apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This time of year it seems that the cards pour in faster than we can read them. Instead of the usual prop-them-on-the-mantle routine, we take the good wishes from friends and family them into a kind of holiday garland of their own. . .

How do the holidays smell in your house? Emily of Emilystyle has reminded us of the good smells that pomanders bring into the house this time of year. They are easy to make, last forever and can carry over past the holiday season and be used in your home year round. Click through for more on making one for your own home.

We know that we're not alone when we say we love typography, so we doubt we'll be alone when we say that we love this poster.

Like many of you, we're long term renters. We also happen to have a landlord who is, for all intensive purposes, absentee, meaning that we've had many conversations with our neighbors about just how much work we can do without, ahem, permission.

That's right, just a before. We're about to undertake the task of redoing our dining room to make it function better as an office (while still being able to serve as a dinner party space,) and instead of showing you a before and after and then being frustrated by great suggestions once we've already done the work, we thought we'd solicit some opinion for AT readers before we got started.

Incorporating a flat screen TV into this built in floor-to-ceiling bookcase was a challenge for us on a recent project - the client wanted the TV to stay on that wall, but we weren't thrilled by the way it had been jammed in there originally. Click below the jump to see what we did.

We're not big into pumpkins or cornucopias this time of year, but political decorating? That's something we can get behind. And even though this year's election is over, we'll be leaving up this reminder of one of our favorite activities for a little while longer.

Every time we entertain we're reminded how much we love a good trivet. Whether a simple felt circle or something fancier, trivets can often be the perfect blend of form and function - because who says a trivet can't be pretty while protecting your table from a hot dish?

Do you save loose change? Not the most original idea, but one that works well for us, we use our vintage demijohn (which we found at the Melrose Trading Post during a trip to LA last year) as a sort of retro savings account - collecting all of our loose change and sometimes a bill or two, all while being pretty enough that it fits nicely into our decor.

We have a soft spot for anything related to the Northern California shore, so it's no surprise these barnacle tiles made our hearts go pitter patter.