At Home

Neko says "Happy February"

2008-02-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

A New End Table or "How I Discovered Heywood Wakefield"

2008-01-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

The story began when I saw this step end table on craigslist and immediately knew it was calling for me to take it home.

My end table, view 1

My end table, view 2

The step end table is one of those quintessential mid-century silhouettes and doing a little internet digging to its lineage led me to the classic Heywood Wakefield (amazon book link) Step End Table:

External photo: Heywood Wakefield Step End Table (Springdale Furnishings)

The Heywood Wakefield furniture line from the 30s to the 50s was a showcase of clean lines and functional design, all in a gorgeous champagne finish. These days, vintage Heywood Wakefield has an almost cult-following. After flipping through a few of their designs, I've gotta say, I'm hooked too.

It's so fun discovering design sources like this, something that really sparked the formation of a genre.

External Photo: Heywood Wakefield Corner Table (Springdale Furnishings)

External Photo: Heywood Wakefield Full Upholstered Chair - (Springdale Furnishings)

External photo: Heywood Wakefield Trophy Line Dresser (Springdale Furnishings)

Practically speaking, I could see myself getting a few pieces here and there. Too many, and we're dangerously close to 50's kitsch. And I know the light champagne color is a departure from the usual dark teak mid-century-modern palette. But Heywood Wakefield has got this inherent likeability to it - something about the combination of solid practicality, light-heartedness and a tad of nostalgia. I can't help but love it.

Couch lust

2008-01-03T19:03:00.001-08:00

I'm trying to find a couch for the new parlor. Something comfy and with character, but with clean lines. None of that Pottery Barn over-stuffed pillow business for me, thankyouverymuch.

Some considerations:
- Can it comfortably fit two? Can it cozily seat three?
- Is it nap-able?
- Is the fabric easy to clean?
- Will the fabric hold up to everyday use, or will it start to look worn/dingy over time?
- Will the frame hold up for everyday use, including arms? (Because I refuse to be a sofa-arm-nazi).

And most importantly:
- Will Neko like it?

Some ideas from my inspiration board (Google Notebook is perfect for this), to get the thought process rolling. All of these are beyond my budget and some obviously hit more considerations than others, but serve as useful style guides for craigslist/antique/thrift hunting. Of course, all bets are off if I find a couch I love that fits absolutely none of these guidelines whatsoever.

In order of price.

1. Urban Outfitter's Mid-Century couch. Decent price, great lines. Unfortunately, looks and feels cheap in person. 480.

2. The affordable Encore Couch from Room and Board, which also converts to a bed. I'd actually consider saving up for this, however I worry about the white microfiber piping quickly looking dingy. 700.

3. The ever-so-charming CB2 Chet Sofa. 900.

4. The ubiquitous Jasper Couch at Room and Board. Like the Eames bent plywood chair, this guy seems to be popping up everywhere these days. 1300.

5. Another Room and Board fave, the Clarke. 1800.

6. Another mid-century, the Wells from Room and Board. 2100.

7. The sexiest-sleeper-ever Nomade Express from Ligne Roset. 2800.

8. The gorgeous Milo Sofa. Drool. Anthropologie 3500.

9. The Hall sofa from Viaduct. No price listed.

There's more. A lot more. Mostly at Room and Board where I go and try not to drool on the upholstery. But there is definitely a pattern emerging, non?

Month #1: December Wrap-up (and finally new photos)

2007-12-31T11:05:00.000-08:00

This is the month I actually moved into the apartment after spending three months traveling for work. Lots went on in terms of getting settled. It's been helpful to have a few days off work at the end of the year for some intensive nesting. Some highlights:

1) Decorating for the holidays. I haven't decorated for the holidays in over a decade, so it was nice to do it again. Christmas stockings monogrammed with Swarovski crystal. A real Christmas tree set in the bay window. Matching pine wreaths for my next door neighbor and me. Christmas twinkle lights set on a timer, so I'm always greeted with the lights aglow in the evening. Decorating for Christmas really made it feel like home.

2) More furniture. Lots of craigslist trolling which resulted in a couple tables, a bunch of chairs. You can never have enough chairs.

New dining table:

A fabulous free Craigslist chair, which Neko has claimed as her own:

An IKEA trip brought two nice chairs which perfectly fit with the kitchen table:

3. A new computer. Which I'm now posting on, and which means I can actually process and post photos now.

4. New traditions. I really love fresh-cut flowers, and I think I'd like to keep up the tradition of keeping flowers in the home.

5. First dinner party. We had our first official guests over to entertain yesterday. Although the apartment has far to go, it was nice to have people over and the apartment be in semi-presentable condition.

6. Operation: Weather-proof. The apartment is an old, drafty Victorian, and it's been a very cold and windy SF winter. The apartment has been perpetually freezing.

Solutions?
-Adding insulation to the uninsulated ceiling in the Ice Cold Kitchen.
- Hung window plastic sheeting in the windows.
- Added door insulation around the front door.
-Added a draft dodger to the back door.
- Brought in an electric space heater for the bedroom for spot heating (which is now broken).
- Hung curtains in the entryway, and walkway to the Ice Cold Kitchen.

There's still tons to do, but this is a good start for Month #1!

New computer!

2007-12-18T23:59:00.001-08:00

I am soon to become the proud parent of a brand new computer - a desktop PC built expressly for photo editing. Between work and home, I've too many laptops than I'd care to admit, both Mac and PC. However, what none of them have is the processing power to handle the level of photo editing work I need (CS3 + Lightroom + archiving).

I'm well aware of the eternal Mac vs. PC Debates. They rage on in message boards across the Internet. Much like the Canon vs. Nikon Debate, there's lots of rabid opinions, but no clear winner. But for my situation, the determining factor boiled down to cost.

Sure, I'd happily plunk down a bit more for the elegant design of a Mac, even it means tightening the budget elsewhere. But for the specs I need, a Mac laptop would be about 3x the cost of a PC desktop. So while a sexy Macbook Pro laptop with an external 30" Apple Cinema Display would give me major hipstersnob cred and bragging rights, I just can't jusify the steep price differential, at least without some serious sugardaddy/trustfund/fairy godmother fiscal support. Sans said resources, at 3x the price, a Macbook becomes a financially unsound choice for my needs.

So, pending a magical influx of funds, I've decided to take matters in my own hands and adopt a much more sane approach:

- Custom-built desktop PC. My Newegg.com Shopping list has most of the specs. $1,000ish.
- Used Dell 20" LCD Monitor (see left) . The well-reviewed Dell 2007WFP. $200.
- Student discounted CS3 + Lightroom. $380.
- Something like the Spyder Express 2 Screen Calibrator. Not yet ordered.

My friend Richard and I ordered the parts last week, they just came in today, and I'm going to help build tomorrow night. That's right. I'm BUILDING MY OWN COMPUTER. Hipster cred means nothing compared to the major geek points I'm getting with this. Plus, I'm eager to get my photography+computer gear back in working condition for 2008 - lots of photography gigs in the pipeline.

In conclusion:

Sure, Macs are plenty sexy.
But learning how to install a motherboard on my own PC? Even sexier.

Slim Hangers = Triple the closet space

2007-12-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

Wow. I wouldn't have believed it until I tried it myself. I only have two small closets in my apartment, which were quickly becoming full.

I bought 2 10-pack sets of these slim-line hangers from Bed Bath and Beyond, and once the clothes were re-hung with the new hangers, they occupied 1/3 of the space they originally took. Which means I could fit around 3x the amount of the clothes into the same space. Amazing.

HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those with tiny closet spaces (especially relevant in old city apartments). This is not an excuse to clutter closets full of unnecessary clothes, but it's a fabulous solution to dealing with tight spaces.

Rave. Rave. Rave.

I'm probably going to get two 50-hanger sets ($40, or $32 after coupon), and replace all the hangers in my closet. For a three-fold increase of functionality of the space, it's well worth the price. Go. Try them now.

A dining room table!

2007-12-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Hurray for Craigslist! I was able to snag for snag for a song the Beta Dining Table from Scandinavian Designs. Hurray! No more eating on the couch! The leaves slip under the table when not in use, then slide out to expand. Elegant and totally sturdy. I'm into the multi-functional idea behind tables with leaves. Keep it small for everyday use. Expand and clear the furniture for dinner parties. And I plan on having many many dinner parties. Plus, I vastly prefer the simplicity of neatly-tucked in leaves to drop-leaf tables or clunky leaves that require separate storage. However, getting it home I realized that the table can only really comfortably hold four people, and I need a dining room table that holds at least six. I plan on holding many dinner parties, and I need a table to accommodate for that purpose.

So I'm still on the lookout for The Perfect Dining Room Table. This piece at least buys me some time so I'm not eating on the sofa for everyday use. This will pretty much be furnishing strategy for this apartment: First, get basic items now, so I can nest comfortably and happily in my own home. It's important that it doesn't feel like I'm camping or that I'm in crash pad. Then over time, slowly over time swap out with more things I love. I'm trying to avoid desperate scrambling.

Scrapbook

2007-12-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

1. Armchairs. I need a good lounge chair. Apartment Therapy just posted some fantastic armchairs on their website.

I love them all, but I think I especially love #3, the Vladimir Kagan Contour Chair. 1953, Leather. Available at Monumenta for a mere for $15,000. Room and Board also has some great armchairs too, including variations on the Wegner (#1), but at even 10% of the price, it's still way beyond my budget. Think I'm going to continue to troll Craigslist for deals.

2. Parlor. Apartment Therapy posted a Before & After that had some promise. I'm not a huge fan of the complete transformation and actually much prefer the similicity of the original "Before" to the fussiness of the "After". But I did like one idea - custom built shelves, using the ubiquitous IKEA lack shelves. I've got similar alcoves flanking my fireplace, so I'm considering doing something similar. I really dislike cluttered bookshelves, so I really want to be careful about what goes in there if I do it. I've seen it so often, bookshelves can easily devolve into visual chaos and clutter (IMHO the arrangement below is way too cluttered for my tastes)

My room:

I'm really enjoying the clean lines of the emptiness now, so I'll definitely have to think hard about what to add to the space.

3. Shopping. Design Within Reach is having their annual Holiday Friends and Family Warehouse Sale at their SOMA warehouse tomorrow. I missed their November sale, so glad to get in on this. It's invite-only but luckily I got my hands on 4 tickets. Even at 50% I still can't afford most of their furniture, but it's worth a look-see anyhow.

Open to DWR friends and family, this special sale will feature overstocks, samples and "scratch and dents" at 30-75% off retail prices. Just in time for holiday shopping, this is a special assortment of goodies chosen for employees and their loved ones.

I've been eyeing Philippe Starck's Ghost Chair in crystal for a while, if it happens to show up tomorrow, at a deep enough discount, I just might grab it.

So many rooms!

2007-12-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this big rambly apartment. So many rooms! In fact, it's bigger than my last three apartment COMBINED. My last apartment in NYC was tiny studio in Soho, so small that I had to fold up my futon during the day in order to walk through it. I've prided myself on my ability to effectively use Very Small Space. And now this. Tons of rooms, and I just don't want to go about mindlessly buying things just and filling the space with "stuff". I want to retain my small-space philosophy of

- Design trumps function - "Useful but ugly" is just not acceptable in my book. I'd rather just not have it in my home at all.
- Creative maximization of space
- The "No Clutter Rule". Every item in my apartment has a "home". If it doesn't have a home, it doesn't go in the apartment.

Although I no longer have the necessity of living such a minimalist life, I really would like to keep it up, simply because I like this way of living.

Incidentally, if you're keen to be doing layouts, I highly recommend these two tools for all your floor planning desires.

1. Floorplanner.com
You can create floorplans online, edit, share. And for free. A little slow and clunky, but definitely a fun and handy tool to map floorplans and to see how furniture fits. My plan online.

2. A laser measure. Around $30.

I hate the hassles of tape measures, so I picked up a laser measure at Home Depot. Just point the laser at the opposite wall, and voila, you've got an instant reading. It automatically can calculate square footage too. Since getting it, I've gone around measuring things, just because it's fun.

Challenge #2: The Litter Box

2007-12-04T20:33:00.001-08:00

Anyone with a cat knows that the eternal challenge is what to do with that damn litter box. It's unsightly, bulky, obtrusive and either very stinky or very high-maintenance. This is all perfectly fine when you live in a house with space to store a litter box out of the main traffic flow (a spare room, the basement, a garage). But for us urban-apartment-dwellers with tiny living spaces? The picking are slim in terms of a good (and stylish) solution.

Hulking ugly unstashable stinky litterbox + tiny city apartment = not a good situation. What's a cat owner to do? Some vaguely acceptable options I've tried in the past:

(a) Toilet Training your cat - Tried, and failed. And really only practical if you have an extra bathroom.

(b) Automatic litter machines - A great concept, but I've yet to see anything on the market that really works well. Also, they tend to be bulky hulking machines, that are as ugly as sin.

However, I offer to you another solution, honed from years of studio-apartment living with a cute-but-stinky cat.

The Delightfully Elegant and Non-Stinky Litterbox Solution for Small Apartment Dwellers*

1. Crystal litter. $8/month. Dust-free, odor-free, and really easy to maintain. Pour it in the box, scoop out waste as needed, replace every 30 days. That's it. There are some drawbacks (hard crystals+bare feet = ouch). For me, the benefits far outweigh any drawbacks. Apparently some cats don't take to it. If you're lucky, yours will.

2. A litter-locker. $20. Similar to a Diaper Genie. Waste goes in the receptacle, you turn the handle. When the handle clicks you know the waste is locked in an air-tight seal of plastic. 100% odor-free. Empty it every month when you change the litter box. Extra cartridges are $6/each and last 2-3 months.

3. CleverCat LitterBox. $30. I've found that litterboxes come in two varieties: (a) functional and ugly (b) "designer" and monstrously ugly. The solution? Find something that doesn't look like a litterbox at all. I just order this:

My plan is to nestle it in a sealed wipe-able basket, to further disguise its nefarious purposes.

And finally to pull the whole look together (and capture loose litter)...

4. A cute rubber doormat $10. Litter tracked from the litter box is messy and unhygenic. Pet stores sell horribly overpriced and ugly "litter mats" to catch litter kicked from the box. A better solution? Doormats.

Doormats are designed to catch dirt. This is why they exist. Guess what? They can catch litter too! Stylish options abound. Find one that (a) complements your decor (b) with sufficient ridges to catch tracked litter (c) rinsable. Place under litter box, marvel at your fabulous eye for coordinating litter box ensembles. The below is just a suggestion, options are endless.

THE RESULT

Low-maintenance upkeep, a disguised litterbox. Happy cat. Happy owner.

* This particular combination works well for my cat. However, cats are quirky creatures and I'd assume that some level of customization is needed for every cat out there.

1/31/07 Update: IKEA Hacker has a great post on how to convert a storage bench into a distguised dog crate, I'd imagine you could do the same for side-loading kitty litter box too. Take a look!

A Tasteful Dog Crate You Don't Have to Hide

Challenge #1: Pull-chain ceiling lights

2007-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Three of the rooms in my apartment are fitted with ceiling pull-chain lights, mounted smack-dab in the middle of the room.

I hate pull-chains. Who wants dangly bits swinging in the middle of your room? Not only that, but these pull-chains have long since disappeared, replaced with dirty tattered string knotted together. Like something you'd see in a horror movie attached to a single light bulb dangling in a basement. Before the unfortunate victim gets hacked to pieces.

We had theorized different ways of tackling the problem, including routing the string so it runs down the side of a wall. This would have required an elaborate system of hooks and pulleys. Yes, a fun exercise into the world of Rube Goldberg. No, not a very elegant or practical solution.

Off to Home Depot I went, in search of solutions of a more practical bent. I found an employee and asked about how to swap a pull-chain with a wall-mounted switch.

His response?

"Well, you need get a few books on home wiring. Read them all. Then get the right equipment. Then some small projects under your belt. Electricity is dangerous stuff, not to play around with. Then it's simply a matter of ripping up your ceiling and walls to rewire it all."

Not a very promising option either. So resigned to be forever locked in a pull-chain world, I decided to make the best of the situation and found this cute crystal pull:

Thinking it would be an acceptable solution, I trotted home with my spoils.

However adding the pull didn't solve anything. Instead of a wispy harmless slip of string dangling in the middle of the room, I now had a large crystal suspended in the middle of the room, swinging like a pendulum, threatening to injure anyone who walks by.

Disheartened, I crept before the glowing alter of my laptop and petitioned the ever-magnanimous Gods of Google for some guidance. In their infinite wisdom and charity, they beqeathed....

Wireless light switches!

Two easy steps:

Unscrew lightbulb. Screw in the receiver instead. Screw the lightbulb into the receiver.
Stick the adhesive light switch onto wall (or where ever you damn well please). Flip the switch.

That's it! No screwing, no wiring, no tools. Nothing. Two steps and the magic of infrared technology. No more fussy pull-chains! No risk of electrocution! No more horror movie flashbacks!

I just ordered a set, I'm crossing my fingers that it will work out.

Stay tuned!

Month 0: And thus it begins

2007-12-01T19:29:00.000-08:00

One big drafty apartment, hardly any furniture, a tight budget, and a strong nesting instinct.

Let the festivities begin!

Apartment Inventory:
1. Full-sized bed
2. Linens
3. A wicker outdoor loveseat (converted into a loveseat)
4. An outdoor plantstand (converted to bookshelves)
5. Two stools
6. Three lamps
7. Clothes
8. One small box of kitchen supplies
9. Two area rugs
10. Books, clothes, photography gear