Apartment Therapy Archive: Aug 2015

Walls. How boring, right? I mean, everybody hangs their artwork on walls these days. You… you need something different. Whether you have more art than walls or just an adventurous style and spirit, here are a handful of surfaces around your home that you might not have thought to hang a frame on. Eclectic and unexpected, like in this Los Angeles house. Use a sticky Command hook if you’d rather not put a nail into the furniture.

The power of DIY pattern is well within the grasps of even the most amateur of crafters, thanks to the can’t-mess-it-up charms of stamps.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy) “How do you make that dressing?” I didn’t give it much thought until my son asked. It seems simple — and it is — but it hadn’t dawned on me to teach my kids to make a basic vinaigrette. Maybe because I never knew how until I met my French mother-in-law.

The other week, after reading yet another vaguely shame-y “how to behave in your 30s” article on some blog or another, I got to thinking about conversation etiquette and how it’s changed over the generations. It was once commonly accepted that topics such as money, religion, and politics were not discussed in polite company. But today’s culture of online sharing (and occasionally over-sharing) has created a different dynamic, so do the rules still apply?

The glamorous golden age of air travel is long gone, but some savvy travelers are still champs at breezily getting from point A to point B without ruffling feathers along the way. What are their go-to habits that you can copy? These! Some of those passengers lounging in first class didn’t pay for their pricy seat, they upgraded. No matter how much you travel, enrolling in a loyalty program is always a good idea. Why not earn credit for something you have to pay for anyway.

We left him one set of our building and apartment keys, directions to care for the plants, welcomed him to the contents of our pantry and fridge, and let him know he could stay at our apartment and take advantage of our air conditioning. Halfway through our trip we sent a checkup text and asked him to bring in some packages that we were expecting. He never responded, but that’s not out of character for him so we didn’t think anything of it.

For many of us, bathrooms are a blank slate. And sometimes a blank, boring slate. While color and pattern are great tools for adding interest, they’re not the only way to create a little excitement in a bathroom. This design element is often used in living rooms and bedrooms but in a bathroom it’s the design secret weapon you didn’t know your bathroom needed.

One of the most challenging decisions a parent faces in decorating a kids’ room is storage. Where on earth does one store all their stuff? Two popular options among Apartment Therapy readers are IKEA’s Kallax (originally the Expedit) and Trofast storage systems. But which will work best for your needs? Read on to find out who wins out in the Trofast/Kallax kids room throwdown! As a bench? Winner: Trofast. Sure, the Expedit looks lovely beneath sun-filled windows.

(Image credit: Cambria Bold) From The Kitchn → 10 Things We’ve Learned on Our Travels

Stop dropping big bucks at the dry cleaner. You really can clean your delicates at home in your bathroom sink as long as you do it the right way. Here’s everything you need to know. First, a disclaimer: I have safely hand washed many items that read “dry clean only” but do so at your own risk. If you’re nervous, err on the side of caution and drop it off at the dry cleaner. It’ll be worth your peace of mind.

One of the our biggest emotional blocks against reducing clutter is nostalgia! We want to keep remembering the great things that happened to us while wearing that sweater or the time in our lives when we loved those plates, so we hang on to stuff that we no longer need. But guess what? You don’t need the actual items to keep those great memories at the front of your mind. Try these ideas.

Spring cleaning is overrated, y’all. The best time to purge around the house is right now. The end of carefree summer offers the perfect framework to really re-assess your needs and determine exactly what products, items and pantry staples you want to bring with you into fall. If you need a jump start on the Autumn Ablution (we’re trying to make it happen), here are 10 things around the house you should throw away by the end of summer.

Name: Nana Sjöblom and Pat Vermeulen Location: Vevey, Switzerland Size: 170 square meters (1,830 square feet) Years lived in: 1 year; Rented Nana and Pat are inspiring artists living with their two sons, Aïto and Oïva, in a beautiful century-old house in Switzerland. Avid collectors and art lovers, curious about everything from design, illustration and photography to snowboard culture, they needed a big house to shelter their huge collection of treasures.

A lot of the spaces that we feature on Apartment Therapy have gorgeous, soaring ceilings. “Sure,” I hear you say, “it’s easy to make a space look good when your ceiling are 14 feet tall.” But what if your living space is a little humbler, with ceilings no higher than the standard eight feet? There are still things you can do to make your home look fantastic — and spacious to boot. Here are four ideas, with plenty of (low-ceilinged) examples to inspire. 1.

Q: I promise this isn’t a relationship issue! I’m moving into my boyfriend’s massive Harlem apartment. It’s a big one bedroom with a spacious living room and lots of light. He has a ton of great art, furniture and… stuff. More stuff than he needs (he’s a music photographer and he has a tendency to just acquire stuff). I don’t want to force him to get rid of things (okay maybe some), but something about the place doesn’t feel home-y enough to me.

Name: Joyce Location: Los Angeles, CA My little house is my ultimate happy place! I work in the interior design field so the aesthetic of my home and the state of my surroundings are very important to me. Before finding this little gem I was living in an apartment building and yearned for an entertainment space- somewhere that looked out into lush greenery. I couldn’t have gotten more lucky! It’s a bohemian wonderland with a porch that wraps around to reveal a romantic hammock.

Getting your home to look its best means an occasional decor shake up, furniture rearrangement or new color palette. But sometimes it’s hard to see your space for exactly what it is. We’re all tied up emotionally to our homes, which is great, but it also limits the change we can visualize. We’re so used to the way things are! If you want to stop glossing over your home and really get a fresh perspective, try these things.

Over the years, we’ve written about great ideas for how to dress up that most utilitarian of spaces, the hallway. The suggestions are sound–things like laying down a long runner or hanging a piece of artwork at the end as a focal point–but they’re not quite as impactful when your hallway is more of a tight passage than a grand castle corridor. Here’s some eye candy to ogle: seven real-life hallways that are as small and smart as they are stylish.

Name: Thomas and Tara Steffen Location: Nashville, TN Size: 2,650 square feet Years lived in: 3 years; Owned Who buys a house based on the wallpaper and lighting fixture in the front entryway? Tara does. She fell in love with her mid-century home the moment she walked in the door. This house, with its bright pops of color and classic lines, is just perfect to house her ever-evolving collections. Gallery walls are quite the trend these days and Tara has turned them into an art form.

Q: We have a very small bedroom (10’x15′) that also contains our wardrobe. I sleep from 11pm-7am everyday and my husband is on a flight crew so he has different hours. He often goes to bed between 1-3am and wakes after noon if he can help it, or sometimes at 5am (with an obnoxious alarm snoozed at least 5 times) if he has a morning flight. And when I wake up in the morning, I have to tiptoe around the room to get my clothes or whatever I need in the dark so I don’t wake him.

Ah, the monogram. It’s one of the oldest forms of identification. Something that represents a person or a family, sewn into fabric or embossed onto furniture. It’s also a beloved and practically mandatory tradition here in the South. Not to say monograms aren’t tricky, though. If you’ve ever wondered what letters go where, how to monogram a two-word last name, or what in the world you would do for a same-sex couple, here’s a quick guide on proper monogram etiquette.

We love a good transformation, and some of the biggest happen in the kitchen. Here are 15 of our favorite kitchen makeovers sent in from our readers that are sure to inspire you to get cooking. From Apartment Therapy → Before & After: 15 Kitchen Makeover Projects from Our Readers

(Image credit: Danil Nevsky) shutterstock Dorm cooking is kind of a double-edged sword. It feels liberating to branch out from the meal plan, finally eating the foods you want to eat, and cooking for yourself. But as anyone who’s tackled dorm cooking can tell you, it’s only a little while before you realize cooking in

Sure, you know all about cobalt and sage green and turquoise and light urple — but how well do you know your really obscure colors? (This may or may not be directly related to how big of a crayon box you had growing up.) Here are 12 weird and wonderful colors that really exist — can you correctly identify them all? Take our quiz and find out! a. The color of a band-aid b. A dark, brownish purple c. A very bright yellow with a greenish cast, like an unripe lemon d. A greyish yellow a.

Name: Monique, Stu, and their daughters, Lulu and Petula Location: Eltham; Melbourne, Victoria Size: 200 square metres (2,153 square feet) Years lived in: 6.5 years; Owned Monique and Stu’s home is cute, colorful, and inviting. Located in a leafy outer suburb of Melbourne, it is a perfect place to bring up their two young daughters.

Can you touch one of your bedroom walls…while you’re laying in your bed (and not even stretching out all that much)? You might have a teeny tiny bedroom, the kind of small space where there’s room for a bed…and not much else. If you do (or you just like smart small space living and decorating solutions), you might find some inspiration in these bedroom decorating ideas.

When one couple bought their Clinton Hill co-op in 2014, the space’s one bathroom was old, a little bit dated, and really, really small. Their renovation didn’t change the space’s footprint any, but smart, modern choices mean that their new bathroom has a spacious feel that belies its small size. The transformation of the couple’s entire apartment is documented in a separate Apartment Therapy post, which you can find here.

Paper towel holders don’t just have to stay in the kitchen or stick to the task of holding rolls of paper towels. Helpful as that is, thanks to the variety they come in — hanging from the wall, freestanding — they can help cleverly and neatly organize a handful of items around the rooms of your home. Above: Take side hanging paper towel holders into your closet to organize all sorts of fashion accessories smartly. The idea spotted on Martha Stewart.

I used to be a night owl. A midnight movie? No problem! An after-after party? I was there. But, in an interesting turn of life events, I’ve begun getting drowsy embarrassingly early these days. Obviously this means some of my late-night habits have had to change (hello 10:30 bedtime), but when I know I’m going to have to stay up late? I do this stuff.

Jess’ rental had a beat up fireplace that was a bit of an eyesore in the middle of her living room. She found the perfect low-cost way to give it some glamour, with a classic renter’s trick that we love: Contact paper!! From Jess: The main materials are contact paper and an exacto (or utility) knife. Prior to doing anything to your fireplace make sure you give it a good wipe down so that the contact paper will stick to the fireplace surround.

Hardwoods are the ideal flooring solution for beautiful homes. Unless, of course, you have kids. Or dogs. Good thing there’s a solution that looks like wood, but isn’t wood at all.

Deirdre’s powder room needed a punch of color and a little style upgrade. This Charleston resident decided to go with a horse racing theme and a jewel-toned wallpaper that, when paired with the glossy beadboard, makes the space. From Maggie: Leland galCandy Shop Vintage Thank you Maggie & Deirdre!

Name: Lara Linn Location: Newport, Rhode Island Size: 630 square feet + 140-square-foot porch Years lived in: 4 years; Rented Lara Linn enjoys a simple life. She lives right in the heart of Newport, just blocks away from her small art studio and the Newport Art Museum, where she is an active member and ceramicist. She is walking distance from all the seaside city’s best restaurants and nightlife and lives in a spot where it’s easy for friends to drop by and say hello.

Kate’s West Village Charm This weekend, in a search of a lost item, I ventured into the no-man’s land of one particular area of my kitchen and was aghast at what I found there. Even though it’s a little-seen area, that doesn’t make it any better in terms of the dust accumulation and the total ick-factor I experienced when I realized what kind of filth I had been harboring. So where was all the grossness hiding?

A few years ago I wrote about five new trends for the kitchen, and now I’m back with another deep dive into the best new looks for today’s kitchens. My last roundup included a lot of marble countertops, white cabinets, subway tile… lots of white. These things haven’t completely fallen from favor — but I’m seeing a movement towards more color, more texture, and more diversity of styles in the kitchen.

There’s the picking out of the sofa. Choosing chairs. Deciding on a credenza. Arguing over where the television should go. There’s waffling over rug color and size. And there’s considering whether you should paint or wallpaper. But there are also a handful of things to think about that most people tend to forget when first setting up their living room. How does one come up with the optimum number of seats for a living room?

Dear Alice, I’m twenty and I still live at home. I pay rent and help with the bills while I’m taking online classes and trying to save up for my own place. I usually get along great with my parents, but a growing source of tension between me and my mother is my clothes. She seems to think my closet is an extension of her own and borrows my clothes several times a week. I have to leave the house before she does so I don’t realize what she’s done until she gets home.

You set an alarm to wake up in the morning most days. And you maybe even have alarms for things like taking medicine. But that always-with-us device in our pockets and purses can also help us remember these important daily tasks that could make our lives (and homes) better. Set one of these alarms or timers today! How many nights a week do I tell myself I’m only going to watch one episode of The X-Files, and then a few episodes later realize it’s been a few hours?

Some fortunate folks out there have the luxury of a doorman at their apartment building; someone to accept packages on their behalf while they’re away at work or on vacation. The rest of us just come home to “missed package” slips stuck to our doors. Until now. Here are 5 services popping up in some big cities that let you get home deliveries on your time.

(Image credit: Faith Durand) From The Kitchn → Go Beyond Taco Tuesday with 20 More Meal Templates

Do you have toxic items you’re no longer using hanging around your home? Check out our resource guide for handy tips on where and how to properly dispose of hazardous items in your home.

(Image credit: Kelli Foster) Have you ever reheated leftovers in the microwave, only to end up with a plate of food that was unevenly heated? You know, super hot around the outside of the plate, but barely even warm in the center? When it comes to microwaving leftovers, how you arrange food on the plate

From Apartment Therapy → Hate Your Backsplash?

We tell you all the time about the importance of making your bed — the one task that will make you happier, healthier, permanently stress-free and rich beyond your wildest dreams (or something along those lines). But against my own advice — I know, I’m a hypocrite — I rarely make my bed. Mornings are always such a scramble that it never seemed like much of a priority.