Great opening shot from Brave Little Soul, who says: "Oldish IKEA desk found on craigslist. I love it. The picture is .59 clearance wrapping paper from Old Navy. :) "
Help has arrived, and we'll all be done right after Thanksgiving!
Welcome to our sixth Eight Step Cure. For those of you who are new, starting this week we're beginning a home makeover project by following the eight chapters of our book, Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure, and, because many hands make light work, we're doing it together.
The goal? To invest in our own homes through either elbow grease, money or both and make our own homes beautiful, healthy and organized. Again, we're also holding the Cure in four cities: CH, SF, LA and NY, so you can join a group that's close to you. A new signup and this week's assignment is below the jump...
Sign Up First: Again, we're introducing an official sign up which you will find at the bottom of this post. It is meant to improve the experience and support you as you take on your own challenge in the next eight weeks. After you read through, head down there and sign up.
This Week's Assignment: Get your hands on a copy of the book and read through page 69. This gives you all the ground work and gets you started with the interview and short quiz on the health of your home.
The Cure posts will go up twice a week on Mondays and Fridays, allowing for plenty of comment space. We will be pulling comments and pics to the front page post on each of these days and everyone is urged to take pics and post them here:
BEFORE PICS FIRST!!
>> New Eastern Flickr pool
You can also visit our old unofficial (but awesome) Flickr pool here or simply tag your pics with "apartmenttherapycure." See even older pics here too.
REMEMBER: The goal is to use the group to support, inspire and answer questions as you go. The more you participate, the more you will get out of it. But you may also lurk if you are shy ;-).
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Should the sign up say Spring Cure? I just signed up and was taken to the Spring Cure Page.
Can we please have a permanent home page for the cure and a permanent button? Last year trying to find the posts if you fell a week behind was quite a hunt!
Separation is really good, I have to scroll and scroll and finally do a search for fall cure posts.
Did I sign up for the spring cure, too? I'm a little confused.
I went through and noticed all of the "Spring" sign ups as well. I'd like to sign up, but for the right thing...
I agree that a link for the cure would be really helpful. It is just as important or even more so than house tours, the archive, etc. After all, this is where it all began! It is really frustrating to have to scroll through so many posts to try to find this one specific one, and I constantly feel like I'm missing something.
All that aside, I'm very excited to be involved and starting this cure! My dad died at the start of last year's fall cure right after I'd moved to NY from NM and into this apartment, I've done some stuff in the interim but still have lots of ideas and things I would like to change about my place!
I'm also really happy that there's now an official NY flickr pool, I think it will help keep things more manageable. The unofficial one is awesome but quite daunting and overwhelming. So good job there.
i had the same problem of being directed to the spring cure. any word on a solution?
i think we are just being directed to the archive of cure posts (ie. spring), which will include this (fall) post next week, it's just not in the archive yet since it's new. That's my understanding of it, anyway.
This is the quietest "cure" I ever remember seeing here. I wish there was more of a fuss being made on the site, there's not much mention of it so far. Maybe the color contest is a bigger deal to people? Anway, I'm in.
I'm totally frustrated AGAIN this year with how the Cure has been presented . Here's what I just sent to the AT "contact us" link (this is my second email in the last few days suggesting a link to the Fall Cure on the front page of AT):
The Cure! How about a link at the top of the AT page, right next to "Fall Colors" for the Fall Cure? No one can find these threads--they go by too quickly. It doesn't feel like any energy or attention is going into the Cure on the part of AT. Read the small number of posts on the East Coast Cure thread and the complaints:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/eastern-fall-cure-getting-oriented-week-zero-065443
Anyone listening??????
I haven't ordered the book yet! Is it possible to start the cure without the book?
w00t for Pixie! Thank you so much for speaking up about the Cure seeming to be sort of shunted to the side in favor of other things. It used to be a more central part of AT -- on the old site it was possible to get to the cure posts easily from the Book link on the sidebar.
Where is everybody?
and imwalken, the cure is easier with the book, but next week when they start posting instructions, you'll be able to follow along (if you can find the posts from the first couple of cures in the archive, they'll give you a good idea of what is contained in the first part of the book.)
Thanks, smallcitybeth. I'm so excited for the cure, I'm going to order my book right now.
Pixie, has anyone gotten back to you about your email(s)?
No one there actually listens to the readers, duh!
No, but this was just posted:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/at-home-cure-ny/the-eightstep-cure-link-center-week-zero-047047
But, this still doesn't address the suggestion of having a Cure link on the top AT page. I suggest everyone send comments to AT about this.
Well, I'm not sure who's out there or even if it's appropriate to post this here but I feel my enthusiasm waning a bit -- can't find a spot on the site to talk about the process yet. So I'll just start blabbing here, okay? LOL.
I have just read the Apartment Therapy book, and we hope to clear out our little house, cleaning and getting rid of pieces that just don't work for us any more. Not sure what we'll be able to afford to replace right away but I don't want to keep stuff that brings the place down, you know?
We've already started to list a few things on Craigslist and I'm giving away a big old chair we've had forever. And I'm going to buy flowers today, which is a big deal because I don't think we've had fresh flowers in this house for almost a year.
How's everybody doing? Anybody else jump in already?
Hey jendavid - the thread on the flickr page might be a little more active as far as goals and ideas.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/881614@N20/discuss/72157607797269085/
I just re-read the first few chapeters and am inspired again. I had already starting doing a purge because I thought I was moving, so I'm especially looking forward to really getting into things because right now my apartment looks like an apartment does right before you are about to move! My style tray is really coming together and I have more of a vision for what I want my apartment to look like now and am feeling pretty good that it can all be acheived.
I've read the first section of the book again and am totally inspired and have started chipping away at deep cleaning in the kitchen, which is a big task when we get to that chapter. I'm doing the overall Cure again--a fall cleaning. Plus trying to solve some problems, like a lot of repairs and fixes, which I hate doing and always put off, and figuring out what to do about a couple of chairs in my LR. But mostly the deep cleaning and decluttering and getting in touch with my space.
Hi, all and thanks for your comments. Pixie, I think a persistent link is a great idea and one that we can easily to. I'll look into that for next week.
We're just gettting started here on the Cure, but keep your comments coming in these sections and we'll see them.
You get Curing and we'll fix up all the systems on our side.
Best, M
Thanks Maxwell! Yay!
Thanks Maxwell! It's good to see that we are being heard!
It took me a while to figure out which link was for the Fall 2008 cure and what the time frames are. It would really help if the Cure headings included the year along with the season.
Navigation is a bit more straightforward over at the Flikr pool. Maybe AT needs an 8 week cure for their web site. ;)
I signed up this morning. I've tried some of the ideas in the book before, but never stuck to an 8 week plan. This time around I am focusing on getting rid of my storage unit and a deep cleaning for my home. I'll probably need a separate 8 week cure(s) afterwards for decorating.
I feel like I'm constantly curing - that is not a boast, just an observation. I tried to commit to the Spring Cure 08, but just didn't follow through with everything I wanted to get done. So maybe I'll be ready this time?
I did finally bring a bunch of clothes to donate, recycled a bunch of cardboard boxes, am in process of going through my sweaters to get ready for the season, and get rid of sweaters I no longer wear. One of my biggest weaknesses is seeing the usefulness of the thing I'm trying to get rid of (such as - "sure that sweater has a moth hole, but I could felt it and make that quilt I've been thinking about making"). It gets a little overwhelming at times.
Trouble is... I still don't have The Book! (insert blushing smilie here). Plus I moved house almost 2 months ago, and am also constantly curing. The pictures with all those great comments though are very insipiring!