apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

looking at the pictures, it looks like their organization scheme did not wander away from "expensive" (a look at the house and reference to the prices of a few items in the article make clear their solutions aren't thrifty) or "color-coordinated" (every single kitchen appliance/item in matching red). and it's not like stacking books, vintage crates and steamer trunks aren't something already associated with high-end design. a beautiful house, nonetheless.

Does anyone know the name of the plants in the left-hand picture?
thanks

look like fiddle-leaf figs. if not that, some other fig variety.

Arran, that looks like it might be a banjo fig (ficus lyrata):
http://www.jenilyns.com/images/Img0091.jpg

Having just taken stock of all our belongings as we moved house recently, I can tell you that this whole article is outrageously unrealistic. They must have a whole bunch of things in storage to be able to keep just six garments and one pair of shoes in the bedroom. I mean seriously. And these people have six kids?

Oh, and all those Le Creuset pots, completely unused? Do they even live here?

same fig, different name. It's f. lyrata, whatever instrument you want to compare to it.

Anyway, I agree with the gist of the posts... if you can afford a giganto set of matching le creuset cookware to begin with, by all means, keep it on display. (But expanding on dragoness' point, how *do* you get the pan you want when it's got three more on top of it? This is enameled cast iron, people.) But the effect will not be quite as good with my motley assortment of cookware. Nicely done, it is. Thrifty, it ain't.

4 kids and white couches.

REALLY?

The house seems huge and the main point seems to be - put stuff in crates and barrels and stack things, and minimize possessions. I'm seriously not a fan of the book stacking for several reasons. It only works if you have a big place and never need to read the books in the pile. In a small place, you'd never get away with stacks on the floor without knocking them over.

The place looks nice enough, but I think much more of the credit goes to the scale of the house and architecture (and copious use of white) than to the storage solutions.

i thought the same thing... white couches with a family of 6?

i have heard that white slip-covered sofas are actually easier to clean because you can wash and bleach. but is this true? anyone have any experience with this?

i love the white slipcover look, but i would think they'd be harder to take care of than a dark slipcover.

cont'd from what i said above...

i'm interested in the white cover- vs dark cover topic because i am interested in getting the karlstad sofa from ikea- i love the white slipcover look, and then you have the option to bleach... or should i go the gray or brown cover route? (we do have a 10 mth old baby boy)

anyone have feedback on this?

Saw that in the magazine. It's all very pretty but so not practical for a lot of folks. Getting at anything would require moving entire boxes or stacks of stuff. Not to mention that the Le Creuset collection probably costs more than everything in my entire kitchen.

I also think that to a point the minimizing thing works best when you've got money to replace / buy new stuff easily.

For the white covers - can you get a swatch to test? You'd need to know the fiber content to best know how to care for it. Chlorine bleach can eventually yellow things as can overdrying or having the detergent not rinse well. Check out the book Home Comforts or her laundry book. My thought was that if you could get a farbic swatch or maybe a matching pillow - if they don't have free swatches you could kind of give it and any other colors you want a torture test with washing and stain removers.

I thought the same thing about white (keeping it clean would be easy because I could wash in hot & use bleach) but now I've got yellowed towels and sheets which is NOT the look I was going for. I'm off chlorine bleach for good because it's bad for the environment and it just makes everything yellow anyway and percarbonate (the green alternative) is very, very good but not perfect either. The whole concept of children is now under careful consideration.

Btw, for those who saw the article in the magazine and drooled over the red-striped zebra rug in one of the rooms not shown here, it's from Jonathan Adler and costs just under $900.