Anyone who loves bungalows, lofts, Craftsmans, live/works, row houses and any other type of pre 1950’s suburbia style homes often learns that in small towns or less hot neighborhoods, they will find their perfect home, but without the big city and hot neighborhood prices. Sometimes, they even luck out on finding a cute hardware store in walking distance or a friendly neighborhood handyman. Or maybe, they’ll just find charm. Like the couple in today’s Apartment Healing., who found their perfect home in downtown Salisbury.

This is Apartment Healing, the Saturday feature of the The Black Urbanist where I talk about my love of interior design. This month, I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorite home tours from sites such as Apartment Therapy, AprhoChic and others that share my sense of simple, eclectic and transformative style, especially in spaces and places where its un-expected. Before we get back into the meat of the post, just a reminder that The Black Urbanist is powered by Bluehost.  Check them out and they’ll get you started with everything you need about web hosting and blog making. They’ve kept me going right here for the past 4 years and counting.

For those of you not familiar with Salisbury, North Carolina, it’s one of the towns you’ll pass through on Amtrak between my hometown of Greensboro and Charlotte. You’ll drive through it on I-85 and see what feels like every chain suburban store known to man. But if you look to the north, no matter what direction you are driving, you’ll see the courthouse square beckoning on the hill. And you’ll definitely see the downtown on the train. It’s in that downtown, that you’ll find Kelly and Matt’s 100 Year Old Apartment.

Just like the lofts from last week (which are also in a North Carolina downtown near a train station), you get the exposed brick, the old wood floors, the large windows and the rustic charm. You also get stories in this particular Apartment Therapy home tour, stories of a first Christmas, a nice restaurant downstairs, a handyman.

As much as I love city life, I appreciate the rural and suburban ones too.Finding a cute apartment or home in small town or city, that doesn’t break the bank, but has all of the “fancy” trappings and looks like a home on AT from one of the bigger cities, could be exactly what you need for your next home. I think it might work for me. Just make sure there’s a train station.

This post is part of my participation in #NaBloPoMo, the time of the year when bloggers come together to pump out daily content and connect. Find out more about that project and how I’m participating, here and here.

When you think loft apartment, you probably think New York. Maybe LA. However, plenty of old industrial cities have wonderful lofts. Some of those lofts are fairly affordable on an average professional salary. Like Durham. This week for Apartment Healing, I’ll be highlighting a classic Durham tobacco loft.

This is Apartment Healing, the Saturday feature of the The Black Urbanist where I talk about my love of interior design. This month, I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorite home tours from sites such as Apartment Therapy, AprhoChic and others that share my sense of simple, eclectic and transformative style, especially in spaces and places where its un-expected. Before we get back into the meat of the post, just a reminder that The Black Urbanist is powered by Bluehost.  Check them out and they’ll get you started with everything you need about web hosting and blog making. They’ve kept me going right here for the past 4 years and counting.

Whenever I come to Durham these days for more than an afternoon, I have the good fortune of staying with my friend, who has one of the cutest old loft apartments near the train station and the regional bus station. It’s also in good proximity to restaurants, which has rapidly become the selling point for a lot of people who have the means and love being close to entertainment.

And if you are reading this and you tend to find yourself living where you are because you are close to the restaurants, and not necessarily using anything else, this might be a perfect spot to go to.

The specific unit I’m highlighting, was at the time of its writing, home to a mom and her two elementary age girls. The ceilings were high, and the windows large, as it is with my friend’s place. The configurations are unique, bedrooms are on platforms and walls don’t always go to the ceiling. The home spotlighted in Apartment Therapy didn’t have proper shutters on  its 22-foot tall, west-facing windows at first. The owner learned the hard way that party goers will sweat and suffer if faced with that kind of sun. I used an extra blanket during my last visit to my friend’s, due to the recent cold snap and the fact that large windows also leak out air.

Someone in the comments of the piece on Apartment Therapy asked if the smell of the tobacco leaves lingers. I can say that it does. And it adds character. Kudos to the people who had the idea of making old factories apartments. They aren’t perfect, but they are certainly cool.

Check out the original Apartment Therapy article here.

This post is part of my participation in #NaBloPoMo, the time of the year when bloggers come together to pump out daily content and connect. Find out more about that project and how I’m participating, here and here. This is day 15 and I’m so excited to have been able to daily blog. Thanks everyone for sharing posts, commenting and liking them on social networks.

What strikes me as awesome with this apartment, is that first and foremost, there is a sense of calm, there are three people in it in a small space and there’s blue and gold. I’m beginning to fall for the idea of lots of blue and gold in my next solo space.

This is Apartment Healing, the Saturday feature of the The Black Urbanist where I talk about my love of interior design. This month, I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorite home tours from sites such as Apartment Therapy, AprhoChic and others that share my sense of simple, electic and transformative style, especially in spaces and places where its un-expected. Before we get back into the meat of the post, just a reminder that The Black Urbanist is powered by Bluehost.  Check them out and they’ll get you started with everything you need about web hosting and blog making. They’ve kept me going right here for the past 4 years and counting.

I want to first commend Apartment Therapy for partnering with AphroChic. I just finished reading through Apartment Therapy Presents… and it’s inspired me to write this series of posts. However, the one thing I noticed about the book was that many of the homes were colorful, but not the people. Yet, clearly, I have nothing to worry about. Just like I was clueless about the world of African-Americans and other people of color in planning and community development when I started this site, I’m finding out the same is true in other sectors too. And I’ve added Remix: Decorating with Culture, Objects, and Soul, to my wish-list.

Which brings me to the home of  Jessica Cumberbatch Anderson, who is the editor of HuffPost Home. She’s been in this apartment through post-college career growth, getting married and recently having a baby. And most importantly, there’s this awesome living and dining room composition:

That’s a turquoise table, against a gold splattered wall. The four pictures are of icons of civil rights leaders. A solid-looking wooden floor. A golden teddy bear on the coffee table. Chevron curtains.

And there’s more from where that came from, check out the original article  for more on how this home is, in the words of the original authors, “vivacious”.

This post is part of my participation in #NaBloPoMo, the time of the year when bloggers come together to pump out daily content and connect. Find out more about that project and how I’m participating, here and here.