By Leah L. Culler of MSN Real Estate
Small can be beautiful
Kevin Patterson didn't let his tiny quarters — 215 square feet — keep him from having a comfortable, nice-looking home. His former apartment in New York was fairly monochromatic; white walls made it feel bigger.
Storage under the bed helped him keep things put away, and lots of shelving gave him plenty of room for books.
Storage in unexpected places
In any small apartment, adequate storage is essential. Kevin Patterson had lots of it, including inside his couch.
Dual-purpose items
A bookshelf ran along the top of the kitchen and bathroom wall. Kevin Patterson stored a lot of books on it, but he also used it to hold small lamps to help light the apartment.
Adequate lighting helps a place feel bigger. His full-length mirror was a broom closet, of sorts; he tucked brooms and mops behind it.
Small and portable
Jay Shafer built this incredibly compact home when he realized he was sick of "stuff." He managed to fit everything he needed in just 89 square feet, and he now sells the itty-bitty houses through his company, Tumbleweed Tiny House Co.
Because these structures are on wheels, they are considered travel trailers and don't require a building permit. The homes aren't large enough to meet the minimum standards for houses with a foundation but can be built as sheds on a foundation if the kitchen is left out.
Just the essentials
The kitchen in this Tumbleweed Tiny House is just a kitchenette. It is a simple stainless-steel counter with a sink, surrounded by shelves. Below the sink is a small water heater, a refrigerator and a hot plate that is used for cooking.
The bathroom is the shower, just as on many boats, and is called a "wet bath." The small unit under the kitchen sink heats water, and showers can last about five minutes. The toilet is a low-flush, RV-style model designed to conserve water.
A place to sit
Lots of built-in storage means there is room for a couple of chairs for guests.
"A lot of the pieces of furniture that I build or design into a house have storage built into them," says Jay Shafer of his Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.
Cozy sleeping loft
There's not room to stand up in the 3-foot-9-inch-tall sleeping loft, but it can be a cozy and beautiful place to spend the night. This was Jay Shafer's favorite element of the first tiny house he built, he says.
Before: 105 square feet
Genevieve Shuler sacrificed space for location when she moved to New York's West Village. She made her tiny space work with a loft bed and curtains to hide her stuff from view. She had a tapestry stapled to the underside of her loft bed so she didn't have to stare up at the ugly slats. Then, in February, the "Rachael Ray" television show came to her apartment to do a makeover.
"The biggest difference, really, between what I had done to the apartment and what the show did came down to money," Shuler says. "I would have loved to have gone to Ikea when I moved into the apartment and spent $2,000. But I couldn't, so I had to make do with what I had, could find or (could) buy cheaply. I did improvements one at a time, whereas they did it all in one day."
After: 105 square feet
The "Rachael Ray" makeover gave Genevieve Shuler's place a new, streamlined look, with lots of defined, nice-looking storage. Her new loft bed is sturdier than the last one; Shuler had sacrificed one of the support beams to give her space to move around underneath. Shuler says she loves the photos on the edge of the bed and on her wardrobe.
Using wall space
Genevieve Shuler's kitchen now has a magnetic spice rack on the wall. Each spice is in a labeled, magnetic tin. She can easily find which spice she's looking for, and she's preserving her valuable shelf space.
Double-duty desk
In her hallway-sized apartment, Maggie Frank has to be creative when she wants to cook something. With zero counter space, she does her chopping and other food preparation on her small desk. Any cooking or baking turns her entire apartment into a disaster area, she says.
Get vertical
Thinking vertically can be a great way to make the most of any small space. Often, tiny apartments are taller than they are wide, so you must make use of every inch.
Erin Melissa Dabbs uses racks for pots, pans and other cooking paraphernalia and has magnetic wall strips for knives. This frees up valuable counter and cupboard space.
Next upBig ideas from Japan's tiny houses
Small spaces don't always mean squeezing, as these scaled-down homes show.
No comments:
Post a Comment