eriberri's Profile

Seems like the bone of contention in the comments is over the word "inspired." Some of us read it to be "Inspired by how humans can figure out a way to make the best of anything," and some others read it as a comment on storage ideas. Pretty sure the first interpretation is what the author was getting at.

I find it inspiring how people can live in a situation like that and not give up, just sitting on the ground covered in piles of stuff and wailing. I'm not sure I could cope. I hope I would be able to. Good for them, for clearly spending time to figure out how they can use best the hand they were dealt. Yes, they deserve better, but they are making the absolute best of what they've got, and that should inspire anyone who's reading this and feeling despondent not to give up. (And maybe to adjust their priorities.)

And maybe people meant "inspiring" as in "inspired to help." There's not really any chance for us to help these folks in Hong Kong but there are definitely local people who could use it. Call your local homeless shelter or battered women's shelter and see what you can do.

How often do we see something that's totally different here on AT? Just about never. Kudos, Robb! Unexpected and unique.

Sooooo… I've got a lot of disposable income but when we moved into our house, I bought a Kivik. From the As-Is section of IKEA (the sofa bed model with wooden slats!), for $500.

Why?

Because when we rented our first apartment back home in the US, I got super excited and splurged on a new sofa from Gus Modern. We had a tiny apartment and they sold sexy, tiny sectionals.

My Gus Modern sectional was sagging and lost 4 buttons in <1 year.

When I tried to get warranty service, they told me I had to go through the dealer. Guess what -- the dealer had gone out of business! Gus Modern did not help me. Instead, they screwed out of $3,200.

AND… AND… that sofa was in our SECOND APARTMENT. We weren't able to fully move to the US yet because the green card process for my husband is so long. We spent 6 months in that apartment, on that sofa.

So our $3,200 Gus Modern sofa didn't really sag in 12 months. It sagged in 6 MONTHS of PART TIME USE. And the warranty was a joke.

I can't explain to you how angry this made me.

Never again, I vowed to myself. From here on out, either IKEA -- which is cheap, and you know just what you're getting -- or vintage, which has already survived 40+ years. With springs.

Recently I got a really fantastic vintage sofa off eBay Local for about $800 and plan to have it reupholstered for about $1,200. It's already survived since the 1970s in fine shape. It needs its springs tightened but it's still wonderfully comfortable and the foam is firm… after nearly 50 years. A sofa I can trust. That won't make me unspeakably angry. No more expensive new crap for me. Lesson learned.

PS - Don't waste your money on Gus Modern.

Sooooo… I've got a lot of disposable income but when we moved into our house, I bought a Kivik. From the As-Is section of IKEA (the sofa bed model with wooden slats!), for $500.

Why?

Because when we rented our first apartment back home in the US, I got super excited and splurged on a new sofa from Gus Modern. We had a tiny apartment and they sold sexy, tiny sectionals.

My Gus Modern sectional was sagging and lost 4 buttons in <1 year.

When I tried to get warranty service, they told me I had to go through the dealer. Guess what -- the dealer had gone out of business! Gus Modern did not help me. Instead, they screwed out of $3,200.

AND… AND… that sofa was in our SECOND APARTMENT. We weren't able to fully move to the US yet because the green card process for my husband is so long. We spent 6 months in that apartment, on that sofa.

So our $3,200 Gus Modern sofa didn't really sag in 12 months. It sagged in 6 MONTHS of PART TIME USE. And the warranty was a joke.

I can't explain to you how angry this made me.

Never again, I vowed to myself. From here on out, either IKEA -- which is cheap, and you know just what you're getting -- or vintage, which has already survived 40+ years. With springs.

Recently I got a really fantastic vintage sofa off eBay Local for about $800 and plan to have it reupholstered for about $1,200. It's already survived since the 1970s in fine shape. It needs its springs tightened but it's still wonderfully comfortable and the foam is firm… after nearly 50 years. A sofa I can trust. That won't make me unspeakably angry. No more expensive new crap for me. Lesson learned.

PS - Don't waste your money on Gus Modern.

Durr, I should have seen that. THANKS!

Hey spanky, BK is close to me and I'm looking for somebody to reupholster several challenging mid-century pieces!

But I googled them & couldn't find out where they have a good reputation… couldn't find basically anything about them at all. Where do you hear good things about them? Thanks!

We've got the canvas ones from the Container Store and love them. They're so sturdy and they have magnetic closures and open from the front so you don't have to unstack them. We use them to store other, non-stackable stuff high on closet shelves (e.g. winter hats, scarves, gloves, and so on).

Echo what everyone (constructive) said about lots of art. Also, create "pools of light" around your art with plug-in (not hardwired) picture lights. IKEA has a decent selection, and who'd see screw holes with all that carpet?

Hanging curtains everywhere could also be cool (and also a fire hazard).

Bright, colorful vases. If you like modern, go for art glass style with opaque colors -- Blenko or cheaper alternatives. You could also pair that kinda thing with a bright modern abstract piece of art.

When we moved into our 1740s house with 2 Walls O' Woodwork, we were sure our modern stuff would look ridiculous -- but it doesn't:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiffariffic/7618645696/in/photostream

As for dark, mount a couple spotlights to the ceiling and aim it at the objet d'art you put in front of the woodwork. Pools of light will take it instantly from "gross, dark, old!" to "wow, architectural and lush!".

This is the next step for me, haven't done it yet, but I've seen it work wonders in the lobby of my old apartment building -- it had 7ft tall cherry wood paneling on every wall and instead of looking gross and dark, it just looked *sexy* and sophisticated.

OK, now I actually read the article. I agree with the premise in the title, but really. People with typewriters on tables too small to use them? What if they simply love the way old typewriters look? Would a person come into my office and judge me for my antique camera collection, without knowing (or caring) that I spent my whole childhood messing with film cameras and darkrooms, and collected the cameras across 2 continents? How about the 1950s space age canister vac tucked under a sideboard, something my totally interior-design-ignorant husband rescued from his grandmother's estate a decade before he ever heard of AT? Or my stuffed (toy) zebra head that I bought on a whim during Christmas in Vienna, which lived in our home office for years? Should I stop doing what makes me happy because somebody else decided it is a tired trend?

All that matters about a home is how it makes the people who live there feel.

If people are insecure in their tastes and so they copy what they see, so what? That's how everybody starts. If they're proud of their first little forays, so what? Why shouldn't they be? If they moved up from buying whatever was cheapest at Wal-Mart and bought something "trendy" and vintage instead, just because it's nice to look at, how is that bad? Or if somebody is so rich that they pay a stranger to do it for them… what if they simply don't care?

Nothing wrong with looking at their photos and saying "Too cold for me" or "Do they really live there?" -- but a NYT piece? Mountain out of a molehill.

Plus this is just ignorant:

“Even my grandparents went out and bought the same lamps as their neighbors,” she said. “The difference was, they weren’t trying to be awesome. They were just trying to get lights in their house.”

Yes, our generation invented decorative items and the desire to be proud of their home. Totally. Awesome. No generation before cared about what other people thought of their stuff. Certainly not the Victorians who invented and perfected mass production and knick-knack rooms and "vignettes" which were, in fact, whole rooms. Not the people who made totally trendy and over-propped neogothic, neo-tudor, neo-georgian, blah de blah blah houses in ahistorical contexts. Certainly not the guy who invented the first home furniture catalog (hello, Chippendale, name sound familiar?).

No wonder the newspaper business is dying.