Kiera's Profile

My husband and I moved to NYC when I started graduate school, from a 1000 sq foot apartment in Cambridge, MA to a sight-unseen apartment on the Upper West Side, and when we opened the door to the apartment, I burst into tears. It was 350 sq feet, most of it inexplicably taken up by the bathroom. The kitchen was the size of a postage stamp; it's walls actually oozed orange goo through the paint. The kitchen sink was somehow placed in the corner so that in order to wash dishes you had to lean your whole body to the left over the tiny bit of countertop. The fridge was in the living area. There was pretty much no closet space. The floors were hardwood that had been covered up with plastic wood laminate which was peeling and cracking. I got a splinter from that laminate at least twice. The apartment faced the back of the building and got exactly one sliver of sunlight from 6:15 am to 6:45 am, after which the apartment was left in gloom. I know exactly when the sun came in because I was awakened at 6 am every morning, when the person who had the apartment next to our bedroom began watching television situation comedies at top volume and laughing the most insane, freakish laugh I had ever heard, for a couple of hours (never saw her, btw). vowed that I would finish my Masters and we would move back to Boston as soon as humanely possible. That was 13 years ago and we've been here ever since.

NYC kind of gets into your system before you even know it, and the stuff you thought was a deal-breaker becomes much less so within a short period of time. You either grow to love where you are or you find an area that you CAN love. For us, it was Brooklyn, which has everything we love about New York City and a bit more breathing room. We moved out of that place and never looked back, but I'm so glad I lived through that horrible apartment experience because it's one of my favorite memories. It was a smack in the face, for sure, but every place we've live in since has been a piece of cake.

What about framing some of your kids' art? That way they feel like the walls reflect them and their aesthetic (they could even pick out the pictures for framing), yet it looks finished and polished. A lot of people rotate their kids' art in and out of frames, so every so often you could ask if they want to change theirs out. You could even do a gallery wall with different sizes of artwork to mix it up. Framing really makes it looks sophisticated and adult!

Chippy - that's because the first one IS art. I think some of the people above inserted their feet in their mouths on that one.

Um... that would be sharP. Sharp edges.

I agree with everyone else - if you must disguise your television, get something that will hold it at the proper height and close when you want to forget you have a t.v. We have a large Chinese style cabinet to hide our old tube television and a bunch of wires that I like to cover up when we're not watching. It's pretty obvious when it's closed that it's hiding a television but it's nice to look at.

@Stream13 - Looks like it's a fiddle leaf fig, very nicely pruned.

It's true, deep tilling of soil is bad for the soil, especially if you use a gas-powered rototiller. But there are other situations where shallow tilling can be good, such as amending soil or adding compost to a large bed. The problem with deep tilling is that it brings up microorganisms which live way down in the soil to the surface, killing them. The problem with machine tilling is that it chops the soil into tiny uniform pieces (along with the worms!) which is actually bad for the soil (you actually want the varying sizes of sand, clay, and silt, and when you rototill those sizes get pulverized into the same tiny size). But tilling the soil gently when you need to (especially when you're amending a bed of lifeless soil) is certainly not bad for the soil - just don't overtill it, and make sure you don't till unless it's necessary.

The other thing that always drives me crazy, besides the purposeful darkness and untidy nature of the classic 'before' shot, is the way the 'after' shot is almost ALWAYS done at an angle to make the viewer believe that the room has somehow become bigger, by obscuring the third wall. Also, that is usually the wall that the television is on, because no matter how well you style a television, unless you've bought a full-on tv cabinet that can enclose it entirely and disguise it as a piece of furniture, the television is always going to look ugly. I would like, just for once, to see a completely honest 'before' and 'after' transformation, with the same angles, same lighting, same photography ability and style, and have someone attempt to do a bit of styling to the stuff before so I can really see how awesome the transformation is. Otherwise, I just feel cheated.

Actually, I wonder if your landlord is either mistaken or just doesn't want his/her doors marred. The idea of having doors that can be opened from the outside for fire safety does no good if you're not home ant your door is locked! What are the firemen going to do - call the landlord and wait for him to bring the keys to the apartments before they go in to fight the fire? Firefighters force locked doors open all the time. I'm also quite surprised that your apartment doors only have locks on the handles, as all the apartments I ever lived in had separate deadbolts for safety measures. Then again, I live in NYC.

I would suggest that you call the fire department and see what the actual safety regulations for door locks are in your area, then go from there. It may be that you can install a light chain lock on your door high enough that your kids can't reach.

I have a small "other room" basket that I keep in my bedroom all the time, since stuff seems to accumulate there like no other room.I try to empty it out a few times a week or whenever it gets full.