apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

glad to cast the first vote. i am stunned. are the kitchen cabinets metal or painted to look like it? how high are your ceilings? is the leather couch also the bed?

This is really cool. I've been putting a lot of thought into lighting lately so I'm excited to see you focus on it here!

I like how you have shown that through the manipulation of an essential element in any apartment, big or small, you can control the perspective of the space. I also love the black wall--how timely! I remember seeing a post just a couple of days ago regarding black paint in the apartment.

Good luck to you!

I wish I could see more!

This is a great use of a small space! I love how you use your photography lighting equipment as light in your home as well - instant storage solution!

I don't know if I could live there but I like your photos.

This is probably the coolest teeny tiny entry I've seen!!! Kudos to you for starting with nothing -- I know how it feels since I started off with no furniture too and had to accept hand-me-downs and thrift store finds. This really IS great.

Nice pictures, but I couldn't really see how you live there. No bedroom pics make it difficult to get a sense of any real living; would have also liked to have seen a wider-scope view of "the big room".

Nice job! and beautiful, inspiring light.

Sydney-- there is no bedroom. But yes, I would like to see where he sleeps.

You should take a picture from the street at night so we can see what it looks like!

Wow--love the silver-painted cabinets in the kitchen. That project must have been a pain, but, oh, what a payoff!

Seems very personal. Nice work.

Wow- Fantastic... I'm not impressed with many of the entries in this competition, but I really like your place!

gets a thumbs up solely based on 'this wall is all chalkboard paint'...

Hi everyone....wow, thanks for the kind words and the fast votes!

To respond to a couple of questions (they said I could respond, really....)

(a) yes, I wish I could have done a wider shot, but I don't have a wide angle lens on the point and shoot and the "main room is fairly narrow and long so it was difficult to get the whole perspective in.

(b) bedroom? (laughing, laughing, here).....well, there is no bedroom -- the leather settee/sofa (again, scavenged off the street from an auction house down the street, where they were going to chuck it into a dumpster) is mid-century (the bolsters are actually upholstered with this magenta and black fabric -- that's a leather cover I found at Housing Works) is a trundle bed which really isn't particularly comfortable when pulled out. So I either sleep on the sofa or on the living room floor....yeah, I know..... That's always been the conceptual dilemma -- whether to take up significant space with a real bed, try to find (or afford) a good sofa bed, do a Murphy Bed on that black living room wall (but then do I lose that black wall which is a great photography background)?

(c) the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator front, the closet doors, windowsills and ceiling fan -- painted out with this Janovic aluminum paint (for non-NYC folks, Janovic is the big paint concern/store in NYC) -- great in the result (the paint is oil-based with the consistency of water, so I was walking around looking like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz for about two weeks.

Hope this answers some queries, and thanks again!

Decorating with light-- wonderful.

You know, many of the entries in the "Small Cool" really aren't THAT small and often look "cool" by virtue of the instant style that expensive furnishings can bring.

Your place (very small and very cool!) is wonderful and amazing - you've imbued it with a personal stamp via color, lighting and some wonderful ideas and furniture finds.

After the contest, would you consider writing a tutorial on lighting with spotlights and photography umbrellas to post on AT? I love the effect, but it's one of those areas of knowledge where I haven't the faintest idea where to start.

Great place - I love that you achieved a sequence of spaces within such a small footprint.

Once again, great job! esp. for showing how ingenuity and taste (the lighting, the paint, selective scrounging) trump a big budget.

Love the windows!

Greg, I totally agree w/ the comment posted by vvn. Your place does meet both criteria -- very small, very cool, and is a testement to your great taste and creativity. Love it. Best of luck.

-AnotherGreg

Love this. It looks like a much bigger space than it is.

P.S. Have you considered an air mattress? They fold up into a small pile, but they're as comfortable as a real bed.

excellent. genuine creativity. resourceful and imaginative is so much cooler than 'i bought this here and this here and this here' i loved the comment about seeing the place from the street, that's a nice feeling.

I disagree with VNN. Small is relative. I think a 1,000 square feet is small.

I think 300 ft and below is an oversize closet or compareable to GITMO.

On the other hand, People who live in NYC may think 1,000 square feet is big and 300 square feet in normal.

Thankfully, Maxwell and the people at AT understand that we all see things differently.

P.S. I don't think there's anything wrong with sleeping on the floor.

A lot of the entries do show the presence of significant funds. Do they really need $2000. worth of stuff from Room and Board when they already have an $8000. sofa. I know that's not meant to be a voting criteria but is also hard to ignore. I'm sure you could find yourself comfortable sleeping arrangements with the prize. And, well, that's a lovely way to reward someone with vision and thoughtfulness. Best of luck.

h144:

uh, last time I checked this wasn't a "pity" contest. If that's what this contest is supposed to be than I'm going to submit my own place because I have TOO many victorian bronze statues and not enough marble pedestals.

It's not whether contestants have money or not. (And I'm personally tired of the rich always being looked down upon. It's not fair.) If you look at last years winners and finalists...not the richest people in the contest...

h144: Anyone living in Manhattan, or even Brooklyn to a degree, is probably richer than 95% of the rest of the nation and 99% of the world. Therefore, by your logic, not only do they not deserve a prize, but why not eliminate them from the competition! Ugh.

I agree with FM - somehow in this new world, to a lot of people at least, working to make money and investing it in yourself to better your life is a negative. Folks like h144 would make our founding fathers roll over in their graves.

You're place looks great!! Best of luck in the contest.

very cool. i love that you live w/o a bed. innovative.

Jack and Filthy: I don't hate the rich. And I haven't voted against entries that Obviously have loads of money. And my home reflects that as well. It's a comment and point of discussion. It's not a life narrative. Ease up. And the founding fathers: very mixed bag of men there, they didn't all like each other as I'm sure some of them wouldn't care for me.

this is seriously gangster

Very funky and love the creative use of light as a design element--that gets overlooked so often. Kudos!
D-

love the resourceful, re-useful energy throughout - especially the chalkboard wall! you tease the sofa designer in me by not giving up more of that cool looking, slim-armed piece with the leather cushions. Someday when you are recovering from the fame of this great splash perhaps i can bug you to send me a photo of the sofa you have there - we need more smart designs like that, made here in the USA. I am headed to NC in 2 weeks for another design session with my factory friends...then again later this year. No hurry, and I never copy stuff, just learn and adapt, so Jonesy across the hall can't ever have a look alike! Great place - thanks for posting.

Oh, h144, how could anyone not like you? I think you're superFab

Back to Greg's place. I STILL LOVE the photographs.

Yay for the new AT policy = no negative chalkboard paint comments!

I think the aluminum paint is amazing in the kitchen. Good job, Tin Man!

Great lighting....thumbs up for a sexy space. Love the art and the chalkboard wall!! Amazing eye for detail. Keep up the good work...

oh, well, we didn't make the cut.....as Jane Fonda said when accepting her Oscar for KLUTE, "there's a lot I could say, but I'm not gonna say it...."

Anyway, thanks for all of the very kind and encouraging comments. To respond to a couple of specific questions as to the lighting and umbrellas, that couldn't be easier, just play and experiment and teach yourself what works and what doesn't (I should say it's difficult, but I'm an honest one....) -- there's no photo of of the one in the bathroom and that's where one of the umbrellas were best used -- there, I just nailed a small hook on the bias into the wall above the godawful florescent light, drilled a hole and a nail into the end of a white photography umbrella handle, about an inch or two towards the end (you don't need to be superstitious if they are photography umbrellas ), and hung the umbrella on the bias (the little metal tips on the end of the umbrella shade itself amazingly keep it all in place). About every month I take the umbrella down (I get a ton of dirt from Lexington as it's bus/taxi/ambulance/fire truck world here on this corner), shower off the dirt in the bathtub, let it dripdry, and then hang it back up. The umbrellas themselves are very inexpensive -- less than $20 (I walk over to adorama here in my neighborhood, but any photography concern, web or otherwise, will have many choices). Then I bought a $7 (the larger size) aluminum/tincan worklight from Home Depot, put in a Satco red bulb, and clipped the worklight on the shower rod to backlight the umbrella. So, for about $30 all today, you get a big effect.....

Will try to remember to take a full photo of the sofa and its trundle mechanism for condosofa -- the sofa like I said was a MidCentury discard from the auction house a half a block from me (it's amazing what they throw out, and of course all NYC scavengers know the best time to look on the streets is the end of every month when everyone has moved in or out and gets into their new apartments to realize there's no room for x, or y, or z, and the movee is exhausted and grouchy, and says "oh just put x/y/z on the street, it'll be gone in ten minutes" and indeed it usually is.....

thanks again, all!
greg
(p.s. I haven't given the appropriate amount of credit to my BF -- that's his photo on the Pier at the end of the black wall which I took last summer -- the larger one of it is in the living room in black and white, where he's pouring a bottle of water over his face/chest and every drop is in focus -- it should be an ad for Poland Water) -- anyway, I digress -- the BF directed the color scheme throughout, I painted, and did the lighting.....

1. I created an account just to give this room a thumbs up. I admittedly know zip about lighting, so I am stunned at how much it can change a room.
2. Re: Murphy Bed vs photography wall: Get the Murphy, paint the underside BLACK, attach artwork to the underside safely and securely. When the bed is down, no wall. When the bed is up, your photography wall is there.
3. I agree with the commenter above who would like to see a photo of your place at night from the street.

So far, this place is my favorite. :)

Okay, I've seen a bunch o' apartments and this one is still my favorite. :)