintage bedroom set with a full-sized bed frame. Having a lot of trouble making it work in my room - the biggest obstacle being that with the wooden side rails that make it look great, I need to downsize my mattress and lose the under the bed storage! Double yikes. I'm thinking about a platform to sit the bed on (like the 350 sq. foot NYC loft in "Small Space Big Style) but have no idea where to begin with that!

Anybody?

Well, if the walls are dirty, I think you should give them a wash with TSP (TriSodium Phosphate), seriously. That will clean them and it will make the surface even more receptive to paint, even if that last paint hadn't been flat. It's available at any paint store, and it's pretty cheap.

About being scratched-up, if those scratches go below the surface, I'd say you might spackle.

If you know that your landlord is cool with you doing color, then primer is a good thing, because if the walls are dirty, and if any of the dirt is oily, it's just a better way to seal it, anyway.

But if you're really afraid to rattle his cage, because you think that "primer" will prompt him to grill you about what's going on top of it, then I'd say don't say anything. Because your fresh color on fresh white paint will at least "take" pretty well.

Anyone else thinking about decorations for the holidays?

Last year, I wanted to attempt a Martha Stewart design of Chrysanthemums stuck into balls of floral foam and set on top of vases. I'm hankering to do it this year.

I also just bought the new Living Etc. Can't wait to see their holiday decor ideas.

The cat has been hinting that she wants one of those conical feather trees, but I don't know that she's going to get one.

What irks me is that, in fall 2002, I threatened to wrap a tree in feather boas, and all my peeps laughed at me and made no-one-does-that-to-a-tree noises. Guess what's all over the stores here this year! Bah, humbug.

Is that go-Chris-go with the holiday decoraing question?!

Every year, since I usually am away for the holidays, I make a wreath for someone I know, either as a surprise or with their consent/direction. They're built on an artificial base (since some find their way to Florida, where real wreaths last about a day), they're usually themed to the person/location, and veer toward the traditional (though I did one a few years back that featured a woman's gold pump as the centerpiece. Don't ask.) It's great fun, and gives me a little Christmas spirit. Have been doing it for several years now.

This year's recipient has been identified (it's a surprise year) but he/they doesn't/don't know it yet.

wende-- wrapping ANYTHING in a feather boa is NEVER wrong!! :)

Thanks wende. I completely forgot about home portfolio. I will take a look and do as suggested (but right now, I am at-ing via blackberry).

p2 - I work in the shoe industry, any chance you have a photo of the wreath with the gold pump?

I have a funny little tradition that puts me in the Christmas spirit, and oddly enough, it's not even the stuff that I give my family or friends, but the thing that I do for my co-workers.

I buy 3x5 picture frames from the 99-cent store, and I buy some ribbon bits, and some garland bits that refer to design elements in the frame -- gold-ish things if the frames are brass, etc. -- and I find a typeface that also relates to the shapes, and I put a little piece of paper as the "picture" in the frame saying, "Happy Holidays, [co-worker name here] from Curtis!" and it's very easy for them to re-gift or use, because it's a picture frame, right? They don't take up much room, and yet for the price, they're kind of substantial. I make enough for the entire suite and make them all identical, except for the name. (But you really must find a kind of picture frame that looks good.) They love them.

Some of these co-workers, despite my pleadings for them to put loved ones in these frames, insist on keeping them exactly as I gave them to them. So, I borrowed two of them from one of these co-workers, and went ahead and scanned them into the flickr thing on this link on my name this time.

Curtis ~
What fun! I am trying to come up with an idea for homemade holiday cards involving pictures (of our children, of course). Well, honestly, I haven't given it much though yet. Does anyone do anything that has gotten rave reviews? I think our list last year was around 60, so it has to be fairly quick to put together. Found paper-source.com, which has beautiful stuff, but that may get pricey. May just resort to throwing out the cash for a load of Rock Paper Scissors cards... it's difficult to find any decent card designs in my market.

Curtis -- fun idea with the frames. I'm going to "steal" some old family photos from my parents when I am home for Thanksgiving. I have a vision of giving some cool family photos in frames to some of my family members. Got some frames from Ikea to test my ideas.

Patrick -- yes, it's me -- GoChrisGo.

I saw all of those feather trees too. Also, Target has a really cool paier mache Santa sled in two sizes. Also, I'm seeing a lot of stuff in old-fashioned glass glitter. Pottery Barn has some tree toppers like this and Shappy Chic at Target has some too.

I was suprised to see that there seem to be definite "trends" in holiday deocrating.

All of my Christmas decorations are purple and silver!

luigi--
Unfortunately, I only started to photo-document the wreaths over the past few years, and the "pump wreath" was a little further back than that.

It was pretty fabulous, though...

There is some great holiday stuff out this year, in a real variety of styles.

I just got a beautiful tree skirt for somebody special... Garnet Hill's Velveteen Cabin Tree Skirt. Click my name for the link.

raquel -- british khaki sells a nice modern/traditional wood oval/round table. it's round but the additions make it more and more oval. it's a bit big but a nice style that would work well with modern furniture. it's not cheap though.

After last year's "huge real tree from Home Depot" fiasco, I've decided I'm going to have to use a fake one. I have a green one, but since it looks fake anyway, I was thinking of going "chrome." Has anyone out there spraypainted an artificial tree? Or, should I just buy one from West Elm or something?

If you're going to spraypaint anything, you should only do it under cover of night, and never breathe (sorry, I had to) a word of it here, because it's not very environmentally friendly and many people will object. I loooooove spray paint and have used it in bunches of projects.

But seriously, I think there isn't enough spraypaint in the world to cover a fake Christmas tree and have it look right. I think that if you DID, you would need to spray it black first, just to kill the green color enough to make it look fake enough?

Thanks Curtis for your frank honesty regarding the use of CFCs. You're probably right about the amount needed...I guess i'll have to just suck it up and buy a chrome one or keep it its sickly green self! Someone (who lives in a more rural area) was going to give me their old, more realistic looking one, until I realized that the bag it came in alone would take up my entire living room!

I was thinking massive amounts of Rustoleum sandable spray primer... but I agree with Curtis (who should be believed if he says a project is too tedious to handle): there's not enough paint on earth to cover an artificial tree. And you'd always be finding spots you missed. And the metallic spraypaint is less cooperative than the solid colors anyway. (Yes, there's a lot of spraypaint in my environment. There are projects where it's the technology that best does the job, she snarled while sneezing a delightful pale blue from inhaling fumes.)

The larger West Elm trees cost about the same as 17.5 cans of spraypaint, and you'd be amazed how fast you can go through 17.5 cans of spraypaint.

Speaking of Christmas (and of off-loading via Ebay, on another thread)...
I have a really sweet little trio of rustic wooden angel candleholders on sale on eBay that I can't seem to generate any interest in... and I want them to find a home in time for Christmas. Click on my name for the link.

Sorry for this salesy-plug.

Oh, Abbe, and about cards...what about getting a cool seasonal photo and going on Snapfish? I did some postcards for my moving announcements with a picture of my new bedroom on the other side--you can even get them addressed and mailed from Snapfish if you have a generic message...I think each one came to $1.50 with postage etc...

I like Future Perfect, especially when the owner is there. The hired help ain't too nice. But if you go there be sure to check out other places in the 'hood. I love The Golden Calf on N. 6th/Berry. There are a few shops along N. 6th bet. Bedford and the river that are pretty cool. I just happen to like Wmsburg. If you go on a Friday then you can take in Happy Hour at the B'lyn Brewery as well. Cheap beer (lots of flavors) and a live band.

I am excited about Christmas this year--I am getting my first ever Christmas tree of my own. Small, but real, I'm thinking. I know they're a mess, but I just love the smell.

Abbe--
You might also look into Exposures for card options built around your own photos.

http://www.exposuresonline.com/home.jsp

P(too)~
I hadn't seen Exposures. Their cards are much nicer than many other sites out there. (I can't stand all the 'penguins sliding on ice' business.) Gotta get on that mailing list. Thanks for the tip!

Found this via The Red Ferret Journal today:

The eNook.

Sorry: eNook at http://www.anthro.com/PromotionDetails.asp?PromotionID=328