lilalcarese's Profile

hey, i'm a designer and if you're interested, i do consultations, which are much cheaper and allow you to decorate on your own time. i come to your apartment, talk to you, figure out your needs and style (i have a quiz and inspiration photos to help you focus it!), take photos and measurements, and come back to you a week later with a design box: floorplans, paint ideas, reuses for your existing stuff, suggestions for new furnishings within your budget, etc. you can then carry them out on your own, as your budget and time allow. you can check out my website if you want: www.merimacdesign.com

LOVE the tile! i think it, combined with your floor tiles, gives a very subtle spanish vibe, which you could play with. and you can bring in some color with cabinet knobs, if the landlord allows, and anthropologie has fabulous ones.

i think a tiny (yet major!) request you could make to the landlord is to paint the wood strip around the tile the same white as the cabinets. like the walls, nothing a new renter would notice, but it would be so much cleaner!

@ bepsf: a little bit of oil-based paint in the water isn't harmful. it's just oil-based - like bacon grease. you wouldn't want to pour an entire pan of grease down your sink, because it would clog, but the little bit that comes from washing it away is fine.

as an artist, i've used oil paints for years, and every art school i know of only prohibits the pouring of turpentine down the sink. the only harmful ingredients in oil paints tend to be certain pigments themselves, like cadmium. wall paints contain none of those. your sink should be fine!

kelly's style is very editorial, which isn't exactly weird when she's styling for an editorial shoot of her projects. it's over the top, but i love her. she designs a fantasy, full of glam and money! it's why she's so good at hotels: you can imagine yourself at that bathroom vanity like you're in a movie scene. it's escapism.

her clients and her designs never pretend to be for normal houses in which people go about the normal tasks of living; these are homes for people with multiple homes and a staff. or for people who want to pretend they have a staff. and what, after all, is the harm in a little fantasy in your decor? she's not saying everyone should live in her designs, just that she thinks they're fabulous and fun.

i may not dig the 80s sculptures, but i dig her ballsiness.

if you can put a long bar on your shortest wall, you can just get a wooden closet rod (or 1.5" wooden curtain rod) and two wall-mounted brackets for it, and cut your rod to fit. we did this for my roommate and it cost about $25.

i'm hoping to do this to a small room soon, as well. i'm going to put a small dresser under the rod, making the space above the dresser for short hanging like shirts, and the rest of the space for long hanging.

for non-hanging, i'm eyeing the EXPEDIT large shelf from ikea for folded stuff, and possibly some BILLY bookshelves as well. i used the EXPEDIT in college as my only dresser, and i loooooved it. i'm not good about putting things away, and being able to just shove it back on a shelf somehow kept me neater!

bookshelves also give you the space above them for out of season boxes or boots.

whether or not you like the stone, your big issue is the lack of light. my main advice: you will never make it look like there are windows in there, no matter how light you paint it. light walls do not a window make.

GO DARK! go dark and cozy. you can't fake windows and natural light, so light walls just highlight your problem. if you make everything dark, however, it becomes a super-cozy little cave. i'd do a very deep, soft blue-gray, to play off the warm wood and stone color. do an even darker gray carpet. let any light colors be from accents, like art and pillows. and most important: paint the ceiling. you'll feel cocooned instead of trapped.

that might be by ankasa. they have a retail store in new york (i used to work there) and are sold in department stores like bloomingdales, barneys, etc. you can't buy online, but here's the store list: http://www.ankasa.com/home/stores.html

they have a huge range of indian embroidered pillows, but they're not cheap - all the embroidery is hand-done by artisans (not little kids, hooray!), and the quality is worth the hefty price tag.

there is nothing - NOTHING - i have done to my rental that has made more of a difference than putting up painted pegboard in my tiny kitchen to hang all my pots and pans from. it looks cute, it makes cooking much easier for me, and it freed up a ton of cabinet space for the rest of my stuff.

looks like you have space on the wall next to the refridgerator. pegboard can be cut with a little hacksaw from the hardware store to fit the space exactly, and since pans are fairly flat, you'll still be able to open the cabinets. you could also put some behind the stove for utensils and spices.

also, small note: get a short extension cord and tack it to the underside of your cabinets, so you don't have that random cord mocking you every time you use the microwave. it's going to make a big difference if it looks neat, i promise.

yes! dark! a super dark slate-toned blue would look SEXY. be bold and go with your gut!

i used to have the same horrible color cabinets, in a kitchen half as wide! AWFUL. my landlady was immediately on board with painting them, and the room looks adorable now.

color suggestions: do the bottom cabinets in a dusky dark blue-gray, like Old Navy by benjamin moore, which would offset the yellow beautifully. then do the top in a crisp white. the contrast makes the top cabinets seem even lighter and more open by comparison, and you can do cute graphic print curtains.