apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You don't have to jump on a plane to "get away" for an escape. The thing we love about Los Angeles is its proximity to a myriad of destinations that quickly and easily ease one into a completely different state of mind, whether it be hiking on a coastal trail, taking a boat ride out to Catalina Island, visiting a waterfall near Solvang (it's where we're heading Saturday), or eastward into the glamorous desert locales or rustic mountain hideaways. And of course, there are plenty of resort destinations right here in Los Angeles that can pamper you for a few days in style if you don't really want to get away all too far...

We have been seeing a lot of blues being used in interiors especially indigo and royal blue. Following are some design tips for incorporating blue into your own home. For a client I worked with earlier this year, they wanted to add blue in their space, so we found fun indigo pillows and a chair that we custom made through Mitchell Gold. We located royal blue fabric and had the custom benches made that open for extra storage...

Because sometimes you don't really need an excuse to bring "cute" into our lives, Japanese company D-Bros. offers sticky notes arranged like sliced fruit. These kawaii note pads even come packaged in the foam protective netting often seen at asian supermarkets to protect the most choice of fruits. We'd say these are deserving of the label of most choice of office memos we've seen in awhile...

THIS WEEK
• Visionary Boutique 50% Housewares Sale
• Feeding Birds 4th of July Print Party
• Plastica Indoor/Outdoor Rug Sale
• Z Gallerie Outdoor Furniture Sale
• Renoma Lighting Warehouse Sale
• Denizen Gallery Floor Sample Sale
• Richard Neutra, Architect: Sketches and Drawings
• "Era" at the Oviatt Building
• Arkitip + Shepard Fairey

Jump below for more information...

The Three Gardrobes by Tamizo Architects Group is an interesting idea: instead of cramming the utilities of the typical bathroom into a small space, the Three Gardrobes compartmentalizes the bath, toilet and wash basin into three separate closets. As described, "...instead of designing a furniture for a bathroom we placed bathroom in a furniture." Obviously you'd have to have a large room to accommodate the conceptual inversion, but then we thought this might be a fascinating idea to apply to a vacation home with an outdoor bathroom with similar functional "gardrobes"...

Name: Atago House; Small House Design Lab
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Size: 1195 sq. ft.

Even people not all too fond of modern minimalism should find something to like in this modest sized home from Small House Design Lab which squeezes 1195 sq. ft. out of a 506 sq. ft. plot of land. The feat is achieved by its verticality and the intelligent use of built-in storage and interior architectural features (small space living is all about storage), giving the interior space a great sense of possibility and potential (these photos have been obviously staged without any occupants, so the minimalist effect is a bit exaggerated). And how we love that expansive table that stretches out from the kitchen out to a raised platform, giving the occupants a place to dine in both Japanese and Westernized fashion...

There's always something pleasantly rewarding about carefully cutting something out, folding and slotting tab "A" into tab "B" and converting a 2 dimensional piece of paper into a 3 dimensional object. So for those of you looking for a bit of novelty without a real concern about sound quality, these Princeton PSP-NXT retro themed stereo system paper models are likely to be something right up your alley...

• Read the rest over at Unplggd

It's Escapes Month, but in this economy and with our current one income source household (layoffs) means "getting away" is going to mostly be limited to heading over to nearby destinations like Joshua Tree, Idyllwild, and of course, the beach! We're huge fans of tide pools, so that means we're over at Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes snooping around looking for nudibranchs, star fish, and other aquatic finds. But did you know just across the street from some of the finest beaches in Southern California is an architectural destination which embodies an inspiring merging of nature and design? Neither did we, despite passing by several times the sign posts. The Lloyd Wright designed Wayfarer Chapel looks like it will be amongst our summer weekend stops...

Jeff Klarin and Rebecca Johnson of Bughouse Art + Design wrote to us about their IKEA hacked creations recently showcased in the front window of Handmade Galleries in Sherman Oaks. In their hands, a $19.99 IKEA Ivar chair gets a royal treatment while the $49.99 Kulla table lamp finds its inner Rob Halford...

Dear Apartment Therapy, I am trying to decide which sofa to purchase.  I personally think leather is easier to maintain but unfortunately the sofa that I prefer is not available in leather but is available in microsuede.  I have swatches from both companies and currently in the process of testing.  The microfiber is holding up well but just not as easy to wipe off as the leather.  Searched the site and saw similar questions for microfiber/tweed, but no microfiber leather comparison. Looking to see what AT thinks...

Here's a few of the recent posts over at our home technology and design site, Unplggd:

• Bughouse Scratch DJ Coffee Table
• Sidecar Furniture TV Console
• Battling Cable-Forced Room Layouts?
• Toast on the Run: Portable Toaster
• Kim Gets Vintage for Inspiration: Camera Stacks

One of the most vibrant and busy sections at this year's Dwell on Design exhibition was in a front booth co-hosted by Dwell on Design and the Los Angeles Timess, showcasing the entries for Los Angeles Times Reclaimed Design Contest. Each designer was asked to create a section only using materials from the Los Angeles Times' classifieds section. To be honest, we're pleasantly surprised at the quality of the decorative and furnishings created...we thought everyone had moved over to Craigslist, but we're obviously mistaken from the looks of these eyecatching creations...

We've just been admiring the photos from a house tour over at Tchochkes.com of what is described as an "extremely white apartment"; the spaces showcased are definitely a monochromatic ode to the fairest of the perceptible light spectrum, with bedroom, living room and home office all primarily decorated in white. Besides our surprise of actually taking a liking to a multitude of pillows on a couch (normally a pet peeve), the one feature that really caught our eye was the most colourful element in the home: art created by an arrangement of toy cars!

Name: Sadie
Location: Venice, CA
Type of space: Front yard
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: This is still a work in progress. After months of convincing, my green-thumbed landlord (aka my mom) finally allowed me to "organize" a section of my front yard. She is into the "jungle look", while I am more into the modern, well put together look. We had to come up with a common ground, and I think we accomplished it by creating a more usable area, with raised bed veggie and herb gardens. What I like most about the area is that hopefully we will be able to enjoy the fresh food when they grow and that people walking by make comments about how nice it looks now.