How would you describe your office at the beach house? What is the design aesthetic, and how does that impact your work? I generally work off of my laptop, so my “workspace” is always in flux. However, it is always nice to sit in a traditional “desk” and this particular desk area has been a great place to buckle down and focus. I generally gravitate towards modern and contemporary, but I do have a fondness for vintage and mid-century design. This area sort of blends both and I think that balance is something that gets passed on in my design work as well.

How have you organized the space? The desk isn’t very big, but currently, I’ve divided the desktop into an area for the computer, a tray to hold odds and ends, and then the edge holds a stack of magazines and books.

What desk accessory can’t you do without? A good lamp.

You’re well known for your love of color. What impact do you think it has on a workspace? I like to keep my workspace pretty neutral. It helps avoid too much visual distraction. At the same time, I can’t be in a space completely devoid of color. I end up feeling stifled if my surroundings are too sterile. I always need a little pop somewhere. The house this place resides in is pretty close to the beach, so hits of blue seemed appropriate.

This is a temporary office for you. If it was yours permanently, is there anything you’d replace? I love my current chair for its form, but the upholstery is a little dingy and frankly, I’d love to get a chair that can spin around and has wheels (an Eames Executive Chair would do quite nicely!).

Photos: Jonathan Lo. “Futurism” print by Simon Page.

So our contractor, Billy Hartman, built it. He had a welder make a metal frame, which he then covered with wood. I ordered some cast-iron straps and pulls from House of Antique hardware. And for paint, the color idea came to me while I was sitting on our front steps getting ready to go for a long run to clear my head. Slate blue! The color is Benjamin Moore Affinity #495 Azores. The dreamy cream trim around the door is a custom color and we will be repainting all the wood trim on the house this gorgeous hue next month. Also, the dingy Navajo White currently on the exterior stucco will also be repainted next month in a heavenly warm gray. And so the love affair with paint continues…

Photo: Jim Franco: www.jimfranco.com

Talking to Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, co-founder and New York editor of Apartment Therapy, is fascinating. You start to understand why this online community, with its 4 million monthly visitors, is so popular. During the course of the interview Maxwell manages to move seamlessly from a discussion about blogs versus newspapers and his time as a Waldorf teacher to European home offices and what color works best in a living room. Every topic, big or small, is given serious consideration. There is an underlying kindness to Maxwell that permeates the site. As he says “Apartment Therapy isn’t snarky, or edgy or even fast, it’s not the newest latest thing we are covering. The whole goal was to help people with their homes, to get them over the finishing line, most would love help from an interior designer or architect but don’t know where to start.” Apartment Therapy has become a very good place to start.

But, enough from me, here is Maxwell:

On blogs: “My wife is a real magazine reader and there’s so much discussion around the demise of magazines and whether blogs are undermining them. Blogs don’t compete with magazines – we compete with newspapers. You post on a blog and then move onto the next thing, it’s very forward looking, fast. And much closer then to a newspaper model than a magazine model.”

On his years as a Waldorf teacher: “[Those years] very much inform my work – now it’s just a much bigger classroom! After teaching for 5 years at a Waldorf school I could have gone on and taken a new class. But I wanted something else. I wanted to live on a larger plane, schools can be small parochial places. I wanted to be rid of the politics.”

“And I had studied design, my first job out of college was as a designer. And I was still very much interested in design. Waldorf is connected to design right down to the chairs and desk and furniture and the color of the walls through all the grades. Design is central and there is a strong belief that the right design can have a very positive effect.”

“I did home visits and the children who had ‘good’ homes – neat, clean and well organized, did better in my classroom. Not necessarily the smartest – it was the ones with a good home foundation. And I thought a lot about that. I was fascinated with that. Being a teacher you need to live the model life. You have to start where you are.”

On starting Apartment Therapy: “At this time I found myself reading the business section of the newspaper more than any other section. It was that time in America before Bush where there was a real optimism in this country around business – business was creative and practical and honest. I craved that opportunity.”

“So in 2001 I started what turned out to be an early version of Apartment Therapy in the summer and gave myself a year to try it out. If it didn’t work I would go back to teaching.”

“Three weeks later the Twin Towers fell and we lived in downtown NY below 14^th street. We were in the thick of it. The city really transformed itself. Business as usual stopped and for 2-3 months and you felt the extraordinary power of change. People opened their doors to their neighbors.”

“[That new feeling in the city] fit with what I was doing. It was a helping service business. I got to be the connecting tissue and to bring knowledge to people and help them. Very simple. Nobody else was doing it. I’d send an email out once a week to subscribers with things for sale and places for rent. I was also working as an interior designer and it was that work that paid the bills.”

“I couldn’t be everywhere at once. My brother had worked in Silicon Valley for 5 years and told me about these things called blogs – he said it was a great application for what I wanted to do and he was right. He started ‘AT’ with me and then returned to do other work.”

“In 2004 ‘AT’ the blog began. I’d blog in the morning and then work for clients in the afternoon. I liked it. I like blogging a lot – it was easier than dealing with contractors and traveling all over the city to be with clients. Eventually I hired a team of 4 full time staff and with no strong financial plan we started. There were cash flow problems and I had to borrow money but the traffic started to really take off when we went full time. We’ve got 5 sites now and that’s how I wanted it to work – we cover all the home, all of the home.”

On being called “one part interior designer, one part life coach”: “That came from Daily Candy in 2002 – they succinctly named what I was trying to do. I have no problem with it because I’ve felt like I am trying to be a teacher. I am trying to get you to do it better but I don’t give you a fish, I want to teach you to fish.”

“I have a strong conviction that American culture is not helping - it’s hard to find a path to a healthy life within it. I am very conscious about preaching – I used to do it, but you know, some people are just looking for advice on what color to paint a living room. I don’t do direct sermons to an audience anymore. I want to show it rather than say it. Now we model it – my wife and I – we do it ourselves and blog about it.” [Below is a drawing by Maxwell. He made a new year's resolution to draw one image a day and then posted the images on the site.]

“But when I see an opening, someone really looking for something, for an answer, I will go further. Like getting rid of your TV and see how that feels. How does the house feel without a television?”

“[The immediacy of] blogging allows you to try a couple of those approaches during a day – I can get flamed for one story and then move onto something else. I always feel with blogging that you keep moving – fresh donuts, you know.”

On the power of color: “Warm are great for social rooms like a living room. They are expansive and stimulating. Cool is focusing and contracting – good for private rooms. Colors should support those activities – it’s hard in say a rental where the rooms are all white and there’s no change from space to space – that feels deadening. A home office for example should be a cool color.”

On the home office: “Home offices that stand out for me are homey – comfortable and not office-like. Most of the ones I find come from European publications. I like a balance between vintage and organic materials. I like natural textures – wood rather than laminate.” [Below is the blogger's office Maxwell designed for Bloomingdale's Big Window Challenge]

“In America home offices seems to be moving in an ‘Apple’ direction – cleaner machines, less wires – much more minimal. Computers serve as art in the workspace, they are a part of your home – like the clock screen saver you posted about. We’ve got so many devices and Apple really puts them together so smoothly. At home that is really important.”

On working from home: “We do work from home, unfortunately. I don’t have any of the office trappings there. There’s no a dedicated space at home. I work all over the home with my laptop. I’ve got the same bookmarks and drop boxes as the office computer so they work together.”