jmeyer's Profile

This is a really interesting place, and I would love to tour it. However, I could never live here. I noticed the lack of the bathroom door too, and I mean, how could you have guests over? Uncomfortable.

Wonderful kitchen! I love the black cabinets, and every time I am in Ikea, I always love the hanging racks for kitchen supplies. It works well in your place.

Hmm... I can see why you don't like them. On a whole, I am very pro-built ins. However, your wood built ins don't match the floor stain. That would bother me.

I'm not sure I love the idea of filling them with stuff, because while that is a cute idea for built ins in general, it doesn't solve the problem of the bad color of your built ins.

I think your best bet would be to cover them. I prefer a lot of color accents in my home, and it seems like yours doesn't have a lot of that, so perhaps some lightweight fabric panels would be nice? You can purchase items like that at Ikea or create your own.

You wouldn't necessarily need a curtain rod. I've seen them fashioned out of what essentially looks like a triangle: the top point fastening the piece to the wall and the bottom two points supporting the beam that holds up the panel.

Otherwise, have you ever tried using fabric as wallpaper? I'm not sure how it would work on wood, but it works rather well with fabric starch on a flat wall. Perhaps you could fashion something with that? Covering up the back wall, to bring in more color or to blend it with white?

I really like the blue coffee table in the second picture.

This kind of sounds like dorm room living. I did it for one year only--my freshman year of college. My best piece of advice would be: multi-functional. If you have something big in your room (i.e. a bookshelf), make sure you are using it for more than one thing. Could you tilt it on the side and also use it as a thin table? Could you buy a think blanket to place over your bedding to turn your bed into a couch?

This is a GREAT article. I'm moving into my new apartment (the first one completely on my own, sans roommate, sans boyfriend) on Wednesday, and it has very odd closets. There is a small closet in the bedroom, similarly sized to the one in the first picture. Then, there is a HUGE closet in between the living room and the bathroom. This closet is kind of like a very skinny room, running the entire depth of the apartment, with a door on each end, and about 5 feet wide. I've been thinking a lot about what to do with these spaces. I'm not sure the examples shown in the article will work out for my spaces, but I'm hoping I can get some good ideas from the comments.

I'd be interested in an article about how to spruce up kitchen cabinets. The kitchen at my new place has a TON of cabinet space. It is almost overwhelming to think about what to do with all of it.

Is contact paper easily removed?

Refrigerators last a long time. What if you wanted to change the design of your kitchen?

Otherwise, it is an interesting idea. Not quite my design aesthetic, but I think this is very creative.

@chrisbean

I agree: windows. In college, I lived in an older apartment with horrible windows. They were impossible to clean, and I was constantly spraying bug deterrent on the outside to keep ants from attempting to come in. In the winter, we sometimes paid $300 per month to heat our apartment to 55-60 degrees. I live in MN. It gets COLD. The apartment was like 1,000 square feet. My parents live in a 5,000+ square foot home, and they paid less in heating than me.

On September 1, I am moving into another older apartment. I love them, because they have lots of character. There is a huge difference between this apartment and the one I had from college: brand new windows.

I currently rent in Roseville, MN. For those not familiar, this is a northern suburb of St. Paul/Minneapolis. $899 for a two bedroom/one bath.

In about a week and a half, I am moving to St. Paul, MN. This apartment is one block off of Grand Ave, a very trendy neighborhood with restaurants, bars, and shops. $740 for a one bedroom/one bath.