Making Small Places Livable
I live in a tiny studio apartment that I love, and have made my own. It’s basically living in one room, but whenever someone comes over to visit for the first time, I always give a grand tour: “Here is my dressing area,” I say. “And this is the kitchen and dining area. My office space is in this corner, and my sleeping quarters is right across from that. Here’s my non-working fireplace! I like to sit in front of it and pretend sometimes.” Etc. I won’t bore you (but perhaps I will take photos and give you a tour of my private dwelling one of these days).
My photos certainly won’t be as good as the people who entered Apartment Therapy’s Small Cool Contest this year. The contest, if you haven’t yet guessed, is for people to show off their well-decorated small apartments, and to win the title of the “smallest, coolest home.” This year’s winner was a guy from Brooklyn named Daniel. His apartment is way nicer than mine!
Oh, this is just the inspiration I need! I just moved to a tiny, overpriced shoe-box studio (with a column smack dab in the middle of the room). I can’t paint the walls, but I’m thinking a mini-green house in the one window sill and some sort of art gallery on the crazy high walls.
but don’t forget, you once had an attic.
I lived in a 570 square foot shoebox of a condo for years. The thing that made it awesome was a murphy bed. I was worried when I bought it that it would be squirrelly but really it was the most stable, quiet bed I’ve ever had – it’s bolted to the wall and floor, so of course it is. It allowed me to have full sized furniture and guests who didn’t know assumed that it was actually a 2-3 bedroom place because it looked like a giant living room with a wall of bookshelves. It was spendy and kind of a bitch to install, but totally worth it – http://www.murphybedsdirect.com/library.htm
I will probably install a smaller, wardrobe style one in my office in my next place for a guest bed.
I love these small apartment photos, but it really speaks to NYC living that pretty much every single one of these apartments is larger than the ones I’ve seen in my price range here. I’m sorry, you wanted a bathroom AND a kitchen? I’m sorry, we can really only do one or the other. And by kitchen, I mean hot plate. And by bathroom, I mean the closet has a toilet in it.