apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

jennnc brought all her plants inside for the season and is looking for new places the put them - she's off to a great start with ideas from her style tray!

• Cure Clock: 3.5 weeks to go!
• Assignment: Read Week Four, pp. 129-153
  • Pare down your book and media collection.
  • Declutter your living room.
  • When shopping, focus on quality furniture that will last a long time.
• Members: 1,735

For many of us our living room is our foyer, dining room, office and even kitchen – with all that activity going on it can be really hard to keep things clean and clear of clutter. Full disclosure: my house has not always been clutter-free and pared-down, but after nearly a decade of moving every year I looked forward to the purging that came along packing up moving all my possessions to a new home. I started to really hold on to the idea that unless an item was something I really loved or had special meaning to me, it was not worth the effort of moving, keeping and finding room for it in my new place. Once I finally settled down a couple of years ago, my place was broken into – full on ransacked! Much of what my boyfriend and I had decided to keep was gone whether we liked it or not…

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How great is this take on the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters? We gave up dryer sheets not too long ago, but we'd like to incorporate these little guys into our laundry routine. They're reusable and filled with homegrown lavender buds.

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We've heard a lot about dumpster pools lately, but what about dumpster gardens? For the urban dweller, this is a great alternative to the rooftop garden. Plus, it's a perfect way to reuse and recycle an abandon container...

• Read the full post at AT:SF

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High ceilings, dramatic rooms, period details and stained glass are just some of the benefits of living in a recently restored church. This one was recently restored by a couple in Kyloe, Northumberland with impressive results ...

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We're big fans of atmospheric lighting (we rely on lamps in our living room and never use the overhead lights). So we're right on board with Daniel Becker's Spark system, a series of energy-efficient LED light bulbs that can be linked together in a variety of ways to form beautiful light sculptures...

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While this isn't the first grain-silo-turned-home we've blogged about (see the Monty-Silo House), it is available to stay in when visiting Texas. One of the many room options at the Gruene Homestead Inn, this 1940's grain silo was purchased and remodeled in 2007 into a one-bedroom, one-bathroom loft...

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Can you live without a fridge? Some people do. The New York Times wrote an article about a number of people who are choosing to ditch their energy consumption —even Energy Star consumption— and go Fridge-less...

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Remember that computer game Myst? It took up countless hours of our junior high lives... And when we spotted this image of sustainable tree houses from Benoit Fray and Dans Mon Arbre, we were immediately plunged back into that otherworld...

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Q: I'm planning a big holiday party as my final Green Cure celebration, and I know evites are the most eco-friendly option, but I would really like to send paper invitations in the mail — 100% recycled of course! Can anyone recommend a good online source for cute, affordable recycled paper invitations?

Sent by Laura

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In our dream life, we're the kind of person who can be showered, dressed and ready in 15 minutes. Our lifelong enslavement to the blow dryer prevented that dream from coming true. Recently, however, we've (pardon the pun) cut the cord on that relationship and it made us wonder if there were other ways we could rethink our grooming habits to make them more eco-friendly...

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Combining two of our favorite things (bikes & beer!), French architect Raphael Betillon takes forks from old bicycles found in junkyards or bike cemeteries, cuts them in half and repurposes the bike hardware into a one-of-a-kind beer bottle opener...

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Remember that table made out of magazines? Well, here's a box made out of a newspaper. The perfect thing to do with all those pages of the Sunday paper.

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The fall is perhaps the one time of year we get ourselves out to a farm. Autumn is prime time for farms, what with all the apple-picking, pumpkin patch, and corn maze fun to be had. Did you go and visit a farm this fall? If so, where did you go?

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Though the month is young, we've already seen some stunning examples of beautifully set tables to inspire the host in all of us. We have to acknowledge though, that not every party is an intimate dinner that calls for our best china and glassware; sometimes we're entertaining 20 friends with ribs and football, or 50 friends at a holiday drop-in. For those occasions when our best just won't do, we were delighted to find an eco-friendly option from Preserve...

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