apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I really like everything but the bush or branches in the living area seem too big for such a small space. Not saying its not good just not for me...in contention

I feel like there's just too much going on here. There's too much clutter and disorganization.

All my best,
Phyllis G.

Oh my, just when I thought I could go take an AT break and get something to eat, out pops another contest entry.

Will the fun never stop. :)

sweet bedroom! i like this sort of take on the all white + neutrals scheme best, + that quirky lamp!
i want you to have a simple but sumptuous squishy couch though, or round pompasan? chair, something to really sink into; is there a love seat in the diagram but not shown in the photos?
some one said this about another entry, "looks like you'd be fun to hang out with" and see the city.

I really like your place! Very warm & cozy to me.

Can you give more details about your headboard? It sort of looks like chrome to me but could just be a glare from your lovely window.

Love love love the red coffee table, too.

I wondered (like orange red) about your comfy couch situation as well. Fill us in!

Aloha Ya'll,

As for this entry, I love the brick wall and woode floors. There is character of living here and I'd rather see that than some of the minimalist apartments in the contest. I'm not putting down the minimalist entries, there's artistic flavor to them. What attracts me to a small/cool apartment is character and creativity in use of space. The most important thing I look for is an apartment which the inhabitants appear to have had "history" of living. Glimpses of collections, hints of culture or genealogy, whispers of personal belongings and plenty of personality.

Minimalism reflects personality, but I want my living space to appear as voluptuous as I am.

Lastly,: Has anyone had problems viewing the la AT site and the entries West of the Mississippi? Pages will start to load and all I end up with is the website header and a blank screen :-(

Cooking Cajun

Where is the sofa that Jules mentioned? I don't see it in any of the pictures. Only one suggestion. Try something less transluscent for the top of your closet. Perhaps you can double up on the door panels. Otherwise, great use of space.

Could somebody please ban this Phyllis Gabor character? (S)he (probably he) thinks (s)he's funny, but is just a big yawn. One-note "humor" - sad, actually.

uhhhh.nice. lived in and warm.

i think it's great! i second someone who says you need a comfy couch or chaise or something, though. also, i agree that the clear closet doors probably don't do much for you--something solid to hide the clutter and then mirrors to open up the space would probably have worked better. still, love the warmth and hominess of it!

you've got to be kidding, no offense but this place is a DUMP.

why would anyone be offended by that? LOL!

I've got to know where you purchased the Lexan. Trying to build a room divider and keep the light flowing in our new apartment.
Was it as expensive as say, acrylic?

What interests me most about this apartment is the lovely gold luster on the brick wall in the second picture...is it the lighting in the picture or is it painted brick? I don't think it is painted, but the patina is very, very lovely. The brick makes the living room. Although I think although the photography is sort of so-so, if one was physically in this living room my guess it would be lovely and cozy.

New Tenant intrigues me.

AT addicts, please note there is only 48 hours left of the ABC Carpet Sale (ends Sunday). I bought a rectangular (e.g., non-carcass shaped) sheepskin that arrived the other day. It is supposed to sit at the foot of the bed right in front of our bedroom fireplace. My little sister came over the day and said that sheepskin in the bedroom made it look as though I was producing an all-male pornography film. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But is she right? I thought it had kind of a clean, white retro quality to it. Regardless of its stylistic merits it is very comfortable to sit and walk on, almost four inches deep. Cheers. Jonathan

Sheepskin does not equal male porno any more than leather equals female porno. Or wait, does it? If it does, I'm buying sheepskin tomorrow. Just so I can watch.

Dear UUT,

This is a free forum where everyone is allowed to speak their mind. If you do not like me then please, do not read what I write, no one is forcing you. There is no need to a attack anyone, this isn't kindergarten.

All my best,
Phyllis G.

Woo, expose that brick! It's great. I'd like to see more of this apartment, to really get a feel for it.. eg. less closets, more living space? Nice anyhow :)

A little cluttered, but nice. I like the red coffee
table.

I like the two chairs in front of the closet. I also like that you built the closet. Very handy.

As a renter myself, I really enjoy seeing what people can do with spaces they don't actually own. Vaso has done a good job of allowing his personality to come out in a space that he can't really customize the way we've seen owners do in other entries.

That said, I'm not a big fan of stacks of things on the floor. This apartment could use more shelves and closed storage, lest it drift too far into the realm of dorm life.

Normally I am more attracted to the spaces that are a bit more "design-y", but something about this entry really does it for me. I love all the "stuff" and the cozy feeling in the living space and how the cool bedroom has a very different feeling. I think the space is great, and part of it is the "clutter". The only spot that detracts for me is the curtained wall in front of the red bench. Maybe if the curtain didn't sag and the space above was tidier or hidden? I love this place.

What I would do to be a fly on the wall during an extended family dinner at Jonathan's...

Jonathan,

Maybe you're getting the porny sheepskin vibe because lots of people use sheepskin rugs on their beds, too, as a kind of duvet substitute -- witness the last issue of Domino. Or maybe they just move the rug indiscriminately around the apartment, placing it wherever they want to get busy.

Anyhow, I personally love them.

This looks like a real person's home (not scoured and stripped for the camera), and I appreciate the work that has gone into it. It's comfortable and pleasant. But it has a slightly cramped feel, and sadly is not a contender.

Efficiency: It looks a tad difficult to get around due to the excess of heavy items on the floor (not ideal for a small space)

Aesthetics: Nothing really stands out as especially lovely.

Special Challenges: None, that I can see.


I must admit, I was somewhat biased after I saw "some great goat skins" in the description.

I love this place! It's ideal.

This is, by far, one of the best apartments I've ever seen. It's not "done" -- although I do like "done" very much. It shows what living with an eye toward beauty and light can be.

The only change I would make would be to hang the closet curtain from the ceiling. I understand that the Lexan was used to allow light to flow through to the other room, but this could have been achieved with linen.

KUDOS. It's so wonderful. Lastly, I wish I knew how to use light as this apartment's tenant does.

VASO:
Do you do lighting? Would love some tips in my place. tgraves12@yahoo.com

Ok...as a non New Yorker...I have a question. What exactly is a tenement? I always had the idea the term mean 'squalid or rundown'..but I see it used here and other design/real estate related websites, and it doesn't seem to mean that at all. Is it just another term for 'apartment building'?

Hey, Jonathan, would it be possible to give this homeowner his/her day in the sun, and leave the "What about MY house?!?" questions to the open threads?

I like the exposed brick. Bedroom is okay but appears crowded. You need to stop picking up stuff "trash" from the street.

Oh, and I agree with Phyllis Gabor.

Finally, would somebody ban "uut." He or she is an idiot.

Ok, everybody, let's agree to not ask to ban anybody from posting here. Instead, just focus on the contest entries -- and don't be mean!

Liked the brick wall, the red table and the white bedroom. Is that an IKEA console under the window?

Your space is almost identical to ours, except we have the kitchen where you have the workspace. We've found that--ironically--a few big, solid pieces of furniture make the place look larger than does a buncha little pieces.

I think tenements are pretty specific--as in being from a certain era and being built a certain way. Former tenement houses (which had a certain "squalid" connotation built for poor people) are now apartment buildings...at least this is what I'm guessing.

Patrick (the other one): you are quite right old chap. Will keep narcisstic self-loathing to the main thread.

To the question posed earlier about New York: you are correct, there IS a negative subtext to the word "tenement" it is not a pure synonym of "apartment"

Tenements ARE a fact of life in NYC.

Whether or not you intend to indicate that your domicile is on the skanky side, some of us DO live -- as I do -- in former tenements.

Here's a virtual tour of New York's Tenement Museum:

http://www.tenement.org/index_virtual.html

Cheers,
Jerry

from what I recall from visiting the museum a million years ago, tenements are a specific type of apartment building - they were brick - around 4 stories, with two storefronts on the first floor and a fire escape on the front. they housed immigrants in tiny apartment - frequently several families shared one apartment and people slept in shifts. because of poverty and overcrowding the name tenement became associated with squalor. As far as i know the word tenement merely refers to a building rented to tenants

thanks all... for the answers on the use of 'tenement' to describe an apartment. the museum site was especially interesting.

I would hide the stuff lurking behind the lexan panels with fabric - it draws the eye quite a bit and I find myself trying to figure out what all of those shapes of things are, so it's a distraction, but I love the exposed brick, the red table, the black chairs and even the big bundle of branches.

you can also find some interesting (and often sad) information on tenements in jacob riis's "how the other half lives."

there is also a good novel called the Breadgivers - don't remember the author - about immigrant life during that time.

I'm unsuccessfully resisting the urge to chime in with more info on tenements and housing regulations (city planning degree here...). The tenement museum was interesting--went there for one of my classes. Much of the field of city planning sprung up from the need for sanitation, air, and light (where many of our now seemingly silly and definitely outdated zoning regulations have come from...). At the turn of the century, there were many shoddily constructed "tenements" that had none of those things--hence the reference to squalid conditions. We're talking people dumping trash and bedpans in the yards behind the apartments or in streets. Plus, the overcrowding, because as someone else pointed out, they were often occupied by large families/multiple families/friends of families who came to America. The housing reform movement came along and new structures were constructed, using light shafts so that every apartment could have some light and air, and individual apartments often had windows inside them to allow some of the air to pass through. At any rate, apartments in the former "tenement houses" are now often occupied by one or 2 people with modern facilities--so the squalor they once referred to is no longer an issue! As Vaso's place attests....okay, I'm shutting up.

I really like the big bunch of pussy willows or whatever. It makes a great statement.

Hello everyone. It's Vaso.
It's been fun to read everyone's comments here. So let me answer some questions...
I think Jonathan must have picked the vibe that the front door entry to my apartment is sandwiched between 2 porn stores... I have a few goat skins on my floors that I don't think show very well in the photos. They are great accents and soft on bear feet. Plus I played with a few as a child ...
The head board is a lexan panel which can be found in plastics stores for about $90 a sheet (comes in 4x8 panels). I carried mine from chinatown to the village from my friend's office through a wind storm... good memories.
I am in the process of designing a couch to go in the main space which is why there is no couch shown anywhere, to answer the couch questions.
There has been no junk picked from any street as someone noted although all work has been done on a very low budget. It is a rental apartment after all!
There is only one closet in the space and 2 kitchen cabinets so storage has been quite a challenge.
To answer someone else's question in regards to the top of the main closet... I would love to have it done in more of a solid manner! but, I only get 5 minutes of direct sun light in that space and that's only in the summer time. The rest of the time, I might get some light coming from the neighbors apartment, as my window is at the bottom of a 6 story lightwell. The building next door is 4 feet away...and it's brick...which means...dark. So, I have tried to utilize the light coming from my north facing bedroom windows and filter it trough the space. In reality, the things I have on the top cabinet don't show as bright as in the photos I took, so they are not as distracting.
And yes. It is a cozy and warm space as I always hear from people, however, it does become problematic when they do start getting a bit too comfortable!
It has been fun reading through all of this.
Cheers
Vaso

i love the use of vertical space. i think the entries that do so are automatically my favorites, just because it disperses visual clutter and the spaces don't seem so bottom heavy.

Hi Vaso!
In my book, your apartment is the winner.

Vaso has done an amazing job. This space looks so cool regardless, but even more so because the shape of this apartment before Vaso moved in was not livable.
I should dig in for old pictures.
It makes me want to move back in.
Old tenant.

my favorite part of the apartment is the sea-aqua greenish blueish hardwood floors that make the bedroom feel like a greek oasis in the west village. the tenant is greek but i dont know if she did that on purpose.