evils among us: knotty pine

sent to me by alert roommate M, we have the following astute comment on the use of pine in cabinetry:
let that be a lesson to us all. watch your contractor, lest he foist pine upon you like the cheap bastard that he is.

originally at: http://www.marriedtothesea.com/011309/double-check-the-work-order.gif

answering questions: why is my apartment so ugly?

i have, on occasion, had a friend come over to my house for the first time and start exclaiming about how homey it is, how lived-in, how settled. they feel a little better when i explain my job, but they're also usually surprised at what a short time we've lived there, and that most of the furniture is either hand-me-down or found on the street. they lament that their place is lacking, and get a vaguely uncomfortable look on their face if we ask what's wrong with it. they don't quite know. i know this feeling, and i know what causes it. i call the affliction... dormroomitis.

i know, i'm so original. whatever.

dormroomitis is characterized by a general feeling of nomadishness and ikea-failure in an apartment that, when looked at item by item, shouldn't be so embarassing. have you ever gone home with someone (something i have never done, clearly) and been struck by how incredibly unremarkable their place is? anyone in their mid-20s could be living there.

there's a mostly respectable sofa with some coffee stains on it, and an inexpensive wood or black-metal-and-glass tv stand with a bunch of DVDs on the shelves. there's a pile of books next to that and a jumble of wires from the stereo, and a one-color burbur carpet from home depot that is matched quite nicely with the sofa (snore). the walls are blank, there may be a droopy potted plant, and if it's a girl, you've got some throw pillows and perhaps a framed poster of an art nouveau fairy. in the bedroom there's a full size (maybe a queen, you lucky dog) bed on a visible metal frame with some under-bed storage containers peeking out. the closet door is never closed, there's a big pile of clothes in the spot where a hamper would make sense, and a neat pile of seldom-used items like suitcases and a surf board just chillin' in the corner. in all, the apartment looks messy even when it's neat.

did i just describe your house? are you seeing it through the eyes of that questionable decision you brought home last thursday? it's ok, it's not your fault. it's difficult to navigate the leap from an actual dorm room to a grown-up house with kids and a dog. that kind of sparseness in a place is understandable when you're 22, but by the time you're 28 it's starting to carry a bit of the flavor of mom's basement.

let me provide you with a map for this difficult journey. behold, the five best ways to treat dormroomitis:

1. paint your walls. i know that lots of people don't want to deal with the hassle of repainting when they move out, but let's be realistic for a mo. you're living there minimum 12 months. repainting takes 4 hours. unless you have fabulously colorful and interesting stuff or else fabulously all-white furniture and accessories, this is the number one reason why your apartment looks like you just dropped your stuff after signing the lease and have been going about your business ever since. because in a way, you have. so i repeat, despite the repainting hassle, paint your walls, you lazyass. if all else fails, your super repaints for you if you're willing to fork over $300 of your deposit.
1a. do not paint an 'accent wall' unless it's actually the focal point of the room. tv shows have perpetrated the lie upon an unsuspecting public that this is the best way to look designer-y. most accent walls end up looking like a sad accident. if all your stuff is pointed at it, or it's the back of a cool little nook, rock it out. otherwise, beware the accent wall.

2. find some cool paintings at a flea market, buy some photos on ebay, or make your own. even get some empty frames and hang those in an oh-so-ironic move. whatever it is, hang interesting things on the walls. you'll get some impact from framed posters, yes, but the real way to make a difference is to ask yourself, "could this be purchased, framed, in the basement of the student union at my local university?" if the answer is yes, and you adore it anyway, then hang that puppy. if it's yes and you feel lukewarm about it, put it on your curb and go find yourself a weird set of masks to hang. it'll feel instantly like your house.
2a. large paintings and framed art are expensive as hell. a large collection of small things on the wall, however, looks fantastic and personal. either hang them (with sewing pins, even!) haphazardly in a lovely jumble of postcards and photos and chinese fortunes, or else line them in a rigid grid so that the mix is emphasized.

(that's my old kitchen in my teeeeeny studio. homey, no?)

3. nothing tells your visitor 'i'm worthy of seeing you unclothed on a regular basis' like being able to care for a living object. sadly, my living objects (cats) make it impossible for me to have the decorator's choice of living objects, plants and green things. they make it look like you enjoy living in your house. if you choose to grow herbs, they make everything smell nice, are tasty in omelettes, AND look pretty. however, if you have pets who turn your happy plants into jagged piles of raggedy leaves with little piles of leaf-vomit nearby, just skip it. your visitor will have to content themselves with the decorative properties of cat hair.

4. real storage, people. go ahead, use your old target bookcase. it's useful. but make it look like it's there on purpose - paint the back of the shelves (use some of those little sample paints from the hardware store), or hotglue some ribbon to the edges, or even leave it as-is and scatter some objects like framed photos and neat boxes on the shelves next to the books. put your ugly piles of things in baskets on shelves, which will move with you and are worth the $10, i swear. they can make your giant piles of awful look nice without minimal effort. and hang some shelves. they help with making those blank walls look nicer, plus it gets things off the floor.

5. rugs: have them. go for something interesting. but for god's sake, all contemporary-abstract patterns or psudo-ethnic patterns are bad news bears. and long shag, while delicious underfoot, gets very hair-filled very fast. shag is not a friend to vacuums.

more to come...

best idea EVER

the thing i hate most about renting is that i can't redo my kitchen.

there is a whole host of things i can whine about regarding my kitchen, and i promise i will whine about every single one of them at some point. but the worst issue we have to deal with is space. i know, we live in new york. but it's a gigantic brownstone, and i had hoped for more. this is a kitchen in which you can only open the refrigerator door 60 degrees because it bumps the oven. it makes me insane, and we can't use our left veggie drawer. grrrrrr.

when we first moved in, it was an incredibly depressing room. the cabinets, of which there were (blessedly) lots, were a horrible dark cheap wood. there are no windows in the room, so it was really claustrophobic. the counters are black, and it was difficult to see inside any of the lower cabinets to get the pans we were constantly using.

that photo makes it look much nicer than it was.

the even bigger problem was that my new roommates were kindred spirits. we drool over issues of bon appetit. we just had an enormous thanksgiving feast with two roasted turkeys and about 30 side dishes for our friends because we were jealous that our families got to cook on the actual holiday. we use this kitchen constantly, and we were giving each other bruises trying to use the cabinets.

so my ingenious solution was to get the things we needed most often into a spot where we could grab them at will. for the best idea EVER (in practice, i swear it has been), i give you....

a very blurry photo of pegboard!!!

this has revolutionized the kitchen, and i did it all myself on the cheap. i got a piece of pegboard from the hardware store down the street (these dudes love my by now), a set of a bunch of hooks, and just screwed it into the wall.

however, a DIY warning!! this job took some serious help from friends, because pegboard is heavier than you expect and you need someone to hold it while you drill.

also, i screwed the board in flush with the wall and then promptly realized that it needed spacers behind it, or the hooks couldn't get in. whoops. luckily, like any normal 25 year old girl, i always have wood shims (little skinny wedges that break easily, for filling gaps and shimmying things up by degrees to the height/thickness you need them) lying around my house. you know, right next to the tv remote and the handheld jigsaw, like anyone else. (if, by some odd turn of luck, you do not have shims lying around or the $2 and inclination to buy them, you could even use some thickly folded cardboard.) anywhoodle, i grabbed a few and screwed through them, giving me enough space between the wall and the board to hang the hooks.

all said and done, i only put about 16 easily-filled screw holes in the wall (pots are heavy, so you should anchor the boards well), spent about $40, and after slapping a coat of light blue paint on the ugly peg board, we now have a kitchen that is significantly less horrible to cook in. 4 out of 4 roommates agree: best idea EVER.

how do we feel about...

...putting holes in the walls?

i myself nail stuff in all over the place. my drill is my favorite possession, by far. i know how to use spackle, and i just sort of don't care. but then again, i paint rooms navy blue. some people just don't want to get into the business of cleaning up after they leave. what kind of a renter are you?

i'd turn this into a poll, but i can't figure out how. instead, discuss amongst yourselves. while you discuss, i'll try to learn how to use a freaking blog.

do you respect your walls?

• yes. i'm too lazy to patch them up when i move.
• of course. my landlord said i had to, so i do. he has keys.
  
• no, but i swear i only use the itty bitty picture hanging stuff.
• drill, baby, drill.
  

the dirty secret: tamed

ok, so in my studio/guest room redo, it had to be first things first. i had to get a large shelf to put all my supplies on. my issues were 1) cost, 2) adjustability, and 3) placement in the room. there are a lot of weird nooks and crannies that make it sort of hard to put anything anywhere.

the futon i have in there is only the width of a double bed (54"), not even the length (75"). this is not a large room, my friends.

plus, i had the weird spot next to the door. i could either try to find shelving that was narrow and tall, meaning probably more expensive than the stuff that came standard, or i could get creative.

i decided to just get some shelving from my local hardware store, and call it a day. it was cheap, it was sturdy (we have it at work, so i knew), and it was totally adjustable.

what i got was wire shelving that fit basically where the current cart'o'junk sat, as it was the exact width of the wall to the door. it's a bit of a squeeze, to be honest. but MAN does it get the job done!


next up were a bunch of storage bins from ikea. i got two sizes, both in plastic, so i could write on them with a black crayon. i am not big on martha-style labels, simply because i am very lazy. if you're patient enough, they look bangin'. anyway, the small ones now hold my paints, and the big ones hold rags and all my 'etc.' supplies. i also got some magazine racks and this little beauty to sit on my desk and hold all my pens, mat knives, and small stuff. i am one organized puppy.

so now, depsite the shelf taking up a rather enormous amount of space in the room, i have walked in on 6 different occasions since reorganizing and put my hands on the thing i was looking for in under 30 seconds. this was WELL worth the money, and only took one night.

(p.s. that link i added of the martha organization? totally tooting my own horn. i interned at the magazine for a summer, and that's the photo from one of the shoots i worked on. it was a blast, and it looks AMAZING. go on, tell me how good i (and my bosses, i suppose) was...)

my dirty secret

the first issue i think all renters meet with is: how on earth do i store all my junk if i'm not going to stay here forever?

if you own your place, you can invest in storage options like built-ins and chests that fit just so in your living room. renters, however have to think 'oh, god. $350 for a bookcase i might never be able to use again? ...maybe this giant swaying tower of novels won't crush my cat when it falls over.' and in the meantime, the junk piles up. and up. and over. and around. and it is ugly.

i have the insane luxury, to be found only in my magically delicious brooklyn brownstone, of having an extra room in my new york apartment. there are 4 roommates (let's call them E, L, and M), 3 large bedrooms, and 2 very small rooms. one of these is occupied by L, who pays less than the rest of us, and the other is basically mine, so i pay more. i use it partly as a studio, and partly it's supposed to be a spot for guests to use the pull-out futon when they stay over. trouble is, due to storage issues, the room has been somewhat uninviting for guests.

that's not even the bad view.

so i decided that my goal was to get myself organized, buy some inexpensive shelving and storage bins, paint one wall the lovely shade of green you see there, and get a more space-saving guest bed that i could stuff things underneath.

the cosmetic stuff couldn't happen, though, until i tamed the beast that was my collection of art and drafting supplies.

seriously, that photo is shameful. but we've all got it, don't we? the out-of-control room where everything else collects. i took one night, about $300 worth of shelving, boxes, curtains, paint, etc., and got rid of my dirty secret. i'm still working on the bed, but once it's gone, i think i'll have a room that i can actually use, and my sister won't try to stay in a hotel next time she's in town. in the next few posts, i'll work out how i did it.

hello, hello

so. here we are. the beginning of a blog. can we not call it a blog? how about we call it a site. i'm more comfortable with that. i don't know if i'm ready for a blog. i still don't know what twitter is.

regardless of what i call it, i've been mulling over the idea of starting a design site for renters for a few years now. i still remember getting my first-ever issue of the delicious Domino magazine, and reading their manifesto. i liked it all. i liked it so much that i begged them for a job - denied! but the part i remember vividly was this:

"renters need not be second class citizens."

and i thought, "yes. YES!" i imagined i would find a magazine, over the coming issues, that dealt half with the kinds of things that home owners could use, and half with the issues that renters face. 'not second class' means equal coverage, right? well... there's only so much you can feature as a magazine that sells ads that also pertains to renters. renters can't buy a lot of stuff. we do not wallpaper. we are stuck with a lot of unfortunate tile. we are a hard demographic to sell to. Domino does what it can, but i dare to dream... of more.

what i promise to post is tips, ideas, photos, inspiration, wish-lists, disasters, and products for those design-obsessed among us who do not have a mortgage. you can trust me. after all, i'm a professional. and i know you are not interested in a $7,000 sofa for your studio apartment, because - god willing - you'll be out of there at some point, and hopefully the place will be bigger. someday, you will have a kitchen island, but today is not that day. things don't have to stay ugly in the meantime.

i spend all day dreaming about what i would do if i owned my lovely apartment, but the fact is, my landlady lives downstairs. she knows what i'm up to. so i've come up with a lot of sneaky solutions, and i'd like to share.