Chester Shoeshine's Profile

Never seen this picture before.

What happened to all the Ansel Adams prints in bathrooms? Half Dome over the toilet? No more?

The Keep Calm poster is just a secret handshake among AT readers, right?

What do you do with no hood? Does grease or steam get annoying? We have the same oven deal in our place, and it's already bugging me not to have a light over the stove. I'm not sure what I can put there that won't be affected by heat/steam or whatever. An outdoor-grade floodlight in a metal pendant? What do other people do?

No, there are not "tons of similar pieces out there." That's exactly why this frustrates some of us. It would be basically impossible to recreate something like this now, given the rarity and cost of certain woods/veneers and the scarcity of truly gifted woodworkers. There is a finite number of these pieces, and every time some idiot screws one up, there's -1.

The number of pieces of incredible craftsmanship will continue to dwindle as real furniture is replaced with the cardboard IKEA stuff. Hey, I love IKEA, it's what I can afford now, but let's not pretend it's the same as say, this sideboard. There will be fewer and fewer of these pieces, and these pieces, if taken care of, will outlive their owners, as they already have several times. So as vintage and antiques become rarer and rarer, high quality furniture - new or used - will increasingly become only for the rich.

If you look at it that way - never mind whatever artifact value this has historically and culturally - then it seems at the very least a little selfish to go mucking up a rare thing so that no one else will be able to enjoy it, doesn't it? Or should us proles be content to visit the Smithsonian in order to see furniture that wasn't made out of recycled toilet paper in China?

This is what my new apartment looks like, and it's horrible! I can't wait to be unpacked and settled in already.

If "frustration" is the desired outcome of this design, they got it.

If you call in the next 20 minutes, we'll even throw in this Miracle Squeegee for FREE! That's normally a $30 value! That's right, for FREE! But you must call in the next 20 minutes! Operators are standing by!

Call 1-800-Z-HANGER. That's 1-800-Z-HANGER! Visa and Mastercard accepted! Sorry, no C.O.D.s. Call Now!

When we first moved into our current apartment, the neighbor upstairs would play, on repeat, for at least an hour every morning the same creepy song about being cut open and keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding.

First of all, it takes some kind of creepy freak to be so obsessed what that godawful song. Second, it takes a horrifically obnoxious freak to play that song on endless repeat for an hour or more at a crack. EVERY MORNING. Third, it takes a masochistic freak show from hell to do that at 7:30 in the morning so loud that the shared airshaft vibrated to that song.

I thought I was going to commit suicide before that weirdo moved out. I guess I could have talked to him about it, but anyone who obsessed with a song about being cut open and perpetually bleeding was not someone with whom I wanted to have any interaction.

I don't care how loud your music is until it shakes stuff off my walls. But don't ever, ever play the same song over a hundred times. I will find you, and I will make you hurt.

That link that mwzoe gave shows a chair that I am almost entirely sure is the exact same chair at urban outfitters:

http://tinyurl.com/n6j4yc

Anyone know if they're actually different? I suspect the same manufacturer.

Uh, defensive much? I'm not the one going to great lengths to write "me too" posts about the horrible moral scandal that is a hotel pillow theft. I didn't think it needed excessive explanation, but: I was commenting on the level of outrage (repetitive outrage, at that) about something really random in the scheme of things.

I'm sure you're an incredibly special, thoughtful, exceptionally good person, and perhaps even one of the best people ever, Lori, really! You are, you snowflake, you!

Remember, when internet posters miss an opportunity to clutch their pearls, the terrorists win. So, because I luuuurve America, I'll join in:

BAD SARAH! BAD! YOU MUST REPENT! THIEF! DIRTY THIEF! I BET SHE SMOKES, TOO! OMG! BAN HER FROM ALL PUBLIC SPACES IMMEDIATELY!

Really, southwick? How am I missing all the bathtub-shaped skylights in the thousands and thousands of craigslist apartment ads I've viewed over the years? Or the 20 foot ceilings? Or the entire walls of floor-to-ceiling windows? I would guess very few AT readers live in anything that resembles most of the places featured on here.

I don't expect every post to be useful for my own apartment, but it does get a little tiring to see what bepsf very accurately called Real Estate Porn. It's staged to death. Luxury condo photos are just as airbrushed as Britney's acne.

If there's a budget or DIY way to accomplish a similar aesthetic, that's one thing, but if the whole "inspiration" is having a giant round hole in the ceiling or 30-foot-windows it does feel sort of disingenuous to say "look at this cool idea!" Idea for what? Envy? Fantasies involving chainsaws and evictions?

Just call it porn. That way everyone knows it's totally unrealistic but we're going to look at it and want it anyway.

War, genocide, abused children, rape, drug-resistant staph, Sarah Palin, nuclear testing...

yeah, you know, I just can't muster the moral outrage about a g. d. hotel pillow.

I hope the moralists are heavily involved in alleviating the above-listed crises, and not just posting on a website so they can feel really smug about their superior scruples.

Sigh.