apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Can someone say, "it's a good thing."

This is the most Martha post I've ever seen on AT.

I like it! :)

Holly

It looks more like Rachel Ashwell/Shabby Chic to me. Just needs a vase with some peonies (Rachel's favorites).

The only thing missing is that kid from Appalachia playing the banjo

Those chairs are going to hurt your butt.

Question: I know having your bed face the front door is the ultimate feng shui no-no. Does hanging drapes at the foot of the bed solve this dilemna? I'd like to turn my bed so it will free up some wall space for shelves. (studio apt.) It's a tight nook so I was hoping for some advice before wrestling with the mattress.

I think Martha would paint that furniture and make covered cushions and a pitcher of lemonade and some strawberry shortcakes and paint some stripes on that boring porch floor.

Trish - Drapes would help. I would think placing plants or a wind chime near the doorway might as well, but you might want to double check all of this. Thoughts from others?

Speaking of simplicity, can anyone recommend GREAT everyday dishware? Seems my expensive ones have a way of cracking after about six months of use. Would like something attractive, but strong.

Thanks AT People!

t.p.--i really love my dishes from fishs eddy. i went with the plain white (on the bottom it says, "corona, hotel porcelain") and spice it up with colorful glasses and other fun accessory dishes. i use these dishes everyday and have had them for about one year, so far, they have held up great.

yes, i can see rachel ashwell getting her hands on this setting... i met her last year when i went to her tent sale in l.a. - she's a sweetie. i only wish she'd 'revamp' her line a little bit because it doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was. she has built such an empire, i'd love to see it continue... she does sell these amazing leather
'puffs' that are hand stitched for the floor - they look like the tops of mushrooms, so pretty - love those.

holly :)

Yep, Rachel really is great. One of the nicest people I've ever met. An astute businesswoman with a great eye. Okay, some don't like her aesthetic but she is extremely talented and the first to put washable slipcovered furniture on the market and do it well and successfully. I can't say enough nice things about her.

Re: everyday dishes--I've liked everything I've bought from Fishs Eddy, and it's held up well.

I love my Fiestaware. You can get a whole set of one color, or you can get each place setting a different color and they're classic and durable. I bought 6 place settings -- each a different color, even though I doubt if I'll ever have 6 people over at once, because I can kind of decide which colors I want to use with the mood I'm in.

Thanks for the tips. Fishs Eddy is on my shopping list next weekend. Will also take a look at Fiestaware online.

Great site, great group of people. Thank you!

I use Russell Wright for everyday dishware, mostly American Modern. It's easy to find on eBay and has held up for a mid-century or so.

CAN someone please try any url in the TinyURL page and post it back here? NONE of the TinyURLs I've posted are working now. Nothing on their site says anything about being down for maintenance. It does say it could terminate the TinyURLs for spamming, which I'm not doing. I'm hoping it's due to a minor glitch that will be fixed or even that some vindictive moron managed to get me disabled. Because there are over 20 million TinyURLs in use, and that would be a whole lot of upset people.

This is the only place I post these days, and use TinyURLs here, due to someone here complaining about the length of the links, and offering up the great suggestion of TinyURL. It's even recommended here on AT last year.

So can someone make a link to someplace, even back to here, at TinyURL and then I can see if it works for me. That will help figure out if it's system-wide, or just my own links.

I'd laugh if it was someone here's doing, because I changed to TinyURL at the request of someone else here. So I guess it will be those 250 character wide links again until it's fixed. Blame TinyURL or whomever is responsible. Not my fault!

I like Fiestaware, too. As part of my Cure, I bought some pieces I didn't have to complete a tea set, and also, somehow I have ended up with eight placesettings! I have pieces in periwinkle, rose and yellow (the original pale yellow, not the new sunflower yellow). I really like the new peacock blue.

Andree:

http://tinyurl.com/rlfvg

Worked for me.

What are good places to get modern outdoor furniture?

Joan, THANKS SO MUCH! I tried for hours and couldn't get anything to work. I finally threw myself into bed and woke up later to find an email from TinyURL:

A scheduled upgrade on TinyURL caused unexpected database issues
resulting in a temporary downtime of the service earlier tonight.
Everything is now up and running. We apologize for the inconvenience
this has caused.

The links I saved as fav places are now working. The links I've posted are now working.

And what a neat house idea on the page you posted! Is the shaded area embedded in hillside? The lower portion towards the saltbox side? Is it your site? Are you building?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you (or the person who made that site) did the sun at different times of the year. That's the kind of thing that I TRY to explain to people but I never have a decent image to show them, now I do!

It's also latitude-influenced, so, one sun angle doesn't fit all. But still, people have said "there's no sun in our house" in the middle of summer when they've just moved in. Well, that's when it's high (in the northern hemisphere), and they tear down the drapes and blinds, only to find four months later they are DYING of the heat from the sun streaming in, and don't have a blinds!

There was some fab house that had a catwalk that ran from one portion of the upper floor, across the open living area, and into a lookout spot or another bedroom, something. So if that is your site and you're still looking for ideas, try searching for homes with catwalks. It's a neat solution, suspended from the ceiling, and not at all ADA-accessible.

Thanks again, Joan!!!!

Andree, I confess it's not my site at all. One of my other addictions is houseblogs.net, and that's one of the blogs linked to that. I was actually looking for The Petch House (http://www.petchhouse.blogspot.com), which I've mentioned before, but was too lazy and settled for this one since it was late at night. I'm glad you liked it.

wait I thought feng shui says you should have your bed face the door. I thought you are always supposed to face the door

margaret - Re-reading the question, it's about the bed facing the front door, as far as I can tell, not the bedroom door. Wouldn't that make a difference?

Re: everyday dishes. I happen to love the white Apilco dishes, which are available at William Sonoma but also (I would imagine) many other places. I always seem to break or chip Fishes Eddy stuff within weeks of buying it, but my Apilco seems indestructible. It's also easy to mix and match with other colored dishes.

Yes, my bed faces the apartment front door (studio), so that's the concern. Right now it's perpendicular to it, with drapes that seperate it from the rest of the room. If the bed was turned to face out I wasn't sure th drapes were enough to combat the bad feng-shui-ness of it.

Sharon - I think wind chimes would make me crazy but plants sound good!

Re: Fishs Eddy. It probably depends what you choose there. In the early days, in their big store downtown, staff used to stand on piles of their restaurant-quality plates (which were for sale) in order to reach things on upper shelves. The danger was not in chipping the plates, but in falling off the wobbly tower. (Besides the obvious hygienic danger.)

More on Fiestaware, now that I've read the thread more closely. Amazon.com has a Fiesta store:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/598204/ref=amb_link_18571301_60/103-7692450-1004649

Also, Macy's here in San Francisco carries Fiestaware open stock, so if you have a Macy's close by, you might want to check it out.

Fiestaware is durable, well designed, affordable, and looks great, perfect for everyday use. I think the place settings are a good deal.

For everday plates, I have had a set of IKEA ones for about 5 years and they've worn well. Unfortunately, the change their colours often, so if you want more, you may not be able to match. When I got mine they had bright blue, green, and yellow and I haven't seen those colours there since. I just recently got some Pagnossin Ironstone plates made in Italy in a bright blue and apple green that I love. I didn't like the bowl shapes though.

At some point, I'll probably go to a restaurant supply place and get a bunch of plain white plates to offset the bright colours. Restaurant supply is usually a good way to go because they're meant to withstand heavy use and the price is usually reasonable. You'll have to check if you have one that's open to the public in your city. In Montreal, we have a great one called Mona's.

Curtis, another reason to love you for your style! We have 12 place settings of Fiesta, 2 each of six colors. And I, too, find myself choosing which dishes to use based on my mood. We've enjoyed them, but I sometimes think about buying all white dishes (though not white Fiestaware -- I hear it shows scratches like our pale yellow dishes do).

I confess, I haven't read this whole thread but, dinnerware-wise, I can't recommend Arzberg White highly enough as a beautiful, durable, simple everyday porcelain. It's basically a high quality knockoff of a drop dead GORgeous design by Marianne Brandt, of Bauhaus fame. The "real" stuff is still produced by Royal Bavaria but the decimal is in a different place which places it firmly outside the "everyday" category.