Rooms

The Sniglar crib mostly owes its popularity to its $69.99 price tag, but it works for so many families because the plain and simple design is versatile enough for any style of room. If you think the Sniglar is perhaps too plain and simple, check out how the folks at bedding company Little Auggie customized one with paint… Painting the spindles of the crib completely ups the style factor and gives the crib a fresh, modern feel.

A lot of people remodel their homes right after (or right before) moving in, but by the time Kyle and Angela decided to take the plunge and redo their kitchen, they had been living in their Clinton Hill apartment for 11 years. They had a lot of time to save, and scheme, and they knew exactly what they wanted: more counter space, a more open floor plan, and a kitchen with a little bit of midcentury style.

Katherine and Conan are slowly remodeling their 1917 home in Wichita, Kansas, one room at a time. Most recently, this powder room got the DIY treatment, with good reason. Even if you looked beyond the cracked walls and crumbling ceiling, the door wouldn’t shut behind you. Which I imagine made — ahem, privacy – an issue with guests. Before you get all confused, you are in fact looking at the same space.

Kristi recently remodeled her kitchen and didn’t give her toe kicks a second glance. Then she got a glimpse of Oh Joy’s recently remodeled studio kitchen, and was inspired to try something new… Switching up the white to black is a subtle but significant change. Rather than painting the actual toe kicks again, Kristi came up with a temporary solution that lets her try out a color, and change it up again down the road. Renters, take note!

Sandy grew tired of her painted birch tree entryway, and needed to switch it up. A quick trip to the hardware store and $28 later, she created a completely new look. Check out what she did and see what you think… Sandy bought four packs of shims and covered the wall from floor to ceiling with cedar. Here’s Sandy with the details on how she did it: Start at the top left hand corner of your wall.

Have you ever seen those glass and brass, ’80s style light fixtures that often hang in foyers and dining rooms? Not terrible, but slightly outdated. The good news is that you might already have one or you could find a used one for cheap. The even better news is you could turn it into a stylish, geometric lamp that matches pricier contemporary lamps.

Brooklyn homeowners Ben and Therese described the style of their old bathroom as “Hilton bathroom gone wrong.” It felt cramped and outdated, and the molded tub and beige tile just didn’t match their style. They both knew what they wanted — a modern, functional space that would reflect their personal tastes — but they weren’t sure exactly what that would look like. So they started doing research. Lots and lots of research.

Danielle’s son Conor was distressed by the pink walls in his new bedroom. In fact, they made him cry. A fresh paint job and several DIY projects later, his new beachy boy’s room was making a splash. Danielle: The day after we moved into our home, Conor came down the stairs crying. Absolutely sobbing and we begged him to tell us what was wrong. Did he have a nightmare? Was he scared sleeping in a new house? No, it was none of that. He was upset that he woke up in a pink room….

Before her renovation, the kitchen in Sanaya’s Clinton Hill co-op wasn’t much to look at. But the issues with the kitchen went far beyond appearances: the cabinets were falling apart, and cans of food were holding up shelves in some places. A well separating the kitchen and pantry made both spaces seem small and cramped. It was time for a change — time to tear everything out and start anew.

Project by: Britt F. Gage/For You, By Me Location: Queens, New York City Britt Gage was hired to bring some glamour to this space in anticipation of Felicity Adele’s arrival in the world. Her parents wanted something with personality and pizazz. Hmmm…how about a glitter wall? From the designer: It’s an interesting experience creating a room for someone who you haven’t met, or rather, hasn’t even been born yet.

After 10 months of searching, Alison and Jovito purchased the home of their dreams: a charming 100-year-old brownstone in Brooklyn’s Ocean Park. There were lots of things that needed updating all over the house, but they decided to focus first on the most egregious spots: the upstairs bathroom and the very, very, brown kitchen. We’ll leave it to Allison to describe the extent of the former kitchen’s ickiness: The kitchen needed a gut renovation.

Kelly and her husband bought their first home in Spanish Town, Baton Rouge and it had a lot of…character. They’ve been sprucing it up ever since and their recent project was to transform this office space into a room to welcome their new baby. Two big challenges: decorating for either a boy or a girl and making this dark, claustrophobic space into a happy, bright room for their child.

This kitchen before and after is a little different from our usual fare because it doesn’t involve a change in style: it involves a change in function. Blaise, Kristin, and their three kids had just made the move from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Their new home was almost twice as big as their previous one, but the kitchen, they found, was prohibitively small. They loved the way it looked, but they didn’t love storing kitchen basics in the basement and pots and pans in the oven.

This is not an “OMG! You lost 100 lbs.!” kind of makeover. This is more like,”Hmmnn…did you change your hair? get new glasses?” But therein lies the beauty: small changes are sometimes all that’s needed to make a room feel pulled together. The bedroom above belongs to Noah and his little sister Everly and here it is after a few simple changes: So, what changed? The blue paint is gone, there’s a new bedside table, new artwork and a new, cozy rug.

IKEA’s KURA loft bed usually steals the spotlight in terms of hacks and makeovers, but this transformation of the plain Jane MYDAL into a playhouse for an 8-year-old girl shows just how much potential this higher bunk has. With some plywood, 512 screws and some fabric, this bunk became a tented sleeping area (reached by TROFAST “stairs”), a reading nook with a hammock and a mini desk. Not to mention the adorable flower boxes and bucket on a pulley!

When Sarita and her husband bought an old home that needed a lot of work, they cooked up a plan to keep their two young daughters occupied and not underfoot while they spruced it up. Their mission: transform this unappealing closet into a happy play space. Sarita describes the project: This tiny closet is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door. I work as a muralist for children’s spaces and love colour! I was anxious to play with bold and bright yellows.

Project by: Jenna Piccirillo of PICCISTUDIO Location: Fairfield, Connecticut This bedroom needed to house two growing pre-teen boys and provide space for them to sleep, study and hang out with friends. Jenna Piccirillo’s solution is the stuff kids’ dreams are made of and include a room-within-a-room treehouse.

Project by: Aparna Chacko / AjjC Design Location: Fremont, California This room needed an injection of personality before its new 10-year-old occupant moved in. It also needed a design that could carry this tween straight through the teen years. From the designer: Design brief: To convert the spare room into a space that the home owner’s 10-year-old daughter will not outgrow in the next 6-8 yrs.

Dania was on the hunt for a rocker to go with the fresh blue and cream nursery she was planning for her new son. This old green vinyl rocker from her in-laws worked just fine…but wasn’t quite the look she was going for. And though she had never upholstered anything before, she tackled this task, and the result is impressive! From Dawn: The original chair came from her in-laws, and while it was in great functioning shape, the green vinyl upholstery wasn’t in the best shape.

When Emma’s family purchased this aging row house in Kingston, Ontario each of the three floors was a separate apartment. This room was occupied by a student and was filled with cheap furniture and textbooks. It needed a lot of love to match the vision she had for her 5-year-old son Angus’s space.

Project by: Allison Harlow of Curio Design Studio Project type: e-design Location: Miami, Florida This space provided lots of challenges! It was long and narrow, did not have a natural focal point and the budget needed to remain around $1000. To make things more complicated the client wanted to keep the gender of their baby a surprise and create a nursery that was modern, gender neutral, mature and utilized mostly neutral colors.

This old Victorian bathroom is typical of Glasgow tenement buildings —super narrow and definitely hard to maneuver in. Since the original tub wasn’t salvageable, Anne scored a couple more square feet from its removal: From Anne: The bathroom is a very awkward long and narrow shape typical of Glasgow tenements—making it particularly hard to photograph! The end result, £2000 later, is a complete difference.

While not totally her taste, Meaghan’s bathroom was functional. The tile floor had been cracking though, so she waited until it was time to replace it to brighten up the rest of the space and add her own touches. From Meaghan: There was nothing functionally wrong with our bathroom and it was generally nice to look at, so we did not really need to do a complete remodel.

Changing tables aren’t usually very memorable which is why we like this simple idea for customizing and adding color to one. This nursery DIY is quick, non-permanent and only requires a pair of scissors and some yarn. The folks at bedding company Little Auggie gussied up this IKEA Gulliver changing table with four colors of yarn which they wrapped around the side dowels. You can create any pattern you fancy – perhaps an ombre or just one single color you love.

I’m so excited to share with you today a before & after of my very own kitchen! I live in a converted hard loft in the eclectic neighbourhood of Kensington Market in Toronto. It was converted to lofts in 1999 — which you can see by this before photo. There was nothing absolutely terrible with this kitchen (well maybe those countertops), but it just felt dated and didn’t match my colorful and eclectic personality and the rest of my space. I decided to give it a major makeover.

Kitchen trends will come and go, but some things never go out of style. If you want a kitchen that will stand the test of time and still look as beautiful twenty years from now as it does today, consider incorporating one of these seven elements. Just for fun, here’s a gallery of 1920s kitchens. Even though these kitchens are nearly 100 years old, you’ll spot some of the same features in the modern kitchens below — proof that these elements are truly timeless.

Merci bought her San Francisco condo a couple years ago, and has been turning it into her dream home. See how this staged space went from dated to modern: From Merci: I bought this San Francisco beach condo about two years ago and worked over the first year to decorate with minor renovations to make it the home that I’ve dreamt of. Wanted to feature how color can make a difference in changing a home and low cost renovations to home (e.g.

Amanda’s boys had defaced this plain Jane dresser, so she decided to give it a heroic update with some super fabric: From Amanda: After years of carrying around these boring dressers that my children had graffitied, I figured it was time for a new look. A random stop into Walmart yielded the motivation I needed: 2 yards of Marvel comic book hero fabric. A little mod podge and some bright color paint was all I needed to make the magic complete.

Washington Heights homeowners Pepper and Marshall were thinking about combining the two bathrooms in their two-bedroom co-op into a single, much larger, bathroom. But they changed their tune when they realized how much the combination would hurt their home’s resale value — and how much additional money and time they would spend moving all that plumbing around.

For those amongst us who have a strong urge to stick with “perfectly good” spaces that have “nothing wrong” with them, either look away or be inspired. Becky’s kitchen was fine, but she didn’t love it. So she and her husband ditched what they didn’t like and made it a room they truly love: From Becky: Right from the start we kept the upper cabinets empty, just to see if we could live without them.

Although they originally thought about combining the two baths into a single much larger one, budget considerations prevailed, and they decided instead to keep the bathrooms separate and make the most of each. Here you see ‘before’ pictures of bathroom #2 — if you missed the first one, you can witness its transformation here.

This is Marissa’s old bathroom. It’s certainly not the worst ‘before’ we’ve seen here on Apartment Therapy — but beneath its bland, dingy-80s exterior lurked a nasty surprise. The previous owner of Marissa’s co-op spent a lot of time away from home, and didn’t realize that leaks were causing extensive water damage. On top of that, the random dropped ceilings were making this tiny space even more claustrophobic. It was time for a change.

With such a large and in charge antique headboard, Chelsea’s bedroom was looking one-note. Deciding to create an accent wall behind it, she fell in love with, and then rejected, some really expensive wallpaper. See how she transformed this bedroom for $40! From Chelsea: For years I have had the pleasure of owning an antique family heirloom bedroom set, (my great-great grandmother was born in the bed….TMI?)!

Mandy’s first-floor master bedroom was strangely laid out and not particularly “master-sized.” She and her husband decided to sleep in another room upstairs, and completely change this one to something they always wanted—a library. The “before” faces the window that’s on the left in the “after,” since they completely changed the floor plan and that door no longer exists! From Mandy: My husband and I bought our first home last October.

Kari’s cottage used to be a rental. The kitchen had been “updated” with the cheapest options available, so she set out to give it a bit more style and functionality, while sticking to a first-home budget. From Kari: I purchased my home in 2012. It is a 1950 post war cottage with 2 bedrooms and 770 sqft. Prior to closing, it had sat vacant for 8 months and prior to that it had been a rental.

With shag carpet, vintage wallpaper, and a mustard counter, this bathroom was firmly planted in the 70s. Rosalind decided to bring it into this century with a dark and dramatic makeover. From Rosalind: Our master bathroom in our new-to-us house was lacking, to say the least. It had not been updated since our house was built in the 70s. A mixture of wallpaper and shag carpet had us dreaming of a renovation. It also sported two long, narrow closets that housed clothes for the master suite.

Lana’s home was built in the 1930s, and the separate rooms made it tough to entertain. She was also lacking counter space on either side of the stove. See how she opened up the space while keeping the same layout: From Lana: Our old kitchen was a great size and decent layout, but was difficult to entertain in— I always felt like I had my back to the conversation and only had 12 inches of counter on either side of the stove.

Our eat-in nook is in the shape of half a hexagon. And our “temporary” table was a hand-me-down Craigslist loaner from some friends — in the shape of an octagon. I should have known we were destined for each other.

Maggie and her husband are in the process of renovating their Pittsburgh home, transforming it room by room from a dark, dated place into a light and bright space that’s a joy to be in. One of their favorite projects-in-progress is this window-filled room, which they has tons of potential… So far they’ve ditched all the wood paneling, raised the roof, and installed drywall.

With Erica and her husband hoping to sell their home, they wanted to differentiate their builder-grade kitchen from their neighbors’— without spending a ton of money. See how they transformed the space: From Erica: With the knowledge that kitchens sell homes and our goal being to move out to the country, we needed to upgrade our builder-grade ’90s time warp.

While glad for the extra space, the addition made on Amanda and Dustin’s Sears Kit home felt out of place. So, when they started an update on its bathroom, making it fit in with the rest of the home was a priority. From Amanda: My boyfriend and I bought a 1925 Sears kit home in December of 2014. The entire house needed improvement, but the worst part was the way the addition they added on in the 70s felt too much like an addition.

Homeowners Shannon and Scott loved their home, except for one problem: their two-story house didn’t have a bathroom on the first floor. This was particularly annoying and inconvenient for Shannon — at home during the day with their young daughter, she found herself constantly running up and down the stairs. So Scott and Shannon turned to architect Andrew Mikhael, who identified a spot where they could add a bathroom, without adding to the home’s foundation at all.

In Ashley’s family farmhouse, only main floor bathroom (and only shower) hadn’t been touched in decades—and was carpeted. She decided to make it more welcoming, without spending a ton of money. From Ashley: We’ve recently moved to my husband’s family farm and into the house that he grew up in. The house is a turn-of-the century farm house, but has had an addition added to it in the late 80s/early 90s.

Claire and Mike loved everything about their co-op in a converted Brooklyn industrial building, except for the kitchen. In appearance it was rather inoffensive — not nearly as terrible as some of the ‘before’ kitchens we’ve seen on this site — but in storage ad counter space it was seriously lacking. Also, with its standard-height cabinets, the kitchen looked awkward and squatty in such a tall space.

After living in their apartment for twelve years, Carrie and Jack felt that the time had come to overhaul their bathroom. They’d tried little, inexpensive fixes over the years, like a new medicine cabinet and new lighting, but nothing made their bathroom feel any less cramped and, with grout stained by years of use and tiles replaced haphazardly over the years, just plain dirty-looking.

Jill purchased a foreclosure last year, and her first project was fixing up the kitchen which had seen better days. This casita said adios to laminate, honey cabinets, and fire-starting stove! From Jill: I bought this casita in August of last year. It was a foreclosure and a fixer-upper – and it had apparently not been cleaned, much less updated, in what appeared to be a long time. My first priority was improving the horrible kitchen.

Paige’s ’80s kitchen needed to time travel a few decades forward. Now, hardly any wisp of the past remains; say goodbye to the cabinets, appliances, floors, counters, and even a wall. This kitchen transformation is truly stunning! From Paige: Last August we set out to destroy our ’80s nightmare of a kitchen and replace it with something fresh and unique.

Shelby’s new cute Craftsman style home had a lot of old charm….except for the bland builder-grade kitchen.

Project by: Decorist Location: San Francisco The client, Kristen, had a great upholstered bed and a fantastic classic chair in her guest room, along with some ultra-vibrant apple green walls. While the bold color was a definite wow, it wasn’t exactly tranquil, which is what she was hoping for in this space, so it had to go. She went the makeover route in hope of ending up with a more pulled together, cohesive and welcoming room.

Sabrina had a typical powder room: beige walls, basic tile, pedestal sink—functional but nothing to write home about. With a moody hue and some DIY magic, this forgettable space is now fantastic: That ceiling is a stunner! Sabrina used a paintable textured wallpaper and coated it with a beautiful blue that’s echoed in her towels. On its own it might be too much, so she continued the faux molding with MDF painted the same color as the walls.

Cori’s apartment had a peach tub and separate tiny shower stall. Since the bathroom already had a small footprint, her contractor combined the shower and created much needed storage space: From Cori: He re-tiled the floor and around the tub. He converted the tub to a tub/shower and installed high glass doors on two sides. He converted the original shower stall into a closet. He made a custom medicine cabinet so we could have a larger mirror.

Dan and Mike made a great purchase that they’ve since gone on to make even greater: a one-bedroom condo in an old converted piano factory, in one of Manhattan’s most coveted neighborhoods. Although their apartment had a lot of things going for it, one thing that they didn’t love was the kitchen, hidden away from the rest of the apartment by a wall with an awkward passthrough.

When Megan and Ryan moved into their new place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, they decided that renovating the bathroom had to be their first priority. Although, at a glance, their bathroom might not seem so bad, up close it was a bit of a disaster: a crumbling vanity cabinet, discolored and mismatched tile that had been painted (yes, painted) over, and a bathroom window that had been painted and tiled shut.