apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Ooh, saw this on Small Space, Big Style. It's in the ottoman at the end of the bed.

Did anyone else find that apartment on SSBS kind of depressing? It was so put together, so compact, and so specific in it's look it said to me "I'm a single person, and no one else is every going to live here with me. Everything is white, everything is perfect, and nothing is to be moved".

It was beautiful, but to me it felt like a museum or an experiment rather than a living space.

I did love the use of the mantle to create a "fireplace" that hid the TV. But I thought the chandelier above the bed was in danger of causing head wounds during sex.

Max,

I thought it was beautiful, but not depressing. She has the means to have a really girly apartment (though it's sophisticated) and, in my opinion, there's nothing sad about having an apartment the way you want it. When you DO meet someone, you unfortunately usually can't do everything you'd do by yourself.

People may snicker at bachelor pads, but no one finds them sad. (All that ire wasn't directed at you, Max, just stirred up by your post. Sorry. ;)

It's not that I found it depressingly girly, far from it. It's the nicest girly apartment I've seen. I just couldn't imagine someone actually living in it. It looks like a stage set to me. Even when they showed the obligatory SSBS "entertaining friends" scene it looked strange and awkward to me.

It doesn't look like people belong in the space, and that's kind of what makes it sad. It's such a tuned space that there is no spontenaity to it. It's like a perfect machine designed to support a single individual, sort of a fishbowl for a person.

I can't imagine a group of friends coming back there for drinks after a night out. I can't imagine an old college friend stopping by for a weekend. I can't imagine her giving a key to a lover.

All I can picture is a woman coming home from work, changing out of her white suite and into a white cashmere sweater and drinking white wine with her cat.

This is not meant to knock the apartment owner. Obviously this place works for her or else it wouldn't be so well put together. Honestly my emotions on this place probably say a lot more about me than they do about her. But I found it strangely depressing and forbidding.

Yeah, but Max, think how hot to see your black Calvin Klein boxer briefs dangling from the chandelier! ;)

Fiona--
Really interesting point about the varying perceptions of a "highly gendered" space.

P2, have you been looking through my drawers? Or am I just too predictable with my tastes. Quick, name my favorite brand of shoes!

Judging from the rest of the apartment a stunt like tossed undergarments on the chandelier might earn a guy or girl a punch in the jaw.

Unless the owner were into that... oh yeah baby, mess up my apartment. Leave a dirty plate out on the table. Dirty china, so bad to leave it out. So so bad.

Max, it was pretty perfectly ordered, but some people (not me, unfortunately) really can't live any other way. But I got what you're saying...

I think it is a perfect machine, though, because it's tiny and so designed. And to me, that's an enviable thing, but everyone wants different things.

P2, glad you are back!