apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Gardeners relate to our planet more intimately than most, with their hands in the dirt and their eyes on the weather. So who better to speak to environmental concerns like climate change? The Late Show Gardens, which took place this weekend at Cornerstone Sonoma, invited landscape designers to create gardens around the theme of sustainability...

Maybe you've noticed that the Parsons table, in the myriad incarnations of its simple, balanced form, is one of the most frequently advertised items in our Scavenger posts. The reason for the table's popularity (and its inherent greenness) is clear, as it can blend with almost any style, and is a perfectly versatile and timeless choice, especially for a dining room...

Names: Katy and Tighe
Location: Vashon, Washington
Size: 850 square feet
Years lived in: 1 year, rented

Back when Katy and Tighe were city dwellers, they lived a semi-country life. They built a greenhouse in a tiny San Francisco backyard, grew their own food, and made plans to raise chickens. Eventually, having moved to Seattle, they decided to try out an actual country life. They found a little cottage on Vashon Island, got an (adorable) dog, and set about making a lovely home among the madronas and pines...

As you've probably gathered, we're way into map décor around here. My favorite maps for framing tend to depict more than just physical geography, like these two literary maps of San Francisco, from two brilliant local artists...

We swoon at the thought of heated floors. Efficient, green, and oh-so-toasty, a floor heated from beneath with a radiant hot water system is perfect for San Francisco, where it's often colder inside than outside. But is this a project worth tackling on your own? Design2Share and casaGURU have put together a super-informative guide to help those brave enough to consider the project...

Name: Jim Kumiega
Location: SoMa, San Francisco

The entrance to Jim Kumiega's garden is down a long dark hallway from the street. At first to creep down a tunnel like this in SoMa feels like a bad idea, but then before long the tunnel ends in the most enchanting courtyard garden, a small concrete plot bounded by four adjacent buildings, none of which are visible through a lush, rippling canopy of bamboo and vines.

Furniture and object upcycling is one of the more intriguing new artistic media of our era. These days it seems there are so many artists and designers working in the spirit of sustainability, bringing new design principles to old objects, and often with a refreshing playfulness. British artist Donna Walker, for instance, reinvents domestic items and imbues them with new meaning. Can you tell what this chair used to be?

According to its LEED for Homes score, the Gottfried family's East Bay craftsman is the greenest private home in America. Fortunately, when they decided to retrofit the house for a greener lifestyle, they chose to keep the beautiful craftsman bones intact. The result is an amazingly harmonious combination of early-20th-century style with innovative new systems for everyday conservation, including wastewater recycling and solar energy. Details after the jump...

We'll admit to an addiction when it comes to glass bottles and jars. We save them all, can't bear to part with them even for recycling, and we try to put the pretty ones to good use as vases or catch-alls in our home. This idea from Photojojo is a fun alternative, especially the way they've styled it. One jar frame might look a little chintzy, but this grouping of different shapes is sweet, especially in a sunny spot where light can fill the glass. The squat little jar, with its cropped photo of a sly expression, is especially nice. Click through for more examples and easy instructions...

There are so many things we love about vertical gardens: they’re aesthetically stunning, living works of art; they’re environmentally friendly, requiring less water than traditional gardens; and they make perfect sense for urban small space-dwellers. The tillandsia wall at the new Bardessono Hotel in Yountville, Ca takes all three of these concepts to new extremes. A collaborative effort from three local designers—garden designer Flora Grubb; her fiancé, builder Kevin Smith; and architect Seth Boor—the tillandsia wall has an otherworldly quality that sets it apart from anything we’ve seen before. Details of the project and more photos after the jump…

Each day our local waste collector, Sunset Scavenger, receives the equivalent of several drums of latex paint for recycling. But instead of sending it off to be used as a cement additive (as many recycling programs do), Sunset mixes the paint into new colors and gives it away. Find out how they do it (and how to get some for yourself!) after the jump…

posted originally from: AT:San Francisco

We saw these beautiful gold-leafed bottles by Tomas Kral in the most recent Readymade, and they inspired us to think about trying a similar project at home. After all, his lovely vessels started out life as pickle jars and soda bottles, and we’ve got plenty of both, washed and waiting to be repurposed at home. So we did some surfing to see how viable DIY gilding might be. See a roundup of what we found after the jump…

posted originally from: AT:San Francisco

We love to use repurposed tins for flower arrangements. Lately, oyster tins have been our favorites. They’re fun for fans of vintage typography, and the faded colors are a nice complement to bouquets with a lot of greenery. See more examples after the jump...

posted originally from: AT:San Francisco

We always love the incongruous beauty of industrial elements in the garden. So last week, when we stopped by Flora Grubb Gardens, we were completely wowed by these little potted landscapes installed in repurposed car parts. Click through for close-ups and to learn some tips for replicating this project on your own…

posted originally from: AT:San Francisco