If you can't redecorate your entire apartment in 8 weeks because you don't have the funds, should you just redecorate one room at a time?

I have cleared out all the junk that's under my bed, where all junk goes to lay dormant and I am trying to work through what to do with some of this: all my old letters (I have culled in the past, but there are still many), photos, non-functioning Roomba, dead batteries that need to be recycled somewhere, etc. I prefer to have nothing under the bed, but I always end up here. One thing that is on my fix it list, although not really a repair, is more storage for this type of stuff. Yeah, I'll weed through it, but there's always a category like this, it seems.

Also, I am going to tackle the bedroom closet during this Cure. It wasn't in bad shape until I moved all my stuff that was downstairs in storage into it, when that storage stopped being free. Now, it's clogged with stuff I don't know what to do with, as well as seasonal clothes and items.

Well, that's the storage issue - a lot of tenacious stuff I don't know what to do with and that has survived numerous declutterings. I'm feeling pretty weary facing this and would rather go do something else. It also stopped raining, which would have been a more conducive atmosphere for attacking a closet.

Elizabeth - yes you can do 1 room! I have the book and there is a parallel process for doing just 1 room instead of the whole place. Also, a lot of it is just cleaning and rearranging, not necessarily a lot of $ outlay. :-)

Personal update on me -- I thought I'd been slacking my way through the cure, but when I looked back over the things I DID do, it made me feel o.k. about the things I've skipped. I'm going to do up a big photomosaic of before and afters to celebrate my accomplishments... in just one more week.

prefer this pillow... but would prefer even brighter

You might have liked this one, also by Jongerius --

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d172/okmoreh/repeatstripepoppy.jpg

-- but I thought that, especially with the glossy fuchsia, it would draw the eye away from the painting too quickly.

However, there will also be a rectangular pillow in a solid (but dull) orange.

The Bruce Fox biomorphic triangular bowl will probably end up on a console table near the door. I don't actually leave keys or change there, only my glasses. Mail goes into a tray on a shelf in the closet.

Actually, I was asking on behalf of a friend. I just did my place. Well, I had a decorator do it for me.

If you can't redecorate your entire apartment in 8 weeks because you don't have the funds, should you just redecorate one room at a time?

The last time around, I was between jobs and had plenty of time but no money, so except for repairing or replacing things that were broken, I worked entirely with what I had. I think my total expenditure was less than $50. It is as much about function as about decoration - unless something that is essential for the space to function well is entirely missing, it may not be necessary to purchase a lot.

This time, I have more money but less time. During the first four weeks I worked mostly on using what I already had and identifying the things that would be needed. Now I'm purchasing the things I identified, although not all of them will be in place by the end of week 8.

People on this blog have good advice. I wish I had thought to come here first before hiring my decorator. Oh well, what is done is done. There are always accents I can purchase and hopefully I will redecorate again in a few years.

Quick update from gloomy England - I've spent the day scrubbing floors ready to lay the new cork flooring. We're using self-levelling compound tomorrow and will start fixing the tiles on Monday. I'm terrified we're going to mess up.

I am still on schedule to finish all the big work by the end of the Cure, but also a bit down in the dumps, realising that this will really only get me to the point where most people start curing. I'm exhausted and wondering when I'll find the creative energy to think about throws, artwork, pillows, etc.

That's all - just wanted to share my Eeyore moment. Hope everyone else is is doing well on this final stretch.

I've been moving slowly recently, but today I sorted through the front closet, the linen closet, and the trunk next to the bed. I now have two full garbage bags and a medium box of stuff for yet another outbox. It's incredible to me how much I've removed, and yet how much more I find to remove!

Cleaning is easier each week. The house feels better each week.

I actually use the living room to sit down and read in.

Progress? Oh how great it feels :)

I've been listing to A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday nights for as long as I can remember. The whole family would sit around the kitchen table listening to the show and doing a jigsaw puzzle when I was a kid...Now my boyfriend and I listen to it while cleaning up from dinner and cleaning the apartment (somehow I get the most cleaning done on Saturday nights - I guess I'm not your typical party animal college student...). It's a great tradition - I agree that it's definitely one of those activities that allows you to really enjoy your home...
The Halloween show used to terrify me - Garrison Kellor tells some creepy ghost stories (mostly because they seem so real and plausible...). We're listening tonight as we cook and clean up from a productive day of cleaning out the bedroom.
I now have a huge pile of clothing to go to Goodwill, and a large collection of cardboard to get broken down and recycled (for some reason we were storing lots of empty cardboard boxes in our closet and under the bed...I guess in anticipation of the next move?). I also discovered a box of clothes leftover from high school. Opps. I don't know how that's traveled with me so long - I guess I kept thinking I'd wear them again...all but two t-shirts from that box went into the outbox.
We're also currently dealing with a leak in our kitchen - it seems to be coming down from the roof - DC has had heavy rain this week, for the first time in months, and we've got puddles of water on the kitchen floor, coming from the wall...The management isn't going to deal with it until Monday...I'm just hoping that this doesn't mean they'll have to tear out the wall (it happens to be the wall behind all the cabinets and appliances)...I don't need that headache right now...

Zooza--that's what the Spring cure will be for! Don't exhaust yourself, you've done a lot, re-building your place from the inside-out!

I'm doing the bedroom--just finished painting the dresser and reassembling it. And I re-covered and repaired our laundry hamper. Turned out to be a job much bigger than I'd expected!

Cleaned the fan blades and did my best to straighten them out. (Long story involving children and experiments in centrifugal force). Reattached one of those pull thingy's too. Stupid little task that's been waiting to be done, for, oh, about a year. A simple repair that involved the step ladder and the pliers and the brain power to find both at once. That was gratifying.

Now, to vaccuum (again) and fold up the drop cloth and have a haven to sleep in for at least one night before I start on rehabilitating dresser #2.

Another little phiddling task done: replaced the skinny hooks on the back of the bedroom door with thicker, beefier ones. Those nasty skinny ones have already wrecked the neck of one favourite sleep T-Shirt. Well, not anymore!

Great thing about this project is that these are hooks taken from elsewhere in the house, so it didn't cost a dime.

Still in the process of painting a few things, so the dining room isn't ready for its finale yet.

I have been a bit lazy about curing the past two weeks, mostly because the bathroom and home office were already pretty decent, but today I dove into my closet in the bedroom. The outbox grew tremendously and that felt so good. I have to do my husband's closet tomorrow and that is going to be a drag. If you're wondering why I'm doing his closet, it's because he takes our kid out so I can get work done; I'm better at being ruthless and organizing plus I get a few hours alone.

Here is a goal for the future: use up the craft stash. I have yarn that I bought ten years ago. I have projects I'd love to make. Now that they have been uncovered, I want to get through them. I know that not finishing them has to do with my perfectionism, but I'm going to power through that. I feel so much better equipped to get things done now that I have my son (who is 15 months old today). I don't have as much time for doddering.

We're starting to wrap things up. The biggest thing for us was painting the study and kitchen, so now that those are done we're down to smaller things. Unfortunately, I had the worst timing ever and chose to do the Cure in a length of time during which a) I've been sick several times and b) I've had a great deal of emotional upheaval due to my parents' separation and continuing issues. I'd planned to do a lot of small things this weekend, but may not be able to work just due to the amount of emotional pressure I'm currently under.

My dad is going to be visiting next weekend (and my mother the weekend after), so I've got a lot of incentive to have everything finished anyhow. I'm glad I went ahead and did the Cure this time around, but I wish I'd had more time and mental energy to focus on it. I think we made great progress with the work we did on the study and kitchen, but I'd fallen so far behind on regular cleaning that I ended up working from home on Thursday and cleaning for seven straight hours!

I'm definitely looking forward to posting photos of the finished study. I'm so, so happy with it. We still need to put up curtains, but that's about it.

Maxwell

Thank you.

It was a pleasant surprise seeing my chandelier among the week’s picks.

Not sure what I can say about your comment about Alana’s and my exchange. Perhaps it helps to say I was weaned on Lewis Carroll.

filles jumelles

Thank you.

I’m not sure you mean the day bed itself or the pillows and what not on it. The day bed itself is from West Elm – I think the particular style is called “interlocking squares” or some such. I liked the vaguely Chinese quality of the design.

On the bed are a dozen pillows, two puppets, and a suzani. Obviously I like textiles. I sort of hope they all work together. Seven of the pillows came from ABC. One pillow each came from Timbuktu, Sheherazade, (two great Lower East Side shops for things from North Africa and the Middle East) and The Rubin Museum (which has some wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces). The lizard and dragon puppets were picked up in Ibiza Kids. And the suzani came from Turks and Frogs, an antiques shop cum lounge which I think has now morphed into a restaurant.

Well, I have to say that reading that excerpt out of context is one of the funniest things I've ever read on AT.

Carroll, indeed, JonathanB, Carroll indeed.

Anyone out there with toddlers--be warned. Get rid of any and all pack-rat tendencies now.

I just spent the last two hours helping my daughter clean her room. We brought a piece of furniture out of the basement (the trofast by Ikea) to hold her stuff. It used to sit in my living room and hold ALL the toddler toys. Now, she's got it full and we just did the FLOOR of her room. Her shelves and closet still need to be done.

This child is seven and treasures every little thing.
Perhaps as I continue to insist she pick up every night (now that we have workable places to put things) she'll be able to let go of more.

Wish us luck!

You know, We've have been getting a lot done in our space, but we keep forgetting to post photos.

This week we:

- Painted the bedroom a beautiful blue
- Threw out two pieces of old furniture and one old appliance
- Started thinking about bedroom furnishings and developed an overall concept of the space
- Began the bathroom
- Finished the alcove/dining area (the one with the chalkboard wall) by adding an IKEA chandelier
- Started the pet corner

The living room and alcove/dining room are pretty much done at this point, we still want to blik something on the living room wall though.

Things for us to do:

- Finish painting the bedroom
- Order new blinds for the kitchen
- Blik the living room wall
- Buy a new flower vase (kitties broke the old one)
- Shop for accent pieces
- Tidy up

When you look at the difference between the old place and what we have now, with the color and the lighting and the chalkboard and the furniture...it's astounding. I feel like I'm constantly behind on this cure but really...I've been doing rather well. And what's most interesting is how organic the process has been. Once one piece of the puzzle is in place, other pieces become plain as day. The look I have isn't what I planned for in the beginning, but it's better because it came to be the way it is organically, without overthinking it. I'd paint the wall, and then it became clear what I needed to do for accents, and then it became clear what had to happen for lighting, and before you know it we had a colorful and dynamic space that works on all levels.

I've gotten a lot of little things done, but haven't been following the cure at all. My space is already so much better and more functional! I bought a table at ikea that has leaves, my mom and I brought it home on the bus! Mom has been here the pas week which has been wonderful but of course I haven't done anything at home. That's ok though, I know I'll continue to work on things in the coming months. I feel like zooza, that I'm only just now at the point where most people might start a cure, what with the big move and huge adaptations. That's what the next cure's for, I guess! I'm so impressed with everyone that's really followed along!

My paper shredder arrived on Friday, so I've been busy shredding a bag full of paper (from the file clearing week). I don't know why, but I get such a sense of accomplishment from shredding paper!

In other news, I got a lot of cleaning done this weekend:
-dusting
-vacuum
-washed all of my bedding
-flipped the mattress
-put summer clothes away
-bagged up 2 bags of clothes for the Goodwill
-scrubbed the tub
-washed my vinyl shower curtain (which surprisingly didn't ruin it)
-and a few more misc things.

Full list here:
http://www.poweredbytofu.com/2007/10/27/apartment-therapy-week-7-recap/

Pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/poweredbytofu/

We're almost done!

Based on my huge closet clear out (and feeling like theres really more to come) I think that when I finish this process, like Zoosa, I'll then be ready to start.

I find myself thinking a great deal about smaller, more efficient, prettier way to store things. Like getting rid of the big metal filing cabinet and most of it's contents. Then moving to...what? Most of the contents will be tossed. Much of what's left is deep storage (tax files and so forth). I need somewhere/something to keep what's current easily accessible. So, a banker's box in the closet and some box files from See Jane Work on a shelf? Or an end table or nightstand with a single file drawer (plus the box)?

I fret over these decisions, but am learning that as the contents of my apartment evolves the solutions become more obvious, more organic to the situation.

Oh, and I finally bought flowers tonight on the way home.

One of the things that book talks about somewhere has to do with doing maintenance things that you've been putting off.

Basically my apartment is just how I like it, but there are a few things that bother me, and the thing that had been bothering me the most lately has been the cracks and bad patches in my living room ceiling.

I really didn't get any photos that captured how bad it was, so the only before I was able to include in this little Flickr set, might make a person wonder why I bothered to change the ceiling, but it did bug me. So, I finally found a link to a company that sells this styrofoam version of that tin-ceiling-looking stuff in a pattern that didn't seem TOO 18th Century, and really seemed more compatible with the style and period of my apartment, so I got it installed it, and it looks like this now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artycurtis/sets/72157602775899179/

I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. See... my apartment is a studio and looking up at the ceiling from my Murphy bed was kind of a drag before, and now I really like looking at it.

Curtis--Those tiles are beautiful. Even if there weren't any cracks, it looks like you ought to have done it! So organic to your place.

Well today I...

- Swept/mopped the entire apartment
- removed everything stored underneath the bed
- put the A/C away
- brought out the humidifier
- put zebra rug at foot of bed
- did movie and a pizza with visiting friend
- lit up candles in bedroom fireplace

Now getting ready to have a good night's sleep in my roomier room

I'm so excited we're in the home stretch!

- rearranged my bedroom this weekend and removed my tv from my 'love corner' (read about it on a feng shui website and decided it wouldn't hurt to clear it out). Decluttered the overall room and it is so much bigger.
- finally put up shelves above my desk to house my cd's and dvds - then put them in containers bought at the container store
- hung photos I took on my travels in the kitchen and dressing room

I'm now struck by how much more peaceful my home is. I am having my whole family over for breakfast on Sunday so before that I still have to:
- clean out my big closets - they're the last ones and it seems like this task will be the hardest (though I feel like I've said that as I've approached every room!)
- take 'out' the 'spare' furniture now - I've actually taken out a lot of furniture pieces and have a few to go - taken out a standing CD rack, ottoman, book shelf, and need to take out the rolling set of drawers, lamp, and cedar closet.
- clean the windows and the balcony
- work on lighting - add a tall/skinny light in the bedroom, a high light above my desk, maybe spotlights on art in the living room
- touch up paint in the bathroom

Elizabeth, I have spent money on this cure but the biggest changes have been re-arranging furniture, actually cleaning EVERYWHERE, getting rid of too much stuff and the 'small' fixes like shelves ($24 from Ikea, etc.).

I don't have a digital camera but will develop pics at the end of the week and post then!

Thanks Alana. By the way, I got those ceiling tiles at a Canadian company, although the box made it seem like they were made in Russia. Here's the link, in case anyone else wants to have a look:

The pattern # U2 is the one I got among these:

http://www.talissadecor.com/?p=catalog&m=30

They have a totally other kind from my kind, except they're made differently and are for a different kind of installation.

By the way, I want to thank whoever it was that provided the link in the first place on AT somewhere.

So in cleaning out my closet and purging things, I discovered moths had gotten into my sweaters and I had to throw a large portion of them out. I purchased cedar blocks and cedar balls and cedar and lavender spray as well as waterproof vinyl storage boxes for the sweaters in hopes to get rid of the moths once and for all. I don't recall ever even seeing a moth in my apt. I purged the entire bedroom and ended up taking 4 large bags of clothes and shoes to the shelter in my neighborhood. My bedroom is now more peaceful/restful then its ever been.

What does moth larva look like?

Y'all can tell by the radio silence that I'm not really doing this Cure. Too tired. But the family appointed me hostess of Thanksgiving (none of them live in NYC or nearby), so it was necessary to get some things in gear. To that end, I bought 2 very low price, very slender dining chairs from Pier1 this weekend. Didn't want more furniture but they'll fit in permanently. One is permanently in the kitchen (where I never eat) and the other is the new desk chair freeing up chair two from my bay window seating area to stay permanently in the window.

Also, returned those green curtains to Anthropologie. Finally.

Hi all,

Just realized that one of the photos I put in my inspiration tray made it on here (above)! Wow! Very cool. However, I didn't properly credit the photo and didn't wont it be assumed that it was my front door...so here is the proper credit. http://www.houseandhome.com/features.php?c=126507

Sorry!
Kay* (aka kaysfirstplace)

Regarding dining chairs - I have six at my dining table but the table can expand to seat eight or ten. For eight I would bring the two Balser chairs from the breakfast table; for ten I'd have to add the two all-weather-wicker folding chairs that were outdoors until yesterday. One of the latter chairs is now on temporary duty in my bedroom until I find something that is right.

Hi there, I'm calling out for a little help. This cure has helped me finally inject some color into my space and my few baby steps have been exciting! I was gifted a larger bright item (a curtain) from a co-cureist (how cool is that??) and am starting to feel overwhelmed. It reminded me so much of some of the case studies discussed in the cure book! When I read about people panicking over what seemed like small obvious changes I felt so superior but am now freaking out. Anyone want to have a look and give your opinion on scary pinkness?
http://flickr.com/photos/69856129@N00/1827956332/

I also just want to say that I had never heard of the book or cure until one week before this fall one from a friend and have found it incredibly life-changing. I am lucky to be part of this supportive and creative community and have found you all so inspiring. Before this I felt kind of fine with my all-white apartment with a few neutral accents here and there. I never really thought about the fact that I never had friends over and actually felt uncomfortable when others were in my space. I have started to look at my home environment in a different way. Thanks to all of you!

Dorge

Oops meant to post that on wk 8... reposting there.