Easyenough's Profile

Looks are not what's great about a white kitchen, it's the utility. You know what needs to be cleaned, it's a neutral context for preparing diverse styles of food, and the color is widely available so you can replace pieces as needed. There's nothing wrong with the "look," but it exists because it's useful, not because of it's appearance.

Ditto. I can't get enough of it either. I like it in restaurants, in kitchens, in bathrooms, and on a boat.

In my apartment, I pulled the sheet rock down to expose brick and what I saw made me lose my breath, I was so happy: there was subway tile wainscoting on the brick wall, original from 1900. Now I just have to figure out what to do about all the plaster above it.

I second the wood stove. I installed one with a glass face two years ago use it as my primary source of heat even though I live in an apartment in the city. The very efficient zoned warmth, the living light, the wall of wood, it's all wonderful.

My garbage windows will be replaced in three weeks (same as moke076 above) and I'm hoping they become my second favorite luxury.

I did a year long search for a bed and really wanted to reduce or eliminate sleeping on or near plastic or latex. In the end I found a reference on apartmenttherapy to handmaker of beds in NYC called Charles H. Beckley that makes beds without plastic.

No conversation about amazing beds should exclude one of these custom beds. They make them to any dimension, lots of fabrics to choose from, everything is custom. It took about 10 weeks for them to make it and two weeks to get it delivered but it cost less than a high-end sealy including the handmade boxspring. I've had it for two years, and today, coincidentally, my swedish mother, who sleeps on a hastens and is sleeping on my beckley over the holidays called it the most comfortable bed she's ever slept on. It's the best furniture purchase I've ever made. And the production is in NY and urban which must stand for something. http://www.chbeckley.com/

With only 734 sq ft of floor space but 12 ft ceilings, the extra volume just felt underused, so I made a 6'6" tall sleeping area above a 7 ft tall walk-in closet (the math works because you don't walk on the bed, and the closet interiors are 5'6").

All of this might seem claustrophobic, but it isn't. The view from the sleeping area down to the rest of the apartment makes the space feel huge. And sleeping in a quiet, light controlled, well-proportioned small bedroom feels secure. So what I'm proposing is that having both high and low ceilings is great - you never forget the value of the height, and you might be able to make use of the intimacy of the low ceiling.

I take two pieces of trim and screwing from the back clamp them around the top and bottom of the art. If you do it carefully, you will do no damage to the map and the strips will be readily removable. You can then 1) screw the top strip into the wall (and let it hang) 2) screw the top and bottom strips into the wall with some tension 3) attach wire or twine or rope (depending on your preferred look) to the top trim and hang it from that.

Trim is easily paintable and comes in so many shapes, sizes, and prices that you can easily customize the look. The final result can look like a scroll, which I like, or with nearly invisible top and bottom borders.

Good luck.

For me an hour and a half is the norm for a three course six person meal plus light cleaning and sorting. If I don't know what I'm cooking I preheat the oven and turn on an (electric) burner to boil water. I might also pull out the rotisserie and get it hot, then I do a quick inventory of the fridge and freezer.

A couple nights ago I had three guests coming in an hour and a half. After turning everything on as above I just went for it: dropped potatoes in the water. Got onions going low on the stove, and put four frozen lamb chops sealed in plastic into a luke warm bowl of water.

I washed fresh spinach and found some cold tongue in the fridge I'd made the day before. I also saw an under-ripe mango, corn on the cob (Very lucky) and some very old cherry tomatoes.

So once I had a plan I started cleaning my loft-style apt. So bed, clothes, everything had to be sorted out - took about 15 minutes. Returned to the kitch. Shook the covered onions, turned down potatoes, and started cutting mango, corn, and tomatoes into a bowl.

The chops, defrosted on the outside got tossed into a fish rack, and the whole thing covered in olive oil and then into the rotisserie.

Potatoes (not done) were taken out, sliced, went into a serving bowl and strewn with the onions herbs and some garlic with a little bit of cream sloshed into the bottom - then put into the oven. I opened and drank sparkling vino verde, did some dishes, and figured out I could use a feta herb spread as the sauce for the mango salad salsa. Spinach got triple washed and onto the hot potato burner to be blanched with lemon juice, pernod, and when that wasn't any good, I tossed in a small amount of molasses, which helped.

8 min to go: Plate the salsa, rest the lamb, stove goes off, but potatoes stay in. Kitch gets a quick clean, esp. the floor. Spinach is ready to get hot but is just waiting. Tongue comes out and I find some blanched almond slivers. which will garnish. I also find an old mint jelly, which the lamb gets tossed in when the chops come out. And is plated with potatoes gratin and some sprigs of mint.

The outside buzzer calls my cell, I buzz them in, and I throw on a fresh shirt. The GF brings an amazing lemon tart she made including crust in the same time, and we look (and eat) like stars!

Ratcheting it up a bit to a 40 minute challenge would be a bit more exciting...

When people are losing jobs, incomes are down, foreclosures are high, and the finance system is in shambles a 4,600 sqft midtown loft is brushing up against the vulgar.

Thanks AmyV. I'd prefer using permits and this detailing of the stick end of the business is an incentive to start.

In my last rental apartment I hung a huge jute rug on a wall by mounting carpet strips (cheap little strips of wood with little metal pins sticking out diagonally) at the top edge of the wall - you will have to drill into the brick, but I wouldn't be shy - when you take out the screws the holes that high up will be scarcely visible.

Anything you lift onto that strip just hangs from it. I put a few extra screws through the carpet (it was jute, so nothing was damaged) to make sure it didn't slip. It was super secure after four years when I moved out and everyone visiting loved how the heavy rug warmed up a cold plaster wall. I put spot light pointing upward below the rug which lifted the ceiling up. What surprised me was how much warmer sound became with the rug up.

Good luck and happy new year!