eeeck's Profile

Your layout is almost identical to my last apartment, except my bathroom is where your walk-in closet is and I had two walk-in closets where your bathroom is. The living room was also 12x20. I had set it up with:

-An L-shaped sectional facing the wall where your TV is, with the chaise part of the L against the window;

-A low credenza on the wall where the TV is, with a flat-panel TV on it;

-2 bookshelves to the right of the credenza (so closer to the entrance to the bedroom)

-A big plant in the corner (to the left of the TV credenza)

-An armchair anchoring the open side of the L

-A wall unit against the kitchen wall.

With your furniture I would put the couch where mine was (back to dining table, facing TV wall), get rid of the loveseat and find 1 or 2 chairs to finish off your seating area. I would then put the desk on the shared kitchen wall.

You will need an end table to put next to the couch with a lamp; the floor lamp will probably look nicest along the wall. Plant or something else organic (large branches in a vase?) is a nice way to add interest to that corner, and I had an uplight behind it to add nice shadows to the room when entertaining.

I think it would be hysterical if you turned this into a giant iPod dock.

This photo is crying out for LOL cats treatment: "im on ur couch. . . plottin against u"

For bathrooms, visual privacy is only one issue; you also need to worry about some of those other senses, like sound and smell! If the frame around the door opening doesn't permit installation of a real door (and this should be something you could nag your landlord to do if renting, and a must-have if you own) there are also sliding door options (which do need wall space for the door to slide in front of) or the much less attractive folding doors.

If you really can't deal with any of these, a curtain panel in a heavy, sound dampening fabric (e.g., lined velvet) hung on a bar in front of the door is the only other option I can think of; a screen just ain't gonna cut it.

If you look at the site this is actually a wood-burning fireplace. They do have some alcohol fireplaces, but I've been concerned they are not really worth it.

In an article in the NYT a little while back, a reviewer basically said it was not much better than lighting a few candles in terms of the flame you get. Another commenter I saw on a blog somewhere basically said "watching a burner on a gas stove is more exciting."

Has anyone else had experiences with alcohol-fueled ventless fireplaces? And are those really illegal in NYC, or is it just the gas ventless fireplaces?

Moving plumbing is not a fun process and you may find this project more difficult and expensive than expected - particularly since it seems that there is not even a sink in the bathroom. Did you ask the board if they would be open to this kind of renovation before you moved in?

That being said, I would suggest you put in a shower only. For a 1BR apartment that sounds like it's in an area likely to appeal to young singles, this should not impact your resale values, and will allow you to really minimize square footage.

I think splitting your window will also be rather awkward. What I would recommend is keeping the window inside the bathroom, but then using glass bricks for part of the wall between the bathroom and the living room to allow some of the natural light in.

Hmm, that major cord management problem in the London house was much less clear in the print version of the Times!

Drapes are PRICEY here in NYC, I got estimates running into the thousands to have them custom-made for my terrace doors - a much smaller area than what you need to cover. I ended up getting ready-made panels from Madura (their store is on the UES), which offered by far the best value: A panel that measured around 9 feet by 11 feet cost well under $200 in a basic fabric.

Since the panels are so much larger you will have significantly fewer seams than if you go the Pottery Barn route and there are several decent fabric alternatives in that pricerange. If your ceilings are not much higher than 9 feet I can highly recommend Madura, as long as you are willing to do a little sewing work to patch together panels and then hem them.

They have a wide assortment of curtain hardware in the basement at Zarin's down on the LES, I would try them; they also have lots of curtain hardware at Bed Bath & Beyond, but not too many old-school things like traverse rods.

My living room used to have the exact same color scheme and I was able to warm it up significantly while still keeping the walls white. Here's what I would recommend:

-PLANTS! It seems a little sterile in your apartment right now, and something living and organic will make a big difference. Make sure you get something big - replacing the large reeds against the wall with a big tree would do it. If you don't have much light there are a lot of low-light plants that would still do well, try a rhapis palm.

-Pillows and throws, all in matching colors to provide the most bang for the buck. I would use reds and purples in the fall/winter and greens in the spring/summer to keep the room feeling fresh; however, lots of colors look great with brown.

-Some nice large colorful bowls/trays on the bottom level of your coffee table will further pick up the color in your pillows and throws and help spread them across the room.

-Put another cube bookshelf side-by-side with the one you currently have. Your sofa is very large and everything else in the room is much smaller, giving you a scale problem. Making the bookshelf into a larger object will help rebalance the room. You can then arrange some fun, colorful objects to further warm up the space.

-Both your lamps are also way too small. Find an Arco-style lamp to put behind the couch (there are lots of affordable knockoffs out there). Rather than put a table lamp next to the TV, I would use uplights behind the tree which I'm hoping you'll put near the windows. Turn them on and you'll get interesting jungle-like shadows which will further liven up your space.

-In terms of art, I would not suggest shelves. Grouping artwork can also be tricky - a bunch of little things scattered around will again be distracting. I saw a great idea that would work here on a home show once: Find a really attractive photo calendar , carefully cut it apart and arrange all the images in a grid of 12 identical frames (cheap to get at Ikea). This would also work with a coffee table photo book - there are loads in the discount aisle at Barnes & Noble.

If you are of an artistic bent, try searching for "rasterbator" on this site (or Google). It's a site that blows up an image to a huge size and prints it out on small pieces of paper, so you can combine them into essentially a photo mural.

Hope this helps, and do post your "after" pics!