apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Color Inspiration from White House

As we close this month's theme of Room for Color, here is one more design that accentuates color by keeping things mostly white. When there is color in this home, it's the exception and it really st...

Lypiatt Park: Lynn Chadwick's Gothic Mansion
Guest Post from Wary Meyers

Much of our inspiration comes from books and magazines, and because Linda and I are out yard saling and flea marketing just about every weekend, the overwhelming majority of that material is not ver...

Books Over My Head

More bookcases to love! I've rounded up some images of bookcases that extend over the top of doorways and windows....

Unpacking My Library: Architects & Their Book Collections

The Urban Center bookstore at The Municipal Art Society of New York started an exhibition in May — Unpacking My Library — that explores the book collections of noted New York area archit...

Book House: Casa di Libri by Livio De Marchi

It seems it's a split when it comes to reusing old books to make something else. Some argue that there are lots of obsolete books out there that can be put to new use. Others argue that a book is a ...

Bookshelf Display: Book Spines Turned In

Is this the backlash to displaying books by color? A friend mentioned seeing a book shelf where all the book spines were turned in so you only saw the whites of the pages. Seems like a sleek way to ...

Living Above the Family Book Store in Brooklyn
The New York Times

Henry Zook and Mary Gannet opened their independent bookstore, BookCourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn in 1981. More than 25 years later, BookCourt has grown to include part of the building next door and...

Hot or Not? Trompe L'oeil Bookshelf Storage

Swedish design collective Front designed the trompe l'oeil bookshelf collection of cabinetry for the new Italian furniture company Skitsch... ...

Peter Aaron's Hudson Valley House
The New York Times

The New York Times shows us the Hudson Valley weekend home of architectural photographer Peter Aaron and his wife, Brooke Allen. The family recently completed a kitchen renovation in their 1858 Ital...

Golden Cage Bookcase from Ceccotti

click thumbnails for larger pics As we notice more and more wire frame furniture entering the marketplace (look at Tom Dixon especially), this Golden Cage Bookcase by Italian company Ceccotti is one...

Good Questions: Cheap Ideas for Shelving?

I just moved into a new apartment. My previous one had built-in bookshelves. I had a lot of books, and really loved that they were a significant part of my living room. In the new apartment, I need ...

Pierre Hermé's Book-Filled Paris Apartment

Good Questions: The Best Way to Unite this Room?

click thumbnails for larger pics I have a whole mess of questions for you. I've attached two photos; one of each side of my living room. To look at the photos you might think it is two different hous...

Good Questions: Vintage Penguin Book Covers as Art?

So, within the last month (I think), there have been a couple of posts or emails from AT that included pictures of rooms where there were large wall-sized posters of blown up vintage Penguin Books c...

Best Design Books of 2008: Let's Make Our Own List

It's that time of year when the year's best lists are starting to flood in. The New York Times just rounded up their Art, Architecture and Design recommendations for 2008. Our favorite made their li...

Best Product: Inexpensive Industrial Shelving

We've always liked the look of classic warehouse shelving. With a strong, basic shape and simple palette (they're usually powder coated in black or grey), these shelves work in almost any setting. ...

REK Extending Bookcase by Reinier de Jong

Earlier in the week, we posted about the Platzhadler Expandable Bookshelves. This morning we ran across a similar idea with Reinier de Jong's design for the REK extending bookcase... ...

Hot or Not? Platzhadler Expandable Bookshelves

This bookshelf design from the Berlin-based design duo Farsen-Scoellhammer is akin to finding an extra closet in your home. The shelves are fitted with an additional board that allows the structure ...

Good Questions: Where Can I Find This Ladder?

Rachel wants some helping finding a library ladder: "I just picked up the latest Anthropologie catalog and found a picture of the exact ladder I've been looking for to use in my home library. A call t...

Hard-to-Find Art & Design Books
The New York Times 7.17.08

In this week's Shopping With... feature from The New York Times, designer Kelly Wearstler visits Potterton Books in Los Angeles and shares her tips and resources for finding out-of-print design book...

Built-in and Rotating Bookshelves at the Franz Kafka Society Center

The pictures of the newly renovated Franz Kafka Society Center in Prague left us swooning for a built-in bookshelf budget of our own. Designed by architects Steven Holl and Marcela Steinbachová, th...

ICFF 2008: Quodes

We've seen many of the products in the Quodes line before — we just didn't know they belonged to a Dutch company called Quodes. Pictured above is the Satellite sideboard from British designers Ba...

New EXPEDIT Units from IKEA

Checking the IKEA site for new products, we ran across this EXPEDIT tower and EXPEDIT desk — two new shapes for one of IKEA's most popular products. Part of our own list of Top 5 Cheap Furniture B...

Personal Library: Collecting Books
The New York Times 5.15.08

How much is too much? The New York Times shares the first-person account of author Alberto Manguel discussing his life-long love of books and his personal library of over 30,000 volumes. As romantic...