apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Recently, The New York Times showcased a three-story Haight-Ashbury Victorian that was transformed from a hippie boardinghouse into a modern family home by a husband-wife Norwegian architect and Pottern Barn Kids furniture designer. Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes were able to see that beyond the atrocious stucco job, mismatched walls and ceilings, and funky odors that permeated throughout the house on their first viewing, this charming house with "character and soul" would be the foundation for a home all their own...

This week Danielle found photos of people who use their dining rooms as offices or other types of rooms. In cities like San Francisco, it's not uncommon for landlords to list an apartment with an enclosed dining room as another bedroom. And even when people do have a formal dining room, it's not uncommon for that space to be used for other purposes.

Beers were spilled, three bands played inside the kitchen, and about 40 or so people crammed into a tiny studio apartment for a rock show in Oakland this past weekend. We don't personally know the girl named Sasha who lived in the apartment, but we were impressed with her personal decorating style (great small space solutions!) and her being game to open her home to strangers for a cramped, but fun house show. After the jump, see more photos of the apartment taken before the show started.

Back in July, Gregory gave us suggestions on how to re-use green tea leaves as a natural deodorizer to freshen up the home. We like this idea of re-using the leaves for a completely different purpose other than brewing a beverage, so we found some other tips for used dried green tea leaves (called "chagra"). After the jump, we explain how to properly dry the leaves for re-use, and then tell you more about using chagra.

We can't remember the first time we came across Marushka prints, but we do know that it was love at first sight. And we know we're not alone. In fact, two homes we've featured in recent AT House Tours had Marushka prints in them (Serena and Mason, Phillip, we're talking about you!).

If you want to freak us out, mention bedbugs. We had an unfortunate encounter in a Santa Cruz motel room, one belated Valentine's Day weekend a couple of years ago, that has left us mentally scarred by the ordeal. Let's just say that we woke up with two bugs feasting on our face and several more scurrying about the sheets at, oh... 3:30 a.m. Needless to say, we got out of Dodge, pronto.
So when we were watching "Dogs 101" on Animal Planet the other night, we were very interested to learn about beagles that are trained to sniff out bedbugs.

We'll never get those gorgeous red, brown, yellow, and orange fall leaves in California, but we still love autumn anyway. In honor of the season, we offer this roundup of leaf motif home design. More items after the jump.

Being less than graceful most of the time, we're appreciative of design that celebrates the imperfect in such a way that is purposeful, modern, and sleek. Japanese design company Kyouei Design's liquid lamps are the perfect example of just that. These stark white lamps are made from sturdy iron plate, but their melted look reminds us more of that glass cup full of white paint that we knocked over if it had been suspended in motion.

We replaced our vinyl shower liner with a new curtain, but we felt bad about just chucking the old one in the trash. We decided to keep it to use around the house because it seemed like something that could come in handy. We're glad we did, because we've already used it a multiple times as a drop cloth when we've painted. After the jump, read a few more ideas for re-purposing a vinyl shower curtain.

Like the deer, the panda, and the wolf that have become the ubiquitous animals of indie rock band names, the owl has become the clichéd kitsch animal in hipster wares. But you know what? We still give a hoot about cool owl decor. We think this over the top collection of vintage wide-eyed feathered friends, found in an apartment window near Dolores Park, is pretty gosh darn cool (yes, macrame and all).

Our recycling is full of junk mail and election flyers. Hating to see all that colorful and heavy card stock paper just go to waste, we decided to create something from them. Here are the results of our endeavor. After the jump, find out more about how we made this simple junk mail triptych.

We were sure floored (or should we say doored?) when we saw this trio of unusually placed knobs while on a late night walk in the Mission.

We know, it's only October, but stores are starting to carry calendars for 2009 and we're already looking forward to the new year, and a new calendar. But when we came across Lisa Dejohn's oh-so-cute desktop calendar for Chronicle Books (#5, above), we took a liking to the idea of never having to replace or throw away our next calendar. Here's a roundup of perpetual calendars that we like.