apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Great kitchen!

Love the kitchen.

I agree -- your kitchen is gorgeous. Love the glass jars, the wire baskets of fruit, and mugs hanging!

The blue x-shaped CD holders in the second picture are great. Do you mind sharing where you purchased them? Thanks!

Wonderful kitchen, but to me the living room is a bit *too* sparse.

the kitchen is pure genius! I would really have liked to have seen the rest of the apartment though. We need to allow more pictures!!

Good potential, not yet there.

Very cute! You have plenty of stuff, but it doesn't look overwhelming or messy. I really like it.

So did I miss the part of the rules that states each entrant must have a record collection?

Love all your canisters in the ktichen. Maybe a rug in the living area would help with the "sparse" problem...and a side table with a lamp.

A little empty for my tastes, but I like it anyways.

Bravo for your craftiness/handiness; the best solution in a small space often requires the ability to customize or build from scratch. I also think your kitchen is beautiful--but are those mugs hung from the edge of the shelf? I would be constantly worried about inadvertently bumping them loose. I'm not exactly sold on the floating TV aesthetically, but functionally it's a good idea. Looks like your place is great for entertaining.

your kitchen is adorable. where did you get those shelves?

Of all the places I've liked so far I think this one best exemplifies what I love most about this contest: small place, small budget, great design.

like everyone else, i think you have a great kitchen! i love having the food and the plates make the color of the room for you. beautiful. and the dining room set is also really pleasing. the other room doesn't seem to have the same type of balance--maybe with a window treatment and a rug that isn't brown (like the couch and walls are), and it would feel really relaxing.

I agree with everyone who posted before me, the kitchen is fabulous! Definitely the highlight of this tour. The living room needs something more..perhaps some more furniture and a different layout?

I upped from cool to super cool because of all your secret handmade solutions (carved out sofa-- I want to see details of that!). But the living room feels a little disjointed and empty, with weird fussy details like the matchy book colors surrounded by just.. space.

I saw the kitchen picture and I thought this is it, the ONE, but then after seeing the rest of the pictures I kind of feel like it's not quite there yet. LOVE the kitchen...apply the same asthetic to the rest of your place and you will a favorite to win next year.

Love the Kitchen, tho I agree that the rest of the place is a work in progress.

I might suggest some more bookcases and spreading out the contents so that they arent stuffed so full - and an area rug & armchair in the sitting area would be very nice...

I like the space - very warm and cozy. Nothing jumps out and says "Cool!" yet. I think you should have highlighted more of the space-saving things. I wouldnt have known about the TV folding back from the photos, or the storage couch.

Love the kitchen organization!

where's the bedroom?! did i miss something? :(

On the whole, I like it.

Quibbles:
While this seems like it would be a great place to live, I don't entirely feel that this was conveyed through the photographs.

And... the practice of collecting (the records, which are so prominent in your home) seems to go against the ethos of living small (with only what you *need*). Debatable, I suppose. Not saying you have to live without them... but would have liked to have you address this somehow.

Meh....

I like the shower curtain though....?

The kitchen had me all hot & bothered, but as soon as I saw the first slideshow shots, I was a bit disappointed. The photos don't give us a good idea of the space. And it seems like all your furniture is pushed up against the walls. I could have done with one less shot of a bookshelf - I'd rather see the bedroom.
But the kitchen- incredible!

Kitchen is knockout supercool!

I (also) love the kitchen, but the rest of your place feels pretty ordinary to me. Not awful, but not really design contest material either.

Oh man, that record/turntable unit is fabulous!

Apparently everyone else had the same response as I did to the kitchen, I really, really like it. I like the high ceilings too.

arza - collecting something that gives you joy doesn't go against the ethos of living small (with only what you need). everyone needs love in their life and if that love is for albums then great.

the idea of living with what you need is to live without all the extraneous crap that so many people have that serve no purpose or function other than to take up space, like clothes that no longer fit and you'll never wear again, skis that haven't been used in god knows how long ago, and books that are collecting dust in bookshelves because they haven't been touched in years.

love the space, the style and diy genius!! great job, can't wait to see more pics of the place.

I also love the kitchen. Everything is in sight, but it seems so organized & clean!

Maybe I'll be the dissenting vote -- I didn't like the kitchen. I'm just not a fan of the open shelf thing and it looks like there's no oven? I also didn't see a fridge. Unless the thing that looked like a dishwasher was a tiny fridge.

The one thing I did like in all the pictures was in the kitchen though. I like the row of wire baskets for different veggies.

Otherwise -- it feels cluttered yet sparse. Sparse because there's a LOT of empty space. Cluttered because everything is out in the open.

i love it. i love seeing what i own in front of me. simple, sparse, and it makes me yearn for my own small apartment. I CAN'T WAIT to have my very own place that hasn't been furnished by some aesthetically-challenged and thrift landlord.

On the whole I like the feel of the colors and the furniture. But he kitchen makes me cringe--unless there's some hidden device to minimize earthquake damage that I'm missing? It looks like even the smallest rumble would send everything crashing to the floor. It is clean and beautifully organized, but it doesn't look very user-friendly. I guess I like my design to be safe and functional as well as pretty.

i like that your space doesn't seem all out of control expensive. Your style- which appears effortless- is my favorite kind of small space entry! Obviously you have tons of style but aren't owned by it.

it get so tiring looking at places that cost more than i can imagine. SO yeah! for you!

I love your molded stainless counter and sink in the kitchen. What might be the source? Good job!

So I am totally & completely in love with your space. Stealing your idea's from the kitchen for my kitchen remodel in the near future! LOVE!

Thanks, while we plan to keep it spare, we did just move in in July and it's definitely a work in progress. We like all the open space because we love to have people over, and as it is we comfortably fit up to 15 for our weekly Sunday brunches, which we do all the cooking for in the tiny kitchen. And yup, that's a tiny fridge below the stove, and a convection oven above. We live above a twice weekly farmers market so nothing sticks around in the kitchen too long.
PS thanks for the nice comments—I was super nervous about submitting!

I love the Urban Outfitters fabric/curatin panel as a shower curtain! What a great idea to jazz up a small bathrooom!

Kitchen and bath are awesome. Would love to see the same approach applied to the rest of the space.

like the kitchen but don't think i'd work well with it. i need four burners and a larger sink and prep space and have little restraint in my pantry. i admire this though and could certainly have a drink here while you cook dinner.

i wish you'd use your vertical space better. higher bookcases/storage. i'd also close in the gallery wall some.

i think your one chair away from a really nice place.

can you come organize MY kitchen? beautiful.

also love the amy butler tissue cozy.

The blue CD X's were a trash find that we spray painted.

LOVE the "sparse" look of the uncovered hard wood! stay strong, dont get a rug!! also loved that your lifestyles really informed the design. its true that cluttered shelves can be a bad thing. but having access to any album you want when ever you want it even though you share a tiny apartment? amazing! i think you've made some smart choices.

I love the kitchen!, but was disappointed when I opened the pics. It feels a bit too empty for my taste... in general, on the whole, I felt underwhelmed. All I see in the main room is book and album storage.

As someone with a lot of stuff in a small space myself, I have to contradict any sort of "ethos". I'm intrigued by this entrant's rigging of their home to challenge it to store more. The fold-away tv - that wasn't exactly evident what was going on by the picture of the (floating in the middle of the bookshelf?) tv, but that's a great idea. I hope someday to see a diagram of the engineering.

The dj equipment (or the associated love of music) necessitates all those records and cds, although I'm not sure it's not too overwhelming in the space to constitute excellent design for looking at. It's functional as desirable in the space, but it's like hanging all your clothes outside your closet at that point of abundance, along with what seems like lot of other shelves with not a lot of other stuff to break it up. I guess I'd like to see some other things you like besides a vase of flowers, maybe some more substantial plants or sculpture, anything else you like for fun? I like all the pictures on the wall, and they are also nicely grouped.

Love the kitchen. I want to like the bathroom a lot. I like that there's a sink with the cabinet, but there's a neat little accessory dressing table with mirror beside it. Cute and smart.

Like everyone else, I love the kitchen. The record shelve you built looks really good as well!

The kitchen is super duper cool!

Fantastic kitchen! Love the cardboard box storage containers.

Not to pile on or anything...but I LOVE your kitchen.

this is edited but also has lots of personality. way to maximize your space without making it feel maxed out.

I'm another fan of the kitchen. :-)

Please do tell us where you got the kitchen shelving from!

I do love your apartment. I think it is warm and fun and I would love to be there for one of those wonderful-sounding Sunday brunches.

Thank you for sharing.

Another fan of the kitchen, here. I like that you show off the gorgeous hardwood flooring by keeping furniture to a minimum. I would like to see the bedroom, too.

Exciting, beautiful kitchen; the rest of the place just pales by comparison.

Do you have a dislilke of rugs? I think you could definitely warm the place up somewhat with a few. I agree with dblitz on the place overall; seems clutterly in spots even though it is spare overall. Definitely has potential, but not there yet.

The books arranged by color really bug me. I agree with bess that arranging them that way looks fussy.

Otherwise, super cool!

the tv seems suspended in thin air. what's your secret?

The TV attached to the side of the shelf with and arm with 360 degree rotation and three foot extension. So when we are not using the television, we can flip it vertically and fold it flush against the side of the shelf. I wish I could've shown another pic of it put away—it disappears, people assume we don't own a TV. And we can extend it backwards into the bedroom as well.

The bathroom needs work. It doesn't match the rest of the house at all.

I like the look of the kitchen, very pretty, but personally I could never do an open shelf thing. Everything gets coated in film from cooking and then the dust sticks to it. If I wasn't such a anal clean freak it might work though :)

That's true. I did have open shelves in my last place, and it was a nightmare. I was constantly having to wash and rewash everything.

The kitchen seems to be the best room in the place. It is apparent that all of the rooms in the place still need work.

Karen

I LOVE THIS KITCHEN!!! Please tell me where you found it... We absolutely hate the kitchen in our small rental and would love to bring this idea to our landlord. There is no need for a regular sized refrigerator and stove in a place as small as ours. I would love (LOVE) to have this kitchen where we live!!! :D

That kitchen is pretty awesome. Good pick of stainless steel countertops. icestone