apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I like what I see, especially the striped wall - I just wish I could see more, like your bedroom & bath.

Love the stripped wall - and the bookcase/table set up is fantastic. Is it all one piece?

Love the touches of humor as well...

Im not in love, but I am in like! The mixed use dining table/desk is a very creative use of space.

I believe the reference to Paris should be the "Left Bank", not the "West Bank".

I like the two mirrors.

I loved the wall, mirror and sconce combo and wanted to see more of that theme throughout.

Not bad, but not special enough to win this contest.

I love the accent wall, but the rest of the place doesn't look similarly stylish or inspiring. Has good potential though.

the striped wall is awesome

sorry, the pictures try to give us a *hint* of the place, like an erotic dancer in an all-ages movie. feels like it all could be there and cool, but it's maybe suggestion.
i fail to see paris when looking at that picture with the windows, but maybe that's just me. just like i don't understand the non-alignment of the artwork over the bed. so voted cool, but that might just be my imagination.

nothing really stood out to me.

I like the striped wall and mirrors very much. I agree that you should have shown more of the place.

I wish I could see more of an overall layout. Couldn't get a sense of placement....bedroom? Bathroom? Love the striped wall and the light in the windows is lovely.

Am I missing something here? No bedroom pic? No sofa? The striped wall was nice, but I really didn't get a feel for the space at all.

i couldn't get a feel for the place from the pics either. but i did love the blue wall and the mirrors. and i absolutely loved the desk, dining table, bookshelf combo thing. where did you get it? that thing is ingenious.

i love your mirrors! i've been looking for something similar, could you tell me where you've gotten your's from?

I knew from the very first photo that I would have issues with this one. And I guess I wasn't wrong. There is nothing cohesive going on here. This space is trying to be a little bit if everything. French bistro, Victorian parlor, etc. It's just broken up and shizophrenic and doesn't come together for me. And that striped wall just isn't happy there next to that kitchen. Maybe some ofther treatment with large balck boards (or blackboard paint) with mirrors hung over them. Either way, this one totally misses for me.

"interesting" I'll say that and it did have some cute elements to it but I will say there was not as much there to see as I'd like and once I saw the picture of y our living room windows. I think I recognice the place, Capitol Hill, north end of it, right?

If so, I've walked past it in my long walks that I do every now and then and I live on Capitol Hill too.

"Cool"
You have some very nice pieces and good "ideas", but it's still all sort of a mish-mash. Keep looking and learning and you'll be able to make it cohesive.

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for all of your constructive comments! I've just recently become interested in design, so I definitely have a lot to learn. For example, I purposely left out a bedroom shot because I thought people would be tired of looking at bedrooms. Ha. Whoops. And I tried and tried to get a shot of my bathroom, but couldn't get a good one, so I left that out too. I can see now that this was a mistake! Still, I'm proud of the elements I showed. Now on to the questions:

1. The mirrors are from IKEA, made from this frame: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00091967. The minute I saw this frame I just saw, "mirror", and I took it to a local glazier's and had them put mirrored glass in. A whopping 6.12 per mirror.

2. Thank you to everyone who liked my table/bookshelf combo. The bookshelf is an expedit, from IKEA, and the table is also from IKEA, probably why they look so natural together and happen to be the same color and height. I pushed them up to each other and it just seemed to work.

3. The computer nook is in my closet. I was inspired by a ReadyMade article about nook offices. Again, everything making up the office nook is...from IKEA.

4. Thank you to all the critics, seriously! You only learn from your mistakes. (Or from other people's, usually a less-painful but slower method.)

5. You're not really an idiot until you have to present yourself online. I know it's the Left Bank. I'm not sure what possessed me to say, "west". Whoops.

6. To to the commenter who recognized where I live, wow!

Everyones already said it - could be cool, but not enough full shots.

I just wanna thank the owner for actually thanking those who criticized. That is the PERFECT attitude to have about all of this. In the end, it's all subjective, but too many apt owners go on the defensive the moment they see a negative word about their places--as if they are postinig their space just to get a pat on the back. Hopefully others will learn from the great example you have set, aarwenn. You deserve to win for that alone.

Bitchin' paint job on the living room wall! And I love the 3 tiered basked in the kitchen, takes me back to my mum's kitchen when I was a kid! Love the pegboard in the kitchen too, very ingenious solution!

Hi DesignGod, I think you're giving me too much credit. It's easy for a n00b to admit her or his mistakes. But thank you, all the same.

It's a good start to what will be a great apartment if you continue to work on it. I would have liked to see the theme you started with the blue striped wall carried through out the room and the rest of the space. Having everything else be so pale compared to the blue wall makes the room feel unbalanced and unfinished. Instead of keeping the other walls white, why not a pale gray?

You've done great work, making a multi-functional space out of such a small footprint -- well done! I love all the personal touches throughout.

I like your kitchen pot-rack/shelf.

Hi
I really like that you used full length drapes, and they play off the wall treatment very nicely.

I like how your drapes pick up on the colors of the shutters outside.

Overall moving in a nice direction. Don't worry too much about some of those critiques. You can't please everyone and you've at least got original ideas going on in your house.

Better to try something original and fail than to live in a furniture showroom type setup for the rest of your life.

I envy the little curved shelves in your kitchen.