SMALL Space
Creates a sense of spaciousness. Besides adding a layer of interest to your walls, scenic wallcoverings look more spacious by making a flat, two-dimensional wall surface look like it goes on forever. This graphic illustration uses a one-point perspective to thrust your eye to the far back of the landscape, making you feel like you’re part of the view.
he master bedroom’s walk-in closet is enlivened by blush-colored cabinets, wall-to-wall cheetah print carpet and graphic pink wallpaper. “It’s a little slice of heaven on even the worst mornings, DESK/VANITY IN FRONT OF WINDOW FLANKED BY SCONCE LIGHTING; DESK AS VANITY IN CLOSET/VIBRANT SHADE AT WINDOW W/ FRINGE
SaveEmail 15. Jewelry Studio Who: Janet Kofoed Craft: Making jewelry “I’m a jeweler, and my studio is a tiny room on the second floor that was once, I think, a nursery. It’s about 90 square feet, and I have all my benches and equipment shoehorned into it. The saving grace of the space is a small adjoining deck, a good place for product photography or contemplation,” Janet Kofoed writes. Readers Show Us Their Winter Hobbies at Home SaveEmail Here are her tools.
SaveEmail 12. Sewing Room Who: Flourishingpalms Where: The Villages, Florida Hobbies: Quilting and sewing Flourishingpalms outfitted a guest room in her home with everything she needs for quilting and sewing. “I have two sewing machines permanently set up — one for sewing and piecing, the other for quilting — with two flexible tables (varnished hollow-core doors) set upon four adjustable-height Ikea sawhorses,” she writes. She uses the door-tables for ironing, cutting fabric and basting quilts. She added UV film to the south-facing bay window to protect her projects from the Florida sun. Flourishingpalms stores her fabric in a cabinet.
Hobbies: Painting and weaving Mary Pat Dubois lives in a three-story townhome with a storage room on the ground floor, and since she’s purged enough that she doesn’t need it for storage, she converted the room into her creative space. “I surround myself with things that inspire my creativity, and I put on my music and close the door,” she says. She keeps her loom in the room (a portion of it can be seen in the bottom left of the photo above), though on nice days she can fold it up and take it to the backyard deck so she can work out in the sun. Dubois paints in watercolors and acrylics, and has also done some collage work. But her primary focus is weaving. She recently retired early and has taken up weaving again; she plans to sell her woven work online. The wall hanging pictured here is her work.
They wanted a dedicated workstation with all the necessary equipment, such as knives and pans, to be readily available when at the stove,” Middleton says. “They also wanted a durable, honed black granite worktop here instead of oak.” As well as open shelving and racks for bowls and kitchen gear, the island incorporates three end drawers to stash cutlery, napkins and placemats. These are perfectly positioned for when the couple are setting up to eat in the adjacent dining room.
Retractable bed. If you have limited floor space but relatively high ceilings, a retractable bed can be a smart solution. In this clever tiny house, the bed is raised and lowered remotely so the space below can be used for other purposes during the day. This option may be chosen if a ladder is impractical due to mobility issues, or if you just don’t like ladders. While retractable beds aren’t the cheapest option, they do add significant comfort and practicality to small spaces. When this bed is needed, the remote-controlled hoist and track system that’s built into a full-height storage wall lowers the bed down to rest, turning the living room into a bedroom. There’s no folding or packing away involved either.
POD To convert an existing garden shed into a relaxing retreat, consider painting the walls a light, inviting color and adding a skylight. Allowing sunlight to illuminate the space during the day and welcome stargazing by night, skylights can be relatively inexpensive to install and offer big rewards.
a “shed duplex” with two distinct areas separated by an interior wall. The area to the left provides a place for storing tools, while the second space houses their brood of backyard chickens. To construct the shed, they used a combination of new lumber, corrugated aluminum roofing and salvaged redwood boards from a family member’s old deck. Designing a single structure to serve two purposes saves floor space and eliminates the need for additional outbuildings in the backyard. In the shed’s chicken coop portion, a hatch lifts to reveal nesting boxes for easy egg collection by Aislin and Tim’s two young boys.
Tiles: Ann Sacks Transitional Powder Room by Morgante Wilson Architects Morgante Wilson Architects SaveEmail It’s easy for a mirrored tile to look gaudy, Fortier says, but the classic shape of subway tempers the effect. It comes at a price, though, she adds. The mirrored tiles cost about $87 a square foot, a big jump from the usual cost of subway tile, which you can pick up at a home supply store for as little as a dollar a tile. It’s also worth noting that this is a wall tile, not meant for shower enclosures or flooring, Fortier says.
etA ARCHITECTURE SaveEmail Coursing. Color and an alternative layout blend to create a subtle textile-like design called coursing, says Daniel Ewald of etA Architecture. Subway tiles are offset and alternate in color to look like a basket or textile weave. This is a moderately more complicated pattern, with three colors of 2-by-8-inch tiles. The design does require careful alignment and installation, Ewald says. Homeowners should make sure the installers are comfortable with it, and they should expect to pay more for the work. Tiles: Heath Ceramics
You could pick a lighter grout, which leads to a more subtle pattern, as with this backsplash done in 3-by-6-inch gray tiles. The straight herringbone design takes longer to install than a simple subway tile pattern, so it can be a pricier option,
Hidden storage behind bedside cabinet; Custom-built cabinetry
installed an open-shelf modular storage structure to create the spacious walk-in wardrobe in the former balcony. “Instead of doors, we used airy white drapes to hide the structure and preserve the nice natural light that was coming into the room through the large windows of the balcony,” Kallo says.
Add pleasing aromas. Lavender provides a wonderful aroma on this urban balcony. Other plants like jasmine, honeysuckle, roses, clematis, thyme and many more balcony-friendly plants can fill the area with delightful scents.
They paid between $100 and $150 for the travertine stone on the floor, then ran a stripe of black river rock and black grout through the floor and up the shower. The fixtures are from an online retailer. (Annie can’t remember which.) “This entire bathroom was about $3,000,” she says.
I love the idea of not just creating a reading nook, but also incorporating your reading material there too. Finish one book and grab another without ever having to stand up.
Multiples of the same item displayed as a collection can be styled to look incredibly chic, and this tactic works especially well when the collection is interspersed with functional items, as in this gorgeous kitchen cabinet setup. Paint your pineapples metallic and watch them shine among your everyday items.
In one daughter’s bedroom, two alcoves create cozy nooks — one for a window seat, the other for a built-in desk.
Pop in a pullout desk. The simplicity of this micro desk is the secret of its design success. It’s essentially a chunky drawer-style design, but without the front or side panels. When the workday is done, simply push it in, with all your odds and ends in place, ready for tomorrow.
Make your furniture foldable. Only have room for a table and chairs when you’re actually using them? Folding versions are a brilliant solution. Choose them in bright colors or nice wood tones, and they’ll double up as decorative accessories if you hang them on wall hooks when not in use. Garden furniture suits the purpose perfectly. It also can be much cheaper than indoor furniture.
breakfast bar. Boost the purpose of an eating or coffee-drinking nook by fitting drawers beneath it. They’ll make a handy storage space for easy-to-reach cutlery, napkins, serving utensils and so on. Alternatively, if your nook doubles as a workspace, they’ll provide somewhere to tidy away a laptop and work paraphernalia at the end of the day.
. Try two-layer drawers. Deep drawers aren’t always used to their full capacity. This nifty idea — a slide-across top layer for cutlery and smaller cooking utensils — makes sure no inch goes unused.
Boost your wall units. Depending on the type of range hood you have, there may be storage space — or simply dead space — above it. Here, the homeowners have added a built-in cabinet topped by open shelves for cookbooks just where you want them. The neat shelves under the cabinets on either side, for condiments, spices and mugs, are a smart touch too.
Go round the bend. The biggest investment in this small kitchen was almost certainly the custom curved countertop, but the space created by this one design decision was surely worth it.
Carve out a cube. Even in an open-plan room smaller than this one, there’s no need to tuck your kitchen into a corner. You might gain more space by creating a stand-alone open box for it, in the center of your living space, as seen in this Paris space. With clever planning, it could create more storage, and become a more sociable spot.
this tiny custom unit adds plenty of practicality to this compact kitchen. paper towels on the side
Ramp up coziness. Characterful wall lamps, rather than overhead spots, create soft pools of light that ramp up the cozy feel of a small space. Choose adjustable versions so they double as task lighting.
niche. Recessed shelving — in a wall niche, as seen here — is the friend of many a small space, as it removes bulky protrusions from your limited work area. The curved end cabinet on the right also gives an impression of increased space, rather than chopping it up with sharp corners.
Multitask. Is it a countertop or a breakfast bar? Brilliantly, it’s both. Also note the stylish overhead pendant, adding gravitas to this tiny dining spot.
This table could have been considered too large for this under-the-eaves cook space, but because there are only chairs on the ends, there’s enough room to use the one-wall kitchen. You could either tuck stools underneath to pull out for extra dinner guests, or hang a pair of attractive folding chairs on a nearby patch of empty wall.
Put it in a cabinet. To keep a compact kitchen-living space feeling like somewhere you can relax when the cooking’s over, a one-wall layout, tucked behind folding doors, is a winner.
Frame it. Just as pans can be hung successfully across the middle of a window, shelves can be erected there as well. Continuing them out along a wide expanse of wall, as here, stops them from looking fragmented (and packs in even more storage).
Tight on prep space? This pullout chopping board is a custom worktop solution, but you could also consider a false top drawer that slides out to reveal a board. Or, if you’re handy and resourceful, you could install a ready-made board by mounting it on drawer runners.
airyness
look at other options. This clever pullout storage for utensils makes use of a slim gap between cabinets.
Look up. Vertical paneling — or vertical tile grout lines or wallpaper patterns — can trick the eye into seeing a far taller space than is really there. Here, long handles echo and enhance the effect.
laundry in kitchen
Pop-up vents are useful when the ceiling over a range isn’t able to house appropriate ventilation ducts. The fact that they take up little visual space can give a beautifully open look, especially when used in an island. However, they tend to be the least powerful option by far, so for serious chefs who often cook with a lot of steam and grease, the pop-up may not be sufficient. Pop-ups are a fairly modern style in general, but they can still work in more traditional kitchens, especially when combined with stainless steel chef’s-kitchen appliances and a more dramatic range hood to act as a focal point. A pop-up vent is typically sold as part of a coordinating range, so the price will be included in the range cost.
intrude less into the space and make an interesting futuristic statement. These are still standard over-range hoods, but they generally use more powerful suction to make up for being slightly farther away from the range itself (tucked flatter to the wall). The result is a more airy feel with more headroom open around you as you cook.
The house has multiple spaces where family members can retreat to, away from the main living areas without feeling cut off. Upstairs, a small library-media room can be closed off with sliding doors to create a fourth bedroom — or just as a quiet, secluded spot.
drape fabric! baby-grand in smaller multipurpose room, piano in library
glass/arched detail.drapes,everything except pillow patterns
The moody lounge designed by Evars + Anderson features a black Venetian plaster ceiling and walls. The tufted Art Deco-inspired sectional is a new piece covered in emerald green velvet.
pieces her client had picked up at Ballard’s Backroom (the Ballard Designs outlet), then had butcher block from Ikea customized for the desktop. She created a cozy spot for reading and power naps by adding a platform underneath a twin mattress, a board-and-batten-like surround made from painted medium-density fiberboard and a series of built-in cubbies. The homeowner accessorized with HomeGoods finds. GOOD MULTI USE SPACE DESIGN; INEXPENSIVE DECOR; CASUAL
Potting station components: Many potting stations have a three-tier system — a top shelf for storing tools, a main work surface, and a lower shelf for stashing pots and bags of soil and amendments. Beyond that, there is plenty of opportunity to customize it to best suit your gardening needs. Consider adding an outdoor sink, drawers to store additional tools and supplies, built-in bins to hold potting soil, or a shade structure to cover the entire setup.
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