apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Can anyone tell me the best way to clean a laptop keyboard? I'm thinking Q-tips and some sort of solvent would be ok as long as I don't drip...

I guess I'll cross-post to the tech site too, duh.

Ann, be very careful and pop the keys off if you want to be thorough. Your best bet is alcohol if you use anything, but the every useful can of compressed air does wonders. Just don't turn it upside down!

Can anyone advise me on the make of this lamp? My boss says it was a gift decades years ago and says it was considered high design at the time.

Hi,

Does anyone know a good place to have stuff (prints, etc..) matted?
I used to take mine to Micheal's in Nob Hill but they closed, and I have a house full of prints that want to be framed!

Thanks.

Anne (in reno), PLEASE... whatever you use, DO NOT take the buttons off the computer.
My coworker cleaned hers and took off all the key buttons. Then when she finished and went back to type, they kept popping off.
Ended up having to get a new keyboard.

I would love some help finding a new bed. My boyfriend and I currently use my full-sized bed that I've had since high school. The bed is from Scandinavian Designs and has been really great, but my parents have offered to buy us a new queen-sized bed and mattress.

Our bedroom is fairly small, so I don't want anything super bulky, and we would love to get something that allows for storage.

Our limit is $1000 for the bed and the mattress, including the box spring if it's necessary.

We live in a craftsman style house, I think I would like something in a darker wood.

I've looked at SD, EQ3, West Elm, Restoration, etc etc.....the usual suspects.

Can anyone recommend a great bed or retailer?

Thanks!

kari-anne, i think that with your budget, you should splurge on the mattress rather than the bed. for 1,000, you can get a beautiful bed--but no mattress--from Room and Board. But since the mattress is way more important, I'd go more budget ont he bed, and I have to say, Ikea is the best for that. Check out the showroom--they have great, designy, sturdy beds. I tend to think the quality of their beds is better than West Elm and EQ3, even Restoration. And they have a few with storage. In a few years, you can splurge on just the bed!

For underbed storage, the classic Northern California solution is Oyster Bed in San Francisco, but I have no personal experience with them.

Don't get too hung up on buying the priciest mattress out there. According to Consumer Reports, virtually all mattresses now on the market have the right number of coils (or whatever -- we bought ours a couple years ago, and I don't remember all the lingo) to be good quality and comfortable. They were very skeptical about the difference between a $400 mattress from Penney's (which is what we have) and a $1000 mattress from somewhere snazzy. You may find a meaningful difference, but lots of people wouldn't be able to in a blind test. (And I'd swear it's the "buy the pricey mattress" crowd who get bedbugs.)

(If anyone's grandmother said always to spend on the mattress, bear in mind that there WERE big quality differences as recently as 30 years ago.)