apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

That kitchen is adorable, I love the mirror arrangement over your buffet in the front hall, and those plants look simply luscious.

You seem to have balanced the laid-back, natural beauty of the islands with the elegant, streamlined feel of the city. Well done!

I love the wall storage - how did you do it?

i love the fresh, friendly vibe! is the plant stand a magazine stand turned on its side? clever!

wheres the entry door?

Nice job BTW

D'oh I see its Blue....Nice

i think this is super. especially dig that wall piece with the birds emerging from the bed. did you draw/paint that by hand?

good job making a tight space accomodate your furniture and little flourishes so nicely. it's funny, from the photos i would have never guessed the bed are dining/living areas were in the same room. i did a double-take when i checked out the floor plan.

This is really creative. I love the green nature vibe. very cute!

I LOVE this. Where did you get those round mirrors of various sizes?? I also love the bamboo on the kitchen cabinets. So inventive, so restful, and I feel like this whole space really works. There are enough closets that it seems it would be possible to actually live here. This may be my favorite.

OMG, your books are arranged by color. Love it!

i, too, would love to know details on the shelving, and also the birds. are they appliques? stencils?

very smart!

Excellent design tip.

Just lovely plants, fresh colors and decorating details. A truly small and cool space.

Love your green kitchen, as i aspire to paint mine soon -- do you have any countertop there?? dig the over the sink dishrack, the tiles (are those Flor tiles??) And is your stove 24" wide??
I lived in a space this side for five years and never got it right. this is great looking!!

Your table is perfect for my odd shaped tiny dig. I'll be in heaven if you can tell me where I can find it.

One of the sweetest, most endearing spaces I've ever seen. I melted when I saw those mirrors. At first I thought they were some kind of cutouts from a huge photo or something. Love this place soooo(ho) much.

:::LOVE::: that blue planter to the left of your windows.

SWEET

xo
Holly

Yay stuff! I love the flor tiles (I'm assuming) in the kitchen and placemats on the cabinets. Clever!

Great job making this rental feel homey. I do wonder how this place would look with the bookshelf/desk & table flipped flopped. When sitting on the sofa, I would think it'd be nicer to look at something other than a table in chairs.

Could work best this way in person, however.

this place looks ideal for halloween parties.

I hate your kitchen-a bit cheap, but love everything else.

Very nice. Has a great vibe. LOVE the shelving-- I checked out shelfshop.com and think it may be the answer to many of my apt problems. Thanks!

beautiful. but i don't think one can really enjoy a bed unless one has pulled it out of a garbage dump and carried it ten blocks down broadway through new york august swamp air.

Thanks so much for all your comments. Okay, to answer a few things:

1) The wall storage is from Shelf Shop, a family-run business on the Upper East Side. It's made of maple and portable tension rods. It's all custom and relatively affordable. And a friend of mine has had hers for almost 20 years.

2) Yep, the plant stand is also a magazine holder/table.

3) The entry door (oops) is next to the kitchen.

4) I made the birds by cutting them out of adhesive felt squares.

5) The kitchen has taken the most wrestling. Since there is no counter, that's the sideboard's job. The tiles are Flor—they're from the green sampler kit on their website and are covering ancient b/w-checked linoleum.

6) The table and chairs are from Room and Board (sometimes I like to just wander through the store and pretend I live there).

Thanks! And thanks to everyone in the contest—it's been inspiring and fun.

Nice place! I think the kitchen floor is old-fashioned linoleum tile, rather than Flor?

In a word... charming.

i really like this apt. i'm curious about why you chose to arrange the bed in the center instead of at the other end (where the couch or table and chairs are now)... this placement seems sort of counterintuitive, so i'd love to know the reasoning.

Nice place!!

Can you please tell me where you purchased your dish rack from? I so need something like that...Thanks in advance!

love all the wall decorations and the cabinets

I look forward to the expanded photo phase of the contest in which we get to see more pics. No pic of the bathroom?

bamboo - very nice touch.

i have an issue, though: in the second picture, on the wall over your round dining table, is what appears to be a giant ceramic dildo affixed to the wall. be honest: am i the first person to notice that and you people were too polite to mention it, or am i the only one who thinks that?

I love what you did with the kitchen cabinets! Nice!

lots of nice little details. modern and still comfortable and livable.

Having seen the place before and after, trust me, this is even more impressive than it looks in the photos. Amazing use of space. And I'm calling Shelf Shop today.

I see an angel. We may just see what we're looking for.

This apt is the answer to the complaints about no rugs. There's even carpet in the kitchen!

Overall, very nice. Congratulations. But I'd want to be able to see the TV from the couch.

Where did you get your couch? And what size is it? I'm trying to decorate my studio now, and it's the same layout as yours!

I'm rearranging my books by color tonight! :-)

I love the birds flying out of the bed.

great space!

Nicely done. I really like your shelving, the birds over the bed (adhesive felt? Well done!), and baboo layer on the cabinets. Really charming

Those shelves can be found at Container Store in the Shelving department and Wal-Mart in the Home Organization/Closet area ... I have purchased them both places. I'd add a link for Container store but can't find the product on their site.

And I just don't feel like hassling with Wal-Mart - sorry!

Meant to type BAMboo... or would that actually be rattan?

And what are they? Pieces of sliced-up runners and placemats? A window blind? Do tell!

Where can we get those round mirror cutouts? I'm about to move into a new studio and I've been looking for something creative to do on one of the walls - and that may just be it! Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Cute cabniets! Where did ya get that bamboo?

Shelf Shop is fantastic. Adding shelves from them can be a significant apartment-morphing experience.

A real person lives in this not-a-catalogue-download place. Books, exposed hanging files (gasp!), and great colors. A lot of thought and effort.

Ali, you asked about why the bed was where it is...and I'm putting in my 2 cents worth on that subject myself. Personally, I'd be happiest sleeping with my head out the window. I love that fresh air. And I was astounded when I visited a neighbor's apartment, same floor plan, and they'd put their double bed in the DINING NOOK. The dining nook, for crying out loud...right next to the kitchen and as far away from the bed nook and window as possible.

The more I thought of it, the more I liked...make that LOVED...the idea they came up with.

Okay, let's say you are like a lot of people and can actually sleep at night. When you're asleep, what do you see? Nothing. That's right, nothing. It doesn't matter if you're sleeping in a coffin or in a 3,000 sq ft bedroom suite, you don't see any of it.

However...when you're AWAKE...for the same folks during the day...don't you want to be near the window? Have the light? The breeze? The view?

So what makes the most sense? Living spaces next to the windows. Bed area tucked away from the windows in the darker parts of the apartment.

Look at that top picture again! The sofa and the desk/work area are swimming in light. Light that would be wasted by landing on an unoccupied bed in the day.

The dining area, right by the window, to have a cup of coffee and watch the world outside the window. Or to sit with your back to the window and let the sun warm your skin, while you read the paper, or a novel.

Look at the bed picture again. It is darker in that area. The edge of the bed is visible in the top picture too...and it does get darker as we move farther from the window.

Noise can be a factor, coming in through those windows. Having the bed in the location it's in, buffers the sound from any hallway, as the kitchen and bathroom are there. Being farther from the windows, that helps to minimize the noise that may come in via the windows.

I have neighbors from hell...both across the hall, in the courtyard, and somewhere above me...so the minimizing of noise just isn't going to help here. There is no escape. LOL!

Does that help make sense of the furniture placement now? That's just my point of view. Perhaps Valerie moved in, was tired from moving things, plopped the bed down where it is and said "And this is where it will be, because I'm just too darned tired to move it around anymore!"

Hi. So as for the layout, I've arranged and rearranged dozens of times. I've finally chosen this way because of the A/C and heater locations, neighbor noise (the north wall neighbor is quieter than the south wall), and because of the feng shui rule about not sleeping with your head near a window (your chi supposedly goes whoosh, out the apartment), and also because I like to sleep in the very dark (there are honeycomb black-out blinds that come down). When my bed was where the table is, it all felt very bedroomy, which now it actually doesn't so much. -Valerie

another workspace that looks like some work could actually get done. and that isn't trying to hide. nice.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I think Todd Oldham was trying to unload some not-so-hot fabric. Other than that, your place is pretty cute and functional. Love, love, LOVE the kitchen which has a very creative touch and fantastic color! Who would think a kitchen that small could be so inviting?

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The kitchen is my favorite part of this apartment.

Hey Valerie-

Where did you get those round mirrors on the wall? And where did you find that blue carpet?

Love the layout! Amazing what you've done with the place.