Apartment Therapy Archive: Aug 2014

We’ve all seen them before: those sort of faux-wood furniture pieces that aren’t exactly screaming style but could still function in your space if you need it. Instead of letting this piece stay dark and sad, Cassie gave it the Midas touch for a cabinet that now exudes sophistication. From Cassie: These faux wood cabinets were in need of a makeover that would take them out of the realm of 1970 office furniture.

Name: Abby Greenawalt Location: Capitol Hill, Washington, DC Eight years ago I stumbled upon a quirky little apartment in the heart of Capitol Hill, located about two and half blocks from the Capitol (not kidding). It’s about 750 square feet with a very sweet balcony. Perfecting the art of tiny apartment living is a continuous work in progress. If something comes in, something has to go out.

Everyone loves a long weekend. That extra day gives you plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine, spend time with family — and maybe start a project or two. We’ve rounded up some projects from our video archives that would be lots of fun to create with kids, with friends, or just on your own. And the best thing is, these are all quick projects, so you’ll definitely be able to finish them before Monday night.

Yesterday we left off with this newly emptied and wiped down medicine cabinet. Once the space you’re working on is cleared out, it’s time to deal with the stuff. I washed each item that had been in the medicine cabinet. Some things needed a vinegar scrub with a cotton swab. After setting them out to dry, I began taking out things that weren’t part of my evening or morning routines or that were duplicates.

Name: Robert Fleming Location: Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California Size: 1700 square feet, 3 bedroom Years lived in: 5 years; owned Musician Robert Fleming’s Los Angeles home is nestled in the hills of Silver Lake and is a great representation of the danceworthy indie-pop music he plays with his band Sneakout. Fun patterns and and a mixture of sleek modern and vintage elements stand out against moody backdrops of dark grays, forest greens, and navy blues.

It’s something we’re always talking about having more of. It’s the sort of thing we seek out when looking to rent or buy a home. It warms our rooms, brightens our spaces and uplifts many of our days. Have you ever watched the natural light as it filtered throughout your home during the day? If you have plans to stay inside your home this weekend to relax, you might consider observing your home’s progression of natural light for a number of reasons.

We’ve all seen them before: the sort of boring, beige bathrooms that don’t inspire anyone. How do you take a small space and turn it into something stylish without spending a lot of money? Tasha transformed this bathroom space with DIY ideas and fun design details. From Tasha: Our powder room BEFORE was beige, boring, and messy. We didn’t even have anywhere to hang a hand towel. In fact, we didn’t even have a hand towel!

Health is something we all could use a little more of. More than just the physical, health hints at a wholeness — happiness and contentment in body and mind. Today, this weekend, whenever, consider this list of small but potent actions you can take that will add to your overall health. 1. Sit still and quiet for a little while You can call it meditating if you want to be formal about it, but this tip is really more about just slowing down for a minute or two.

As we mentioned yesterday, there’s a lot of advice on how to decorate your home out there, and we think you should find what works for you. But if you haven’t quite found what works for you yet, we submit some great advice from real folks in real stylish homes, all from this week’s most popular house tours. “Your home should be a reflection of who you are, where you come from, and where you want to go.

Between break-ups, lease shake-ups and all the condos that are being built in my city, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to be dragged from a beloved apartment I wasn’t ready to leave yet. When it’s not your first choice to move — leaving home can be even more stressful. If you find yourself in the position of having to say goodbye to a home, here are five things to try and make the parting a little better. 1.

Name: Cara and Otis Location: San Francisco, California This is our first home together and we are both students! As in, our budget was (and still is) extremely low. Our house is solely furnished via leftover furniture in our parents’ garages, IKEA, Goodwill, and mainly the Craigslist Free section. It was a bit tricky to configure all of our hodgepodge items into a layout that made sense and was comfortable, but after three years we finally figured it out! We love our San Francisco home.

How do you take a bland spare room with builder’s beige carpet and turn it into a sleek, modern, black and white home office and craft room combo…without spending a lot of money? Well it took a lot of patience and some awesome used furniture finds but Melissa turned this boring blank room into a sleek home office for her and her husband. From Melissa: Our home office doubles as a work space for my both my husband and me.

If you’re in the market for a new home, you know there’s a lot of information to process and gather. And if you’re working with a real estate agent, chances are you’re leaning on them for advice, expertise and answers. But are you asking all the right questions? Depending on where you’re home shopping, agents are legally unable to answer everything, but there might be vital answers you are missing out on by skipping certain questions.

Your medicine cabinet is probably one of the last things you face at night and one of the first you encounter in the morning. One that’s crammed full, messy, and, um, not the cleanest isn’t the best way to bookend the day. Playing a losing game of Jenga with its contents is downright stressful. This weekend, treat yourself to a medicine cabinet that’s fresh and orderly, and the ship-shape feeling that gives you.

What do you do when you’ve got a heavy, boring dresser that needs some style to stand out? You tackle the problem with a fresh coat of a paint and an affordable DIY design detail that takes it from plain to personalized. From Molly: My boyfriend desperately needed a new dresser that actually 1) fit all of his clothing, and 2) fit in with the rest of the bedroom (the one he was using was from his childhood bedroom set, hello student life).

There’s a yoga teacher who’s motto is “Find what feels good.” It certainly applies to listening to your body as you move and contort it (into sometimes awkward positions), but I can’t help but think it applies to life at home, too. We dispense a lot of advice on Apartment Therapy.

The bathroom is, rather unfortunately, one of the last rooms we think of when it comes to style and decorating. Perhaps it’s because we probably spend the least amount of time here, or maybe it’s that it seems so functional— but it doesn’t have to be this way. Take a look at five ideas, all inspired by our House Tour archives, for making a beautiful bathroom you’ll want to spend time in. 1.

It’s turned into a bit of a Labor Day tradition around here – we send you off on this pre-long-weekend Friday with a BIG list of ideas to inspire you to get a little creative during your bit of extra downtime ahead. This year we’ve expanded the list to a whopping 125 possibilities; our goal is to find something for everyone! Poof! A Pouf!

If you happen to look down at just the right moment while speeding across the George Washington Bridge, you may spy a flash of red, a plucky little structure that pre-dates even the bridge itself. You, my friend, have spotted the Little Red Lighthouse. So just what is this super-cute, colorful lighthouse all about? We investigate.

(Image credit: Faith Durand) From The Kitchn → How To Make Pumpkin Spice Lattes (Even Better Than Starbucks!)

Turns out that stock cabinets are good for something beyond the kitchen. By modifying unfinished, or white, cabinets you can create pseudo-custom pieces designed specifically for your space— without the need to hire someone to build something especially for you. Here are a series of projects, made from basic cabinets found at most home improvement stores, which can be used throughout the house. 1.

You may not notice it on a daily basis, but the labels all over your shelves and counters could be contributing to visual clutter around your home. It’s time to get rid of labels once and for all and replace temporary bottles and boxes with these elegant and sturdy jars and canisters. What can you put in canisters like these? Anything, really.

There are few things as satisfying as needing something, going to where you think it should be, and finding what you needed right where it belonged. The Apartment Therapy Weekend Project is all about tiny, bite-sized tasks you can tackle on the weekends that will make your life better. And having a clean, organized medicine cabinet with easy-access to what you need (and not overflowing with old things you don’t) is a simple and quick way to restore sanity to your bathroom.

Name: Darlene Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan Size: 1,200 square feet Years lived in: 23 years; owned Darlene lives in a ranch on the north side of Grand Rapids, within walking distance of Riverside Park. The neighborhood’s wide, winding streets are lined with unique houses – and Darlene’s home, with her collection of original art, is no exception.

Unless your bathroom is big enough to have a completely open shower, with water spraying gloriously all over the place, having some kind of enclosure is sort of a necessary evil. A lot of modern bathrooms solve this problem with frameless shower doors, which are so lovely and minimal that it’s almost like they’re not there at all. But that’s not what this post is about.

Kathy got this leather-top table for free from her employer and we can see why! The leather top was stained and discolored like crazy. Kathy almost didn’t take it home, then she thought of one last-ditch DIY thing to try and that made all the difference. Turns out, it was the brilliant magic of leather dye that helped this table look so good. Great save! From Kathy: Thanks to the internet I learned that you can re-dye leather. It went really well!

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy) From The Kitchn → Kitchen Before & After: A Beige Kitchen Goes Blue & Gray

As with the kitchen, the bathroom is a “work room,” and therefore one of the most important spaces in the home to get lighting right. They also tend to be smaller than all the other rooms in our home, and don’t have as many (or as large) windows. Careful consideration of the General, Task and Accent lighting we add to this room will pay dividends in how the area functions and feels.

(Image credit: Leela Cyd) From The Kitchn → 10 Things Every Kitchen Needs That You Can’t See

While you can never go wrong falling back on the old adage, a place for everything and everything in its place, it can be tricky to apply to the living room. It’s a room we tend to want to look (unrealistically) “magazine worthy,” but it’s also heavily lived in. The key to making this principle work in the living room is considering what actually takes place in your living room. In other words, what things need a place? Here are some steps to help you get started.

From Apartment Therapy → Before & After: A Clinton Hill Kitchen Lightens Up This kitchen went from dark cabinets and tile to a lighter, brighter color scheme. The result is an airy, breathable kitchen that’s a joy to cook in.

One of the easiest ways to give your bathroom a face lift is to replace your shower curtain. The shower curtain is often the first thing that you notice when you walk into the bathroom and its color and texture can set the tone for the rest of the space. If you have been looking to change or upgrade your bathroom, select a shower curtain as the starting point for new ideas. Check out the deals on these shower curtains below and see if any of them inspire you! City Block Shower Curtain, for $29.

There are plenty of reasons you may not be getting a good night’s rest: you’re sleeping with your phone, you’re a bedtime procrastinator or your bedmate snores or hogs the covers. But maybe it’s because your daytime workspace is just too dark. Researchers found a measurable difference in the length nighttime sleep between two sets of office workers: one seated near windows and the other seated far from windows or in windowless rooms.

Today’s tour is the second in a collaborative series curated by Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason of Aphrochic for Apartment Therapy. They handpicked homes from around the world to share that capture the culture and style that they celebrate in their book, Remix: Decorating with Culture, Objects, and Soul.

Every well-run home is teeming with tricks and shortcuts to keep it humming along. We’re sharing our best quick tips — for cleaning, organizing and repairing stuff at home — to save you time and money. Click through for today’s helpful hint, and links to tons more… A quick dusting of TALCUM POWDER will silence those creaks and squeaks. Simply dust it on and help work it into the cracks with an old paint brush.

We all need a friend like Bethany. She recently took on this DIY project for a friend and her family. This damaged heirloom was almost beyond restoration, but Bethany found a way to make it sail once more. Ahoy! We love the crisp, nautical look that Bethany coaxed out of this nearly-dead piece. Great job! It took me a while to really be confident with how I wanted to paint it.

The bathroom in our new construction is far beyond anything I would have designed for myself. But I really love it. My husband and I joke that there’s no point in going to a Bed & Breakfast because nothing could beat our bathroom. One of our builder’s signature items is his beautiful baths. And since taking baths is a favorite wind-down of this mama, I’m very appreciative; this tub does not languish unused.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy) From The Kitchn → 8 Surprising Things You Can Make in a Waffle Iron

From Apartment Therapy → Want to Be More Organized?

Do you, like me, have a “before” bathroom and dream of an “after?” These projects we’ve rounded up give hope to all of us, whether our makeover intentions are slight or extreme: Pictured above are some fabulous “afters”. Click on through each of their links below to see from what ashes they rose! TOP ROW: 1. Small Bathroom Finally Meets Its DIY Maker 2. A Stylish Bathroom Transformation 3. From Boring Bathroom to Bold! 4.

Bathroom renovations can be tricky since you’re working with plumbing and large fixtures, and money is often of the essence. Some of these bathroom makeovers involved significant renovations, while others show you the power of some paint and basic accessories. Whether you’re sprucing up a rental or gutting your space, you can find some inspiration from these ten go-getters.

Makeover by: Judit Location: Budapest The balcony of my 1st floor flat is a mere 2 sq m, and previously it was only used for storage. I got rid of it all at the annual junk-clearing and set out to renovate. The walls have been repainted a new color, the old glass banister has transformed into a white-glazed fence and astroturf has been placed on the floor. I’ve mounted white curtains for shades and to add a romantic touch to this miniscule space.

Nadia loved everything about her new rental except for the very…err.. loud wallpaper in the bedroom so she came up with a temporary DIY way to style it to her taste. Heads up, renters, you can so copy this one. From Nadia: I loved practically everything about our new home, except one thing: this seizure-inducing wallpaper in my bedroom! Unfortunately, this beautiful, wonderful place I’m so glad to call home is also a rental which means, I can’t replace (or rip and burn!

(Image credit: Gideon Tsang) From The Kitchn → 3 Common Mistakes People Make When Brewing French Press Coffee

Call them hacks, or makeovers, or just plain paint jobs, but these 25 DIY projects show you just what’s possible with IKEA’s TARVA dresser. It’s an unfinished wood blank slate, waiting for your personal stamp of style. Check out these ideas and finished projects, and try one yourself this weekend.

Nothing perks up an old piece of furniture quite like new upholstery. If you’re looking for a chair or sofa that will make a statement, something a little out of the ordinary, take a gander at these 10 creative ways to reupholster old furniture. 1. Cover the back of the chair in a contrasting fabric. Like Andrea of Wild Chairy, who is the queen of transforming old chairs into stunning new pieces. (The chairs pictured above are available, if you’re not feeling like a project yourself.