“Less is more,” said Mies van der Rohe. “Less is a bore,” retorted Robert Venturi. Are you a minimalist, favoring clean lines and subdued colors? Or a maximalist, embracing intricate styles and bold colors and pattern upon pattern upon pattern? Here are 10 tell-tale signs you might fall into the latter camp. 1. Your favorite color is everything. 2. You have a collection of collections. 3. You’ve never met a pattern you didn’t like. 4.
A common problem with many living spaces is either going too overboard with stuff that the whole space feels unpleasant, or trying to go minimal and ending up with a room that feels empty. But there’s a perfect sweet spot where you can have a room that has just the right amount of elements. We think this living room gets it just right. This room from Hannah & Brandon’s “Ever Evolving” Classically Modern Reno is working beautifully because of these design details: 1.
This year, we’re on a mission to help you tackle spring cleaning on your time. Each weekday until April 13, we’ll guide you through a plan to clean and organize different areas of your home, but you’ll have the flexibility to choose exactly what to work on and how long you have to dedicate to the job. Your floors are the hardest working space in your home, and they deserve a ton of love.
If you live with wall-to-wall carpeting, or have a home full of rugs, you know how quickly your soft, beautiful floors can get dingy and dirty. How your carpets fare has a lot to do with your daily habits and cleaning methods, so there might be more you can be doing to keep your carpet looking and smelling its best. From how you vacuum to your stance on shoes in the house, here are a few ways you can tread more carefully.
Do you fantasize about having the kind of home that everyone wants to hang out in? Do you daydream about dinner parties where the lights are lit low, the food is delicious and the conversation a mix of intelligent discourse and lighthearted teasing? Do you want to start your own tradition with friends in your own home? Whatever your reasons for wanting to have the kind of place that your friends always want to hang out in, here are the things to try in your space to transform it.
Friendships and relationships are like the spice on the dish of life. Without meaningful connections, this whole trip-around-the-sun thing would be pretty dull, wouldn’t it? But the thing is, a life that’s rich with love, family and friendships doesn’t mean you need to be hooked up or settled down. And it certainly doesn’t mean that having more friends equals having a better life overall. Only you will know what your ideal relationships would look like.
For some time now, white has been the color of choice for kitchen cabinets. I think maybe we got fatigued by all those dark-cherry and oak cabinets in the late 90s and decided to play it safe. But now I’m noticing a new trend, one that I’m really excited about: color, especially in beautiful, cool tones like grey and green and blue, is creeping back into the kitchen. Mint green cabinets in a kitchen by Petra Bindel. Doesn’t this space look so cool and elegant?
Every home is a work in progress — maybe you think you’re done decorating and then you see something really great that you just can’t pass up, or you’re really happy with your look for a long time until you suddenly decide it’s time to change everything up. Or maybe your style is something that slowly evolves over the years, as your taste and your particular needs change.
Here’s a story that might make you more than a little jealous: Alain Meyer, who works at an advertising agency in Paris, was bored one day at work. He heard some of his co-workers talking about studio apartments, and decided to do a little hunting online. He happened to find one that he really liked — a trim 30 square meters (323 square feet), in the sixth arrondisement, where he grew up. So he bought it. Just like that.
Activated charcoal and aloe are the two darlings of the beauty world right now, showing up in drugstore products, high-end cleansers and DIY recipes alike. This homemade face mask recipe combines the two star ingredients into the simplest skin detox around. Remember those blackhead-removing strips that were so fun as a teen? Consider this their trendy, grown-up cousin. So, what is activated charcoal, anyway?
Amazon is looking to make ordering a little more magical. The online retail giant just announced the Dash Wand, a gadget that combines scanner functionality with their Alexa voice assistant to create a truly useful—and practically magical—experience. When Amazon first released Dash buttons—those single product, one touch reordering modules—they drew a ton of mixed reviews.
Anthropologie’s Ordinal Dresser is one popular piece of furniture — so much that this is the second dresser makeover we’ve seen based off of it. The first one was a low, six-drawer version, but this one will have you thinking twice about which dresser is the original, and which is the knock-off. It’s hard to believe, but the above dresser was made to look nearly identical to the Ordinal, all for only $30!
Almost two years ago, I wrote about reducing the visual noise of this glass-door bookcase I use for DVD storage. Though not ideal for this purpose, the piece has sentimental value because it belonged to a neighbor/surrogate grandmother who has since passed away. My original effort to reduce the visual noise using paper I had in the house was successful, but never really made my heart sing.Skip ahead to last month when I found this beautiful inspiration image from Elle Decor.
If you are anything like me, you often look at your living room and wonder when you are going to get around to making those updates you keep talking about. If that’s the case, let this roundup of Apartment Therapy’s makeover projects inspire you to take up the cause, even if it’s a little bit at a time. 1. Ferren and her husband started with the goal of brightening their space and spent the next year gradually replacing items with pieces that were more to their taste. 2.
Here at Apartment Therapy, we love a good before & after. Although many of our before & afters feature down-on-their-luck furniture pieces rescued by enterprising DIYers, some of my favorites are the projects in which a whole room is transformed. Check out some of the best makeovers of 2013. TOP ROW: 1. Before and After: Bri Emery’s Living Room Makeover 2. Before After: From Boring Bedroom to Chic Shared Space 3. Before After: A Blank Wall Gets Shelved 4.
Bring on the small, yet powerful, toilets that allow you to save space and still sit down in style. Oh, and yes, you will also save lots of water as well! When I started doing this list nearly ten years ago, this was a novel category. It is no longer. Our reader favorites continue to be these brands: Toto, Duravit and Kohler, and while there’s still debate about the higher prices for these toilets and problems with “streaking” they seem to be generally winning people over.
If you are hosting a party this Sunday, you may be pretending that it’s all about the outcome of the battle between Patriots and Seahawks. But, everyone knows that the real reason for any party is for everyone to have a good time and the best way to make that happen is to be a relaxed and happy host. If you want your Superbowl shindig to be a success, the time between now and Sunday evening is key.
Zip ties are just one of those things that seem to have an infinite amount of uses. Obviously, they’re good for tying groups of things together, but that can mean so many things. Once you read these 11 uses for zip ties, you’re probably going to want to buy a huge stash to have on hand. You know how your shower drain only gets clogged on Monday mornings when you’re already running late for a meeting and didn’t shower all weekend?
One of the trickiest things about decorating a new space is picking out colors. So I’ve selected ten rooms that get color right, in hopes that one of them will catch your eye. Get ready for some serious inspiration. Above: the soft blues and greys of this space, from Woman Magazine, get just the right dose of warmth from a Beni Ourain rug and a pair of wooden side tables. This joyful combination of colors reads as less than riotous because it’s set against a white background.
Does your home feature a long, narrow living room, kitchen, hallway, bedroom or some other space? There are some decorating tricks and tips that can really help balance out a long and narrow space and make your room feel more visually balanced (and more comfortable to be in). Try one or more of these tips today. It’s not that you always have to match the shape or style of room you have when you’re looking for furniture.
B&W Nautilus speakers are legendary, both for their audio performance and their iconic cabinet shape. No surprise, audiophile loudspeakers like this are for rare and expensive, probably the reason IKEA Hacker, Damir Paco of Denmark, dreamt up a much more affordable DIY version using a trio of IKEA wood salad bowls and some BAREN clothes hooks…The inspiration? The Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus are fashioned after the beautiful marine creature with the logarithmic spiral shell.
A few weeks ago we asked where your small appliances live — the counter or the cabinet. One of those small appliances is the microwave, which many think can only live on a counter, but that’s not the case. The microwave has plenty of placement options.Here are a few we found, with visual examples. Are there any placements we forgot?
We fill our rooms with furniture, throw pillows, blankets, books, art, light fixtures, hardware, and miscellaneous decorative objects. That’s a whole lot of look, but the perfect rug can bring it all together… TOP ROW: Natalie and Kevin’s Perfect Parkdale Perch: This poppy rug manages to unite not just the other bright colors (the pillows, the bottles) but the neutral elements (orange-y wood floors, cream walls, charcoal couch) as well.
Sheepskins are everywhere these days and why not? They add warmth and texture and can be played off as either luxe or laid back. They can be used in any room of the home, for the best effect – fling it somewhere. Across hard shell chair backs in the kitchen/dining area as in Eva’s Sense of Clarity home.
We’ve all heard it before: Before you can take the leap into the housing market, you need to start saving up to make a sizable down payment. For years, putting down 20% of a home’s purchase price was held up as the gold standard. While many still consider this figure to be their goal, rising housing prices are causing others to look for alternatives. Ultimately, only you and your financial advisor can decide on the best path for you to take.
I’ve been working with flowers for a few years now, yet somehow I do not own a vase. Not a single one – and frankly, you don’t need one! When it’s time to display some flowers, I can always scrounge up plenty of teapots, teacups, bottles, bowls, and more. Here are some of my favorite flower-holding alternatives. Teapot: Above we have my grocery store flower arrangement, plonked in a teapot.
Do you have a cramped, small, hard-to-move in bathroom? Do you feel slightly claustrophobic every morning when getting ready for work? If you rent or don’t have the funds for a huge wall-moving renovation that will literally give you more space, try one of these six ideas that could improve the feel, at least. Some changes are big, and some are small, but all will go toward creating a more spacious feeling space — perhaps you’ll find something you can try this weekend?
Are you tired of it getting dark at 5 PM every day? I know I am, but we’re in luck: this year’s Winter Solstice fell on December 21st, which means that the days are getting longer, and that summer will come again, and that this is a perfect time to start thinking about sunny days and outdoor projects. Here are 10 of our favorite outdoor-space transformations from 2012.TOP ROW:1. Before & After: Bare Patio Turned Luxurious Cabana2. Jane and Justin’s Backyard Before & After3.
When it comes to eye-catching structures, geodesic domes lead the pack. They’re quirky, futuristic, and they tend to stand out wherever they’re situated. On the flip side, architects at Canadian firm Bourgeois Lechasseur have managed to come up with a trio of domes that blend into their natural surroundings.
In my last apartment, cleaning became a big issue. I lived with three other people, and it took us almost two years to actually sit down and determine how to keep our apartment clean. Here are some things I learned from that experience: 1. Truthfully define your definition of clean early on. Do you expect the house to be tidied daily, or is a thorough clean weekly, or even monthly, satisfactory? Setting expectations early on can help reduce conflicts down the road.
I seriously considered adding a plethora of vintage chairs to my dining table during my last move. However, I found that only having a two-person table didn’t quite have the same effect. If you have a large seating table, adding a hodge-podge of mismatched chairs can have a fun and quirky effect.Chances are, the lone vintage chair at the thrift store is much cheaper than buying a brand new dining chair at a home furnishings store.
Renovations often produce dramatic results, but that doesn’t mean you need to rip out floors and knock out walls to make a statement. Let’s look at some of our favorite big, bold, and beautiful Big Reveal transformations, using just the power of paint and decor. Re-edited from a post originally published 9.27.
Monique & Stu’s Bright Happy Family Home in Melbourne Even if you love your place and your stuff, there are times when your home can feel stagnant. It all too easily becomes a place of routine, or it just feels like there’s something that’s not functioning quite right. If your home needs a burst of energy, here are five easy things that you can do to give it some zest. The Pineapple Housewife’s Happy Home Use scents.
Jenny Lind cribs and beds are a classic in children’s rooms (even modern ones) and we’ve seen a host of them on Apartment Therapy. Jenny Lind is often mistaken to be a company or a brand, but it’s neither. It’s simply a style of furniture distinguished by turned posts or what we call spindles. So, just who was Jenny Lind and why is our furniture still named after her?
The kitchen is often the hub of a home, but it can also tend to feel like a stark, cold space (tile floors and an abundance of stainless steel appliances will do that). Luckily, there are some design tricks to warm up the room, while still keeping this area devoted to cooking and eating clean and healthy. With a few design details and accents that add personality, you can inject the entire room with warmth.
Do you have a piece of furniture in your home you love, but it’s just a little too “heavy?” We don’t mean weight-wise (though certainly, it could be heavy that way, too). We mean, visually heavy. A piece that feels like it takes up too much room. Like it knocks off the visual balance of a space. Here are five of the best tricks to visually lighten up a heavy furniture piece and still make it look great.
There are few souls in the world who have wall-to-wall carpet topping their dream decor list. It’s often the stuff of McMansions and is commonly viewed as the epitome of dated decor, but it’s also the reality for countless American homes. And if you’re a renter, there’s not a whole lot you can do to change it. So how to deal?Before we get started, we need to set a few things straight. Not all wall-to-wall carpet is created equal.
Whether you’re into deep, rich wall colors or not, going for a dark color in the bedroom may seem scary — after all, no one wants to feel like they’re sleeping in a cave! But with dark grays, rich browns, tantalizing jewel tones and even a “shocking” cobalt blue, the proof in these stylish bedrooms from our house tours is convincing.
If you always feel like your small bathroom is drowning in toiletries, cleaning supplies and hair products, it’s time to get serious about creating a bathroom that works. Why? Because it’s the spot in your home you probably spend time in getting ready every morning, and cleaning out this small space for good will mean eliminating mess stress before going into work every day. Here are five tips that will work if you keep them going. 1.
This is one of those chores that experts say to do once a year or so, and maybe even more frequently if you have kids and/or pets. It’s not hard, and requires almost no brain power, so your mind is free to gather wool while you work. And once this weekend’s project is done, your entire room will feel brand new again. First, Vacuum: Before you do the deep cleaning, do a pass with your vacuum first, getting rid of surface dirt.
Summer will be here soon and temps are already rising all over the country. Judging by the number of people I saw in the fan and air conditioner aisle at Home Depot this past weekend, keeping your home (and yourself) cool is high on everyone’s priority list right now. If you don’t have an adequate number of cooling devices — get thee to the hardware store. If you do, it’s time to make sure they’re clean and ready to go.
Are you just about to start your annual spring cleaning, poised to attack and refresh your entire home? We applaud your efforts! But if that’s not you, that’s okay too. Whether part of a bigger spring clean or on their own, concentrating on a few areas that are totally do-able, but equally worthy of attention this weekend will be worth it. Remember, it’s not about perfection. It’s about progress.
There are the things you clean regularly, and then there are the things…you don’t. Sometimes it’s because you dread it, and something it’s because they just don’t need attention all that often. Either way, it’s got to get done sometime, and this weekend might be the perfect time. Consider this your friendly nudge and reminder.
Living in a house (especially an older house) is a noisy business. Cabinet doors slam shut. Floorboards creak. Doors squeak on their hinges. What to do (besides moving) if you’re a person who loves peace and quiet? We’ve got a few ideas. Most American houses are made from wood, and over time, wood can expand and contract. Squeaky or creaky floors are caused by the wood subfloor separating from the joists beneath.
Some storage spots are easier to ignore than others which means house clutter tends to accumulate and linger there far longer than it should. We give those spots the side eye (and ourselves a mental reprimand) every time we walk by, but we often need a nudge to actually deal with the trouble spot. Consider this post a friendly little prod in the direction of your bathroom sink, and all the stuff currently hiding beneath it.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for puns. Inspired by The Mindy Project’s iconic Wreath Witherspoon, witty denizens of the internet have come up with their own celebrity inspired Christmas decorations—and they’re just delightful. Writer and excellent person to follow on Twitter, Dana Schwartz , kicked things off with a Christmas tree decorated with the most festively named of the white Chrises, the Chris Pine Tree.
You might not be able to change a lot of things in your small kitchen, but you can do the next best thing: give the illusion of larger, more open, space. Breathe better, and move about with ease, with these six suggestions: Low Contrast Color: Keep everything in the same color family, with minor variation. Light colors, or all white helps too. In the kitchen above, the cabinets and appliances blend in with the walls, and things feel more spacious than they actually are.
This year, we’re on a mission to help you tackle spring cleaning on your time. Each weekday until April 13, we’ll guide you through a plan to clean and organize different areas of your home, but you’ll have the flexibility to choose exactly what to work on and how long you have to dedicate to the job. Sign up with your email so you don’t miss a spot! Spring really is the perfect time to dig in and refresh your space.
Name: Bianca JadeLocation: Brooklyn, NYSize: 2,813 sqftType of home: BrownstoneYears lived in: 1 year, rentingWhether she’s reporting on the latest fitness trends, sharing skincare secrets, or posting pics of her amazing nail art, wellness expert and TV host Bianca Jade is always on the move. So she needs her Brooklyn home — a gorgeously restored brownstone full of natural light and warm wood details — to be a place of calm and relaxation.
Name: Lisa Hayim, MS, RD, and Evan Shlofmitz, D.O.Location: North Shore Long Island, NYType of home: Single-family homeYears lived in: 2 yearsLisa Hayim is the real-talk friend we all need when it comes to wellness. A registered dietician, yoga instructor, recipe developer, wellness pro, and mom-to-be, she’s just as concerned about what goes into her body as she is about the space around her.
While it’s not every day you run into someone who genuinely takes joy in the process of cleaning, you have to acknowledge and appreciate the comforts of a clean living space. The shining floors, the crisp sheets, the knowledge that nothing creepy or crawly is residing in the cupboard under the stairs… yes, there’s something truly special about a clean home. But what exactly makes a clean home clean?
Even the cleanest and most organized homes can get cluttered and super overwhelming fast. Because there’s one thing that piles up faster than a shopping cart in the final minutes of Supermarket Sweep. Unless you’re ready, and keep on top of it every single day, you’ll soon be buried under a suffocating mountain of stuff. This weekend, take the time to conquer this particular mess, and feel lighter almost immediately. Tame the Mail Mountain: Has your mail taken over your life?
It’s no secret that IKEA offers an affordable, off-the-shelf alternative to a custom kitchen. With the flexibility to mix and match finishes and styles, the Swedish store is a go-to source for renovators, but it’s also ubiquitous. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to personalize an IKEA kitchen, and we need look no further than the Apartment Therapy house tour archives for ideas.
Apartment Therapy Weekend Projects is a guided program designed to help you get the happy, healthy home you’ve always wanted, one weekend at a time. Sign up now for email updates so you never miss a lesson. Is there such a thing as being caught up on housework? I never have been. Even if your weekly chores have been completed and the laundry monster mountain has been defeated, there’s probably something around the house that’s been bothering you to get it done.
Art is, and probably will forever be, an integral part of decorating and making a home. What’s not vital? Making the same art displaying mistakes that many of us have probably made at least once in our home-decorating histories. These are some of the most common art-displaying mistakes that can be avoided. Some people cringe when they see a picture frame crooked. Me?
Erin and Jimmy are the kind of newlywed couple you’d love to hate, but they’re just too adorable. They sincerely enjoy each other’s company, share each other’s interests, and have countless other qualities that the rest of us are looking for on sites like WhyCantIFindMySoulmate.com. When they’re not making each other laugh or playing board games (no, really), they’re serious football fans who love watching the game with their friends.
After a really hectic week, we always look forward to taking the stress off with a long soak in the tub. Our bathtub is clawfoot and charming, but here’s the challenge. The overflow valve is placed so low that the water starts to drain out before the bathtub is anywhere near full. We scoured the web for solutions to this that we’ll share, as well as our own happy solution. Hint: you can make your tub “deeper” without renovating.
Mai’s pantry redo is a treat for the eyes — how many of us can relate to her “before” image? Standard wire shelving, jumbled up goods… essentially a dark hole in the wall that just gets the “keep the door closed” treatment. Come see this simple, refreshing makeover that will inspire you to tackle even the scariest of pantries!
Nothing makes or breaks a room quite like lighting. It changes the mood, sets the ambiance, and can help define spaces like living and dining rooms or nooks and kitchens, particularly in open-concept layouts. Plus, why settle for bad lighting when the fun, functional options out there are endless? If you think about it, your bedroom can become a whole different space when you customize it with the perfect reading lamp for staying up to finish that novel.
The eclectic array of home, garden and everything-in-between finds you’re bound to score at these flea markets will leave you as high as their elevations. Where: Chandler, Arizona When to visit: Monthly; next up is July 14-17, 10 am to 5 pm Why it’s worth the stop: The whole town of Chandler is buzzing about the city’s newest flea market show.
Waking up on Christmas morning as a kid was like, well… waking up on Christmas morning. Presents. Presents everywhere! But now as an adult, I know the old maxim to be true: It really is better to give than to receive. Nothing feels better than presenting a much-adored gift to a nephew, sister or friend that you love. Finding the right gift is all about knowing where to look. The number one strategy for giving great gifts is simply to know your giftee.
If you’ve got a small bathroom, you’re really making a fatal design and storage mistake by not including these five smart storage tools. These five items will give you more storage space, make your existing storage space more efficient and make using your small bathroom a lot more enjoyable. Hate opening your bathroom drawers to a jumble of toiletries? Create your own affordable drawer dividers to transform those junk drawers into spaces that make you happy to open and use every day.
