Maximizing Mini-Spaces
James Gauer, architect
Make sure your furniture is correctly scaled for your space. Most upholstered furniture is too big. A sofa as shallow as 28 inches (32 to 36 is standard) can be very comfortable. Don't be afraid to spend a little extra money on custom pieces when standard-size stuff just doesn't fit. The scale of our homes should derive from the real needs of our daily lives. Home should be the setting for life, not the measure of it.
Calvin Tsao, architect & designer
The first rule is: Stop thinking of your space as small! It's intimate, and that can bring a host of positives. We think of oversize (rooms, furniture, meal portions) as the standard, when in fact that's a terribly contemporary idea—today's small would have been sizable for most of human history. To make the most of your space, use the classical ideas of the vertical and horizontal. Create visual niches that lead the eye around: wall cutouts into other rooms, furnishings with reflectivity (mirrors, lacquers, gleaming metallics), course-textured fabrics for contrast and open storage to suggest depth. Think of your furniture in terms of lines rather than planes.
Azby Brown, author of The Very Small Home (Kodansha)
An essential idea—both physical and psychological—for small spaces is to avoid the urge to do everything. Instead, focus on one really big idea: How, essentially, do you live? What do you care about? If you love cooking, then go for a great kitchen and dining table, and maybe forgo a sofa altogether. If you never cook, don't build a gourmet kitchen! Maybe all you need is a coffeemaker, a microwave and bins for disposing of take-out containers. A tiny kitchen could allow for a larger, nicer bathroom. If that's how you best enjoy the space, it's not really a compromise.
Amanda Moore, designer
There's a wonderful market of smaller kitchen appliances that counterbalance the McMansion world of double dishwashers. Summit makes a refrigerator (the 375SS, 81"h x 24"w x 24"d) that is taller and skinnier than a standard model and gives an additional foot of counter space. Likewise with Viking's 24-inch ranges. The LG toaster-microwave oven combo (LTM9000) provides a great way to save countertop space.
Betty Wasserman, designer
If you're living in a studio and want to sleep on a sofa every night, there is precisely one model that is good enough to use as a bed: Todd Hase's Gerard sofa (toddhase.com). It's custom, so it's not cheap but you can order it to fit your space precisely. A bench is also an indispensable piece of furniture for a studio. It takes up little space, but provides extra seating, a makeshift buffet for cocktail parties and a good general plunking space for books, clothes, etc.
Jay Shafer, founder of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
Several years ago I moved into a 6 1/2-by-10-foot home that I designed for environmental and economical reasons—but mostly because I didn't have the time or patience to maintain a large house anymore. Simplifying my living space has made my whole existence seem simpler and more manageable. My best advice for people looking to pare down is to get rid of everything that's not contributing to your happiness. Think of it this way: A small house is a big house with all the unnecessary parts removed.
Victoria Meyers, architect
1. Smooth out bumps and edges. Build storage flush with the wall, limit structural details and minimize clutter. The clean lines will allow your eye to "slip" around the space, making it feel larger. 2. Play with perceived depths. Dropping your ceiling a foot may seem antithetical, but in one project I did just that and then cut punch-outs in the ceiling. You couldn't tell if the ceiling extended one foot or 12 feet above the punch-outs; that height ambiguity makes a space feel larger. 3. Make sure there's connectivity between your indoor space and your outdoor space. Even if you have a view of a brick wall, put something near your window that picks up the color and texture of the brick. It will lead your eye out the window and expand your sense of the room.
Mark Dyson, architect
Rather than fill your precious space with big storage units, look around to see how you can make use of existing nooks and niches. In my own home, I looked at the stairway and thought, Wouldn't it be great if those were stacked drawers? So I removed the risers, supported each tread with brackets and then installed custom drawers with a simple pull for each stair. It's nearly invisible and a perfect place to hide shoes.
Editor's Choice
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| The wall-mounted Enköping table by Anna Larsson for Ikea takes up no floor space at all and opens to reveal one of four expansive images (31"h x 22"w x 23"d, $50). |
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| Pierre Frey's Colette folding chair, beech upholstered in muslin, is an elegant version of a classic space-saver (34"h x 20 1/2"w x 15 1/2"d, about $425). |
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| French designer Bertrand Pincemin's anodized aluminum Articulated Shelf 01 expands on rotating pivot joints to adjust to tight corners or curved walls (95"h x 12 1/2"w x 10"d, $1,745) |
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| Shelving system, chair, table and room divider in one, space-saving Shelflife by London-based designer Charles Trevelyan is a marvel in lacquered MDF (70"h x 55"w x 14"d, $5,000). |
Advice & Consent: Making Little Live Large
This wide bookcase, designed by New York architect James Gauer, visually expands the space while also providing handsome storage.
James Gauer
architect and
author of The New American Dream: Living Well in Small Homes
Most spaces are defined by three planes: floor, wall and ceiling. The more these planes are interrupted, the smaller the space looks. So try to let the eye see as much of these planes as possible. Look to the left of the sofa in the photograph above. There you'll see a row of cabinets, a wall and a soffit. They're all on the same plane, and they're all painted the same white to emphasize that, helping to create the illusion that these two spaces are one big room.
Tight on space? Your existence doesn't have to be claustrophobic. You can loosen up your lifestyle with super savvy small-space strategies from design experts known for their big ideas. By Diane Carroll
Abbey Francis
designer
With small spaces, I think split personalities. Make as many furnishings as possible do double duty. The children's furniture market has become particularly adept at creating multifunction items: changing tables worked into bookshelves and cribs with built-in storage drawers that later transition into daybeds. Check out nettocollection.com for items that would fit in the sleekest of homes and could walk the line between nursery and home office or guest room.
Dan Shipley
architect
Think of the space as an asset that does not necessarily need filling. Natural light is the least expensive and best furnishing any room can have. You don't have to install an expansive window—consider a dot of light near the floor, a slot of light vertically in a corner, a square of light in the ceiling.
To make full use of the high ceilings in a client's Virginia vacation home, architect Todd Walker built a small loft that is accessed by ladder.
Todd Walker
architect
A small space with a high ceiling offers creative possibilities for taking advantage of the volume of the area. For example, in a room with a 12-foot ceiling, you could add a second level above the kitchen cabinets or a wall of built-ins. Think of a small loft that could function as a home office or a bedroom. Offset a floor over the base below and add a ladder for access. For a safety rail, consider glass panels, since they won't visually limit the space. Likewise, sheer curtains offer privacy while maintaining a sense of openness.
David Droese
architect
When you're dealing with small spaces, careful planning of every cabinet, closet and storage area just can't be stressed enough. Before you build or move, take a serious look at what you can't possibly part with and make a detailed inventory. If you're planning to fit hundreds of Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks plus a few dozen Birkin bags into your closet, you need to start the process with that in mind. Get creative and look for any pocket of unused space—above or at the base of cabinets, even floor-level drawers on a vanity. In a closet, take advantage of full ceiling height with pull-down hang bars so you won't need a step stool. Of course, the best alternative is the tried-and-true method of weeding out anything that is nonessential.
Paul Draper
designer
Changing elements seasonally offers the experience of having two different rooms. For instance, our dining table has two sets of legs: one at conventional height, one at Japanese height. In the fall and winter, we keep it at conventional dining height; surrounded with chairs, the table makes the room feel intimate. In the spring and summer, we lower the table to Japanese height and use mats on the floor, which makes the space feel open and fresh. By lowering the scale, we give the room a new dimension of airiness that's appropriate to the season. We custom ordered our table from wilkhahn.com.
Brian Hughes
designer
In our small house, the living room furnishings have to be comfortable enough for us to kick back yet attractive enough for entertaining. Since you don't need to buy as many pieces in a small space, splurge on a few great ones. Items like Philippe Starck's Lazy Working series of sofas and chairs (sofa above at cassinausa.com) perform multiple functions—you can attach side and rear tables, writing desks, even lamps—creating a beautifully compact package.
Paul Field
architect
Stairs, doors and cabinetry can occupy a great deal of floor area. This is especially true in a small home, where the radius of a door might influence whether you can fit an additional piece of furniture. Pocket doors are a great alternative—when they're open, they're hidden in the wall cavity. You can reclaim space visually, if not physically: A staircase with treads cantilevered from the wall lends a sense of lightness and transparency. Try suspending or cantilevering vanities and credenzas so your eye can move below the furnishings instead of stopping at their base.
Laurie Smith
designer
Everyone assumes that a small space has to be a light color—conventional thinking is that dark walls will close in a space. The inverse can be true, though. Dark colors can blur the edges so you're not noticing each corner. Add furnishings in a light color palette for contrast. They become the important focal points against the dark backdrop. I like to include big, bold canvases in a small space—they enliven and open up a room much like a window.
Marlon Blackwell
architect
Choose design elements that create a sense of order, expressive character and imagination. Openings for light and view are essential—they extend the perception of space beyond walls. Consider creating a box around a window, so it not only frames a view but also allows you to sit in the intimacy of the opening while experiencing the immensity of the world beyond. A tall, narrow door lets you access more of the room; keeping doors out of the corner allows for full use of each quadrant; vertical storage makes the best use of a room's volume.
Rene Gonzalez
architect
Bringing the landscape and the sky inside a space both expands and connects it to its surroundings. The concept of reflectivity, both in materials and in design elements, aids this connection. On one recent project, we used etched glass to reflect the light from the outside and create saturated hues of blues and sepias in the room. We detailed the doors so that the thresholds are unperceivable and designed walls that start inside the living space and extend out to the terrace.
Paul Latham
designer
Consolidate and simplify: Reduce clutter, group objects together and keep some surfaces clean for contrast. Hang a large mirror opposite a window wall; it visually opens the space and adds light to the room. Use a round pedestal dining table; they allow for easier conversation and you can accommodate more people, since the single base avoids the restrictions of a series of legs. I've always liked the classic Saarinen table with the white marble top—the pedestal has a beautiful shape, the polished white marble reflects light, and objects always look great on it, especially antique pieces.
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