apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We take a lot of digital photos. While some are for pleasure, the majority of our pics are for business -- the business of blogging, selling, and cat rescuing.

Being bloggers, we end up using a lot of our own photos in posts. Some of us have set up macros and Automator scripts to resize photos automatically, saving us a lot of time, but we wish things were even more automated. More precisely when it comes to uploading photos onto Craigslist and eBay. For a while now, I've had an idea on how to improve iPhoto and last week, during a meeting with Apple where they showed us their new iMac, MacBook, and Magic Mouse (review coming soon!) I pitched them my idea and, surprisingly, the PR folk loved it and promised to bring it up the Apple flagpole. Here's the scoop…

Name: Christie Chase
Location: Houston, Texas
Size of Loft: Loft space with garage below built in 2005 about 800 sq.ft.
Blog: christiechase.blogspot

We've posted about some of Christie Chase's DIY ideas, including her stained Elfa shelving, a few times now, so we thought we'd ask to get the full tour of where Christie comes up with all her fabulous ideas....

Oh mang! When we were little we never had a TV in our room, let alone a whole kids loft media room! Featured on Design*Sponge, this kid’s loft is found in the home of Rosy Levy. She designed the room so that the TV, on a swivel arm, can swing out for easy viewing from the kid's desk (you can check out their homework space after the jump)or can be watched from the king size futon. "We set up a king upholstered mattress to lounge, play Xbox and have kids sleep over," Levy tells Design*Sponge.

Klaas Jan Guchelaar loves music. So much so that he's found a career as a concert photographer in the Netherlands. When he's not snapping priceless moments at Living Colour concerts he's sitting back in his living room and soaking up the sounds from a very impressive DIY theater...

• The Office Rainn Wilson's New Man Cave
  
• The Labyrinth Aquarium
  
• Andrew's Ingenious Floating Monitor Home Office
  
• Two Great DIY Floating Wall Ideas

One of the worst ways to wake up it to realize that your car isn't parked in the appropriate alternate side parking spot. You rush out, jammies still on, eyes still crusted over, and then drive around for an hour trying to find a spot. Not the best part of waking up. But, garages are a bit of a luxury, plus they tend to take up valuable home real estate. Moto Designshop has designed an 18-foot wide townhouse with a one car garage that brings a front yard, rather than taking one away...

We love Rainn Wilson. His Dwight on The Office is amazing. Ah-May-Zing! While his character works in one of the most blah working environments at Dunder-Mifflin, Rainn has quite the nice home office set-up thanks to the DIY Network's Man Cave. The show, hosted by former NFL player Tony Siragusa, recently built Rainn his own freestanding space that acts as both a working space and chillax room. Ah to be a celebrity who gets free stuff...

Vancouver won its bid to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and they're rolling out all the punches. It's Ottawa Mint facility has already produced all 615 gold, silver and bronze medals for the Winter Games, as well as the 399 athlete medals for Paralympic Winter Games. What we never knew is that each hosting city gets to design its own medals from scratch, giving the iconic rewards their own twist. Vancouver decided to go geeky green, by recycling the metals in old circuit boards into the coveted prizes...

Ah gold. The color of luxury. Luckily, even though gold plating is on the pricey side, plenty of gadget manufacturers have figured out how to give their products some bling bling without charging a lot of cha-ching. Here's a look at some of the best looking gizmos sporting that gilded touch.

You know, the last time we were at the gym, pounding the revolving mat on our treadmill, we thought, if only we were running in zero G!

Ok, we weren't, but if we were there's a product for that and it actually has some really great health benefits...

Product: Eklipse
Designer: Sonoro
Price: $499.99
Rating: Weak Recommend

I live in a 300 square foot studio, yet I have a stereo amp that could fill a large dance club -- 770 watts. Despite all that potential boom, I only have a pair of Athena speakers plugged in that can handle 125-watts, but hey, if I wanted, I could blow your world.

Ironically, despite having so much power in the "living room," the way my space is laid out, you can't really hear the music from the kitchen. I started looking for an iPod dock/stereo small enough to fit on the shelf in my kitchen, but then thought, "do I really need 700-watts of stereo in my living room?" My search expanded to iPod docks that could easily be moved from kitchen to living room. Over the next few months I'll be taking a look at all kinds of iPod docks in the hopes of finding the perfect solution. Maybe my insights will help you on your search. We start with the Sonoro Eklipse...

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The whole point of putting your waste paper out to be recycled is for it to be reused in yet another generation of paper products -- toilet paper, printer paper, magazines, etc. But what if you could reuse your waste paper for your own products?

Hmm... We like it when tech is bundled together, but we're not sure if this is really necessary. Well, actually, we just still aren't convinced digital photo frames are necessary, let alone one with a built-in printer. Nonetheless, the scoop after the jump...