How to make the coolest pad in NYC without breaking the bank?

February 15, 2010 5:53 PM

How to make the coolest pad in NYC without breaking the bank?

I just moved to NYC in a downtown apartment.

I need both cool ideas and cool places to buy things.

What impressed you the most when you visited someone's place? That's a question for the ladies and the guys but mostly for the ladies - :-)

Here are some of my thoughts but I'm not sure where to find this stuff:
- Lights that change color to change the mood.
- A cool bar stand that lights up when you put a drink on the surface. Cool bar chairs would be good too.
- Cool, funky furniture - not Ikea stuff which is functional but its not me.
- Elegant plates and bowls (not standard round) to eat on.

Just stuff that is unique, looks upscale but doesn't break the bank.

Does a basketball net and chin up bar ruin it for the ladies? I'm putting them in anyways - I gotta be me - :-)

Thanks for your comments in advance

posted by simpleton to Home & Garden (29 answers total)

That's a question for the ladies and the guys but mostly for the ladies - :-)

- Lights that change color to change the mood.
- A cool bar stand that lights up when you put a drink on the surface. Cool bar chairs would be good too.
Does a basketball net and chin up bar ruin it for the ladies? I'm putting them in anyways - I gotta be me - :-)


Slow down there, Quagmire. I don't think any of this stuff says what you want it to say; in combination, it will definitely say "trying too hard". Clean minimalism with interesting, sparse accents won't lead you astray.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:56 PM on February 15, 2010 [31 favorites]

Apartment Therapy is a good start.
posted by dfriedman at 5:57 PM on February 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

the right girl will like you, chin up bar and corny lights and all. you're young and this is your chance to have your ridiculous fantasy apartment. go all out and take pictures to laugh at with your life partner later! :)

oh and to the question - be careful with craigslist and thrift stores - nyc is having a big bedbug problem. and don't knock ikea totally - there are some mod items, as well as some great hacks, to be discovered.
posted by citystalk at 6:01 PM on February 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seconding Inspector.Gadget...I'd wonder about a new guy if I saw that stuff.

What's wrong with Ikea? I appreciate a guy who can carefully select some of their groovier lamps, textiles, even furniture. Their stuff is not to be looked down upon. In fact, much Ikea stuff looks upscale but doesn't break the bank, silly. I'd look there. They also have very cool square plates.

I would definitely splurge on good looking bedding.
posted by dzaz at 6:04 PM on February 15, 2010

Response by poster: Well, I'm not just doing it to impress some lady. I'm the one who has to actually live there, it may as well impress me too.

Thanks for the bed bug tip - that terrifies me!
posted by simpleton at 6:08 PM on February 15, 2010

A bookshelf filled with awesome books, yo.
posted by sallybrown at 6:09 PM on February 15, 2010 [10 favorites]

Response by poster: referring to women as "the ladies," you're going to be eliminating a certain segment of the female population. I suspect that you wouldn't be interested in those particular women anyway, though.

Uhhm....Was there some negative connotation with how I said that? There was no disrespect intended but maybe it came out wrong.

I'm definitely a one girl type of guy. Not sure which segment of the female population I am pushing away.
posted by simpleton at 6:12 PM on February 15, 2010

While my tastes don't generally match what you've described here, I do have awesome plates that might interest you. I got them from Crate and Barrel (it looks like they have those in NYC now according to their Storefinder website).

They are called rectangle plates. They come in two sizes and have a matching bowl. I ended up getting different bowls from their store, because I wanted round ones, but the plates are awesome. You can buy them individually and you get a discount if you purchase a set of six, I think.

These plates are great because they're just interesting enough without being crazy. They're typical white china, but they have a great shape!
posted by k8lin at 6:14 PM on February 15, 2010

Most importantly: There's nothing less classy than a dirty apartment. Keep your place clean (dust and vacuum once a week, and do the goddamn dishes), and make sure all of your stuff has convenient places to live so your place doesn't look cluttered. Shelves help with this a lot.

What really looks upscale and classy is if your place has a good color scheme, and most of your major stuff goes well together. Round plates can look way more classy than oddly-shaped ones if they're elegant and are the right color/pattern. This goes for shelves too and where you put them, and how you arrange your stuff on them.

Mood lighting and a mood bar seem really tacky to me. I cannot vouch for any of the ladies you may bring home from the meatpacking district. But you can check out the lighting district on Bowrey between Hester and Rivington. There's like 30 stores.

As for furnishing and accoutraments, check out Pearl River on Broadway between Grand and Broome and New Kam Man on Canal between Mulberry and Mott. They're both Stores of Asian Randomness, Kam Man focusing on food (their basement has really cool looking plates and cups and bowls for cheap and their upstairs has lots of delicious sauces and candy and stuff), and Pearl River focusing on home goods (their basement is also awesome, and they have a furniture section on the second floor).

A basketball net would make sure that your place screamed "yah, bro!" louder than anything else. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to you. A chin-up bar isn't that bad if you get one that goes in a door frame. It's unassuming.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:14 PM on February 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I already spent a bundle on a new comforter and sheets for bedding.

I guess I should buy something on top of the comforter that looks colorful.

It makes sense - I think a woman would appreciate good bedding.

One more thing to add to the budget!
posted by simpleton at 6:16 PM on February 15, 2010

I think a woman would appreciate good bedding

A woman definitely appreciates a good bedding.

Don't worry too much about having the perfect apartment--most women I know wouldn't judge a guy for having a normal (as opposed to *perfectly awesome*) apartment. You are far more important than where you live.
posted by sallybrown at 6:23 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I cannot vouch for any of the ladies you may bring home from the meatpacking district.

Geez, for the last time, that's not who I am. If you have to know, I haven't been out with a girl for a while - lol!

I can see how mood lights could seem tacky but have you ever been to a really nice upscale bar and they have a blue or red neon type of glow?

That kind of thing for a romantic evening.
posted by simpleton at 6:23 PM on February 15, 2010

For inspiration, take a look at this recent New York Times article featuring a particularly classy and frugal studio apartment design.
posted by sashapearl at 6:39 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Look at this apartment, and also take a look at the original submission. (The link is to the finalist version with professional photos.)

And, yes, the occupant is a designer (and not looking to impress women), but he did a great job (impressing this woman) with a generic one-room apartment.

Take a look at the other NYC contest entries and posts for resources and inspiration.
posted by jgirl at 6:55 PM on February 15, 2010

If you're worried about chin-up bars, you can always get one of these handy Iron Gym bars at any nearby supplement/sporting good store which can be quickly taken down and stashed when the need arises.
As for the rest... "cool" or at least unique furniture in NYC is so absurdly expensive that the best I can say is Crate and Barrel/Room and Board stuff does seem to hold up reasonably well, even though it is not particularly unique, it is certainly classier than ikea. Or you can try to scour craigslist, but that takes some serious patience.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:56 PM on February 15, 2010

Uhhm....Was there some negative connotation with how I said that? There was no disrespect intended but maybe it came out wrong.

Geez, for the last time, that's not who I am. If you have to know, I haven't been out with a girl for a while - lol!

You're using words and phrases that make you seem quite young or pretty socially inexperienced and might have some self-esteem issues.

I think what everyone is trying to tell you is that by creating an attractive apartment that reflects your interests and taste, being social will lead to having guests and dates over. Your apartment should reinforce your potential friends and dates impression of you as a person, the apartment should not be, by itself, responsible for establishing you as a guy that the girl would like to date.

In terms of decorating your apartment, it sounds like you already know some of what you'd like: you enjoy sports and body building. If you can, make a list of the other priorities of ways that you intend to use your apartment. Will you be working from home? Etc, etc. Craigslist is often your friend. Here are a couple of interesting current listings for bedroom sets: I especially like this set with the elegant Country-ish dresser (but it may not be your thing), or the very popular Malm set (European, cleanlines), and here's a more modern set- light wood with see-through drawers that might appeal. What's "cool" is really up to you. Don't buy what you think a woman might like, buy something that appeals to you, enjoy it, and the right woman will like it (or at least enjoy you enjoying your home). Buying a matching bedroom set is an easy way to create a coordinating aesthetic for a room. As previously mentioned, buy the mattress new to avoid even a hint of bedbugs contagion.

Whatever you end up doing to decorate your apartment, in terms of a simple thing you can do that WILL make most women swoon- keep your place tidy. As mentioned above, clean regularly, dust, wash your dishes. There is nothing less inviting than going into an apartment that is cluttered or dirty. If you're not good at cleaning - and that's fine, I'm not either - get a housecleaner. I'm not sure about NYC prices, but we pay $40/week in California, and it is worth it to have our apartment spic and span for guests. Whatever you think of the other advice, the advice about having a clean/tidy apartment- this is priceless.
posted by arnicae at 6:59 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think the ladies are trying to tell you that the glow from a bar isn't going to set the mood you're hoping for, although a classy bar will be impressive. For some reason I think you're trying to recreate the loft from the movie Big with the scary machismo from American Psycho.

Some nice floor lamps and candles will do wonders to add some respectability to your basketball hoop. I second Apartment Therapy for some good ideas. CB2 and West Elm and yes, Ikea can help you out.
posted by Unred at 7:00 PM on February 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

I can see how mood lights could seem tacky but have you ever been to a really nice upscale bar and they have a blue or red neon type of glow?

The question is whether you want your your apartment to feel like a bar. Your apartment plays lots of roles, and will be a multi-functioning space. Take this into account.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:02 PM on February 15, 2010

Not sure which segment of the female population I am pushing away.

Well, the female population is segmented, and grouping us all together under the heading "the ladies" is potentially counterproductive, as we all have different ideas about what's "impressive." The shortest route to impressing the kind of women you'd like to attract is to get advice from one of them about decorating.

For instance, personally, I could care less about the existence of a stand-alone bar (nice glassware and good liquor are more impressive to me). What I'm going to notice, Jon_Evil has basically covered - a space that's clean, uncluttered, and well coordinated. Nice sheets, but especially nice towels. Good shelves, and good stuff (books, dvds, etc.) on them. Art that preferably goes beyond framed posters. Big, healthy houseplants. A decent set of cookware that clearly gets used on a regular basis.

Color changing lights impress me less than lighting that highlight features in your apartment, or reinforces divisions in the apartment space to make it more cozy. At home, a romantic glow is probably more readily accomplished with candles than neon lighting. In general, though, those bars are probably using indirect or recessed lighting to get a glow instead of a glare.

Really, the key (as you've said) is to make a space that you enjoy living in. If a light-up bar makes you happy, get it. If you want a basketball hoop or a chin-up bar, put it up (preferably someplace unobtrusive). What's impressive is walking into an apartment that's a functional home, not a premeditated babe trap.
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:03 PM on February 15, 2010 [5 favorites]

I can see how mood lights could seem tacky but have you ever been to a really nice upscale bar and they have a blue or red neon type of glow? That kind of thing for a romantic evening.

....And the reason you don't want to just use candles is....?

Okay, sorry. I do have some practical advice.

It sounds like you have a sort of mod/kitsch/shag motif thing going on here. There are stores in the city where you can get that furniture, but they are WAY expensive.

Instead: spend a couple hours browsing in the design section at Barnes & Noble or at the library looking for retro/mod design books. I know there are some books that tell you how to get that kind of design style on a budget -- plenty of D.I.Y. projects. They'll give you some ideas ofr how to get that kind of style without necessarily going all-out with the furniture. It may not be a bad idea to consider going basic with the furniture and using smaller details to trick out the place, so if you suddenly decide in two years "....wait, this looks stupid", you'd only have to change sheets or posters rather than getting a whole new couch or whatever.

Which segues into the colored-mood-lighting -- that's not quite accurate in terms of 60's mod style as such. But if you're dead-set on getting this, there's a couple ways:

* There is a doohickey I saw once that's sort of like a night-light that shifts through about four colors in a sequence. I got one for a friend once; it was only about twelve bucks then.

* Or, you could simply get a set of different-colored light bulbs, and the get a regular lamp and just switch out the plain white bulb for the pink or whatever when you want.

...but seriously, candles would be easiest of all for "mood effects." If you're dead-set on colors, get different-colored glass cups and use them as candleholders.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 PM on February 15, 2010

Dude, don't worry about the people here. It's your apartment.

Definitely check out Pearl River for plates and crazy lighting. Also take a look at the lighting stores on Bowery, between Delancey and Bowery. You should take a look at Urban Outfitters, too--probably some stuff there you would enjoy.
posted by neroli at 8:20 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, assuming that I am at all representative of "the ladies", here's what would really impress me in a bachelor pad:

- clean, nice bedding; down pillows, comforter that is warm but not too hot

- an extra clean towel for me in the bathroom if I need to shower at your place, and suitable neutral-smelling, high quality soap and shampoo (read not Axe, not Suave)

- a blanket or throw on the couch, because I get cold easily

- some interesting things laying about as conversation starters. could be almost anything, like books, pictures of your last vacation, or even your beer bottle collection, as long as I can go, "hey, didn't that get a 99 on ratebeer.com?" this is where your personality comes into it, so if a basketball net is your personality, knock yourself out, but keep in mind that will only get my attention if I like basketball, and even then it's still sort of generic

- some sense of design and arrangement of stuff; nothing says lame to me like a room with piles of things carelessly heaped around the couch which is pointed directly at the flat screen

- filtered water, good tea or coffee and spotless glasses/mugs to serve it in
posted by slow graffiti at 8:20 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Instead: spend a couple hours browsing in the design section at Barnes & Noble or at the library looking for retro/mod design books.
Barns & Noble!? Seriously? Go to the second floor of The Strand. They have more design books than any human being could imagine. Actually, just go to The Strand anyway. They have oodles of awesome books for really cheap. If you're looking for an interesting conversation piece, they have so many awesome coffee table books, ranging from the awe-inspiringly beautiful to the groaningly corny.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:19 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

and there's at least one mefite who works there. Don't out him to his co-wokers, but do offer to buy him a beer later.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:20 PM on February 15, 2010

simpleton: “Uhhm....Was there some negative connotation with how I said that? There was no disrespect intended but maybe it came out wrong.”

Some of us are a little touchy about sexism (understandably so) but I know you didn't mean badly. To be honest, though, I think the whole 'mood lights for the ladies' thing just sort of screams 'I'm living in 1975!' Very, er... Austin Powers. Isn't it?

My position is: you're living in New York City. There are eight million stories in the naked city, which means you're talking about four million ladies. In just the square mile around your pad, there are more than fifteen thousand women. Trust me, if you smear mud on the walls and replace the carpet with sod, you can still probably find hundreds (if not thousands) of ladies who think it's the coolest goddamned thing they've ever seen.

This is the secret of New York: cool is just another word for stuff you like. Look around and you'll see it - the coolest people in New York are the ones who liberate themselves from what other people think is cool, and thus become themselves the arbiters of coolness. The blessing and the curse of NYC is that cool still matters - it is a heirarchy, a standard, an ever-shifting fashion. But wait - five minutes from now, your favorite stuff might be the universal standard of cool. You never know. (This is the biggest difference between NYC and LA; in LA, everybody is aware of the total unimportance of coolness, so in LA, nobody cares. That's a blessing and a curse in itself - but that's another eight million stories.)

Anyway, the idea, of course, is to find the stuff you think is cool, and deck out a house with it. If ladies like it, whatever - but unfortunately there is no standard lady, so you'll just have to go with your gut. Here are some things I think are very cool, and worth pursuing. Some may seem amusing, but that is the point; conversation, attention, attraction all derive from amusement, so what is interesting tends to win.

Vinyl is now blasé. Everyone has vinyl. What's cool? 70s-era reel-to-reel players. Nascent technology is chic.

Repurposed tech as furniture rocks. Old computers make good coffee tables. Old monitors can be fashioned into serviceable ottomans.

Personally, I think that colored mood lighting was lame and campy the moment it was invented. I would probably go more in the direction of being able to manipulate the wattage of the lighting, or perhaps the spectral output. It would be nifty to have infrared and ultraviolet lighting on demand. It would be even cooler to have a spectrometer.

Yes, you do gotta be you - and if anything kills cool in NYC (or anywhere) it's sacrificing aspects of your personal space to bow to society's view of coolness. ('The ladies' often understand this.) The solution is to make your personal needs a statement, and to flaunt them in the face of convention. Install half a dozen chin-up bars on one wall, and five or six basketball nets on another.

This may be something that's individual to my taste, but I find chandeliers very interesting and captivating; this is largely because I have never met one in real life that wasn't awful. (I am told that they make non-awful chandeliers in Italy, but I've never seen one in the flesh.) The attention-grabbing effect of a chandelier can be accentuated if one is hung in a low room, so that one cannot walk underneath it, but must walk around. Tends to focus people a bit on the center, and that's a pretty neat effect in itself.

Also, this reminds me of another thing I find interesting: bare, hanging bulbs.

Frames are bourgeois. Posters are awesome. Full-wall images are even better. There are several online vendors who are able to cheaply print large, glossy posters; take a huge image, cut it into squares, and have them print it up big enough for you to checkerboard the posters into a full-wall image. I have wanted for some time to do an entire wall of my room with this image.

Oh, and by the way: repurposed tech works very well for dishes, too. Vinyl records can be superglued together to form plates - and, hell, since you've got the reel-to-reel, you've got to have something to do with the records, right?

My new roommate has an awesome collection of dragon figurines and replicas of weapons from fantasy novels. That's probably not my own definition of 'cool,' but it's extremely handy for picking out the douchebags. The douchebags are the ones who can't stop snickering when they see the dragons and the swords. It's sometimes useful to have such a douchebag detector in your own home, because then, when people snicker, you can either (a) get them out of your house or (b) have fun laughing right back at them.

posted by koeselitz at 9:29 PM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

me: “Trust me, if you smear mud on the walls and replace the carpet with sod, you can still probably find hundreds (if not thousands) of ladies who think it's the coolest goddamned thing they've ever seen.”

Hrm. Come to think of it, I actually think that might be very cool, if you could pull it off.
posted by koeselitz at 9:34 PM on February 15, 2010

Work with lighting. That is, make sure your basic light that you use every night is bright and functional, but also have some smaller coffee table lamps etc. around to create a dimmer, more intimate feel. It makes people much more comfortable at parties or if you have someone special coming round.
posted by Omnomnom at 12:17 AM on February 16, 2010

Someone gave us one of these fiber optic spray lamp things recently and while it is not the sort of thing I would ever think I'd like, I genuinely enjoy it - it's kind of mesmerizing, very pretty in the dark, and fun to touch. Just a random thought in the mood lighting direction.
posted by yarrow at 11:00 AM on February 16, 2010

I would suggest getting some framed artwork and/or some sculptures.

Either artwork by someone you love - are any of your friends artists? - or original art by an up-and-coming artist - someone whose art is interesting, and to your taste, but affordable to you.

Good quality framing makes a big difference in how artwork is perceived, as well - if you can afford it, take the art to a good framing store to get a frame that is sympathetic to the artwork in style and colour, rather than picking up a frame at IKEA.

If you have the time, you can even learn how to frame art yourself - a good friend of mine did a framing course, and her framed prints look magnificent on her walls.
posted by Oceanesque at 1:10 PM on February 16, 2010