apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we flew out to Mom's out in So Cal. Ever since Dad, the Mr. Fix-it of the family, passed away and now that Mom's getting older, we noticed that her house (the one we lived in for the first 18 years of life) has fallen behind in some general levels of upkeep. Nothing too major, but we accomplished two small, easy DIY fix-it projects while visiting her house. After the jump, read more about them and how we did both.

Potted plants aren't just for inside the home. We love seeing people use them for outside spaces too, especially in non-suburban areas, where green leafy things are more of a rarity. This particular home in Hayes Valley is one of our favorite examples of expanding your potted garden out from your private space into public space. We like to think of it as city beautification.

Click, click, stop, click, stop, click, click, click ... Don't mind us, we're just channel surfing. Cold fall nights mean staying in more, and yes, watching more television than we really should. But even while flipping through, and sometimes grazing on, mindless TV shows and commercials, we've got home design on the brain and have been noting good decor on bad (or otherwise, unremarkable) TV.

Pack rats beware, Barbara Flanagan is out to change your ways! Her book, Flanagan's Smart Home, offers eco-savvy, practical, and thoughtful reasons for why we should declutter our homes. Paring our living spaces down to 98 essential items, she goes room by room explaining how and why we should only own items that we need that are "well-engineered, gimmick-free products that are built to last."

See more of Jill's prints after the jump.

We attended another Oakland house show this past weekend and were once again pleasantly surprised with an awesome and inspiring decor idea to share. Check out this clever installation of vintage typewriters in the house's front window. Color us impressed.

Recently, The New York Times showcased a three-story Haight-Ashbury Victorian that was transformed from a hippie boardinghouse into a modern family home by a husband-wife Norwegian architect and Pottern Barn Kids furniture designer. Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes were able to see that beyond the atrocious stucco job, mismatched walls and ceilings, and funky odors that permeated throughout the house on their first viewing, this charming house with "character and soul" would be the foundation for a home all their own...

This week Danielle found photos of people who use their dining rooms as offices or other types of rooms. In cities like San Francisco, it's not uncommon for landlords to list an apartment with an enclosed dining room as another bedroom. And even when people do have a formal dining room, it's not uncommon for that space to be used for other purposes.

Beers were spilled, three bands played inside the kitchen, and about 40 or so people crammed into a tiny studio apartment for a rock show in Oakland this past weekend. We don't personally know the girl named Sasha who lived in the apartment, but we were impressed with her personal decorating style (great small space solutions!) and her being game to open her home to strangers for a cramped, but fun house show. After the jump, see more photos of the apartment taken before the show started.

Back in July, Gregory gave us suggestions on how to re-use green tea leaves as a natural deodorizer to freshen up the home. We like this idea of re-using the leaves for a completely different purpose other than brewing a beverage, so we found some other tips for used dried green tea leaves (called "chagra"). After the jump, we explain how to properly dry the leaves for re-use, and then tell you more about using chagra.

We can't remember the first time we came across Marushka prints, but we do know that it was love at first sight. And we know we're not alone. In fact, two homes we've featured in recent AT House Tours had Marushka prints in them (Serena and Mason, Phillip, we're talking about you!).

If you want to freak us out, mention bedbugs. We had an unfortunate encounter in a Santa Cruz motel room, one belated Valentine's Day weekend a couple of years ago, that has left us mentally scarred by the ordeal. Let's just say that we woke up with two bugs feasting on our face and several more scurrying about the sheets at, oh... 3:30 a.m. Needless to say, we got out of Dodge, pronto.
So when we were watching "Dogs 101" on Animal Planet the other night, we were very interested to learn about beagles that are trained to sniff out bedbugs.

We'll never get those gorgeous red, brown, yellow, and orange fall leaves in California, but we still love autumn anyway. In honor of the season, we offer this roundup of leaf motif home design. More items after the jump.

Being less than graceful most of the time, we're appreciative of design that celebrates the imperfect in such a way that is purposeful, modern, and sleek. Japanese design company Kyouei Design's liquid lamps are the perfect example of just that. These stark white lamps are made from sturdy iron plate, but their melted look reminds us more of that glass cup full of white paint that we knocked over if it had been suspended in motion.