Make organization easier, attractive in small rooms
There can often be a discrepancy between what we would like the place we live in to look like and the way it is in living color. You know that saying “Grow where you are planted”? The aesthetic confrontation is about pairing up desires with the reality of where we grow every day. In these challenging economic times, when some retirees have to downsize in order to survive financially and many millennials are still renting, it is common to find people living in a design compromise.
Those who rent often find finishes and colors in their apartment unattractive but must learn to live with them.
An old mauve Formica countertop in the kitchen has to stay when the place isn’t yours. When you’re dealing with an aesthetic you don’t like, it is difficult to get terribly invested in making a design statement, let alone strive to maintain design precision.
Still, it is important to apply creativity and work with what you have in order to establish some sense of loveliness and order. You do your best. Hang your favorite art, or decorate with living plants. I recall covering an old love seat with a bedspread for an inexpensive change in color.
Surely, no dwelling is as challenging to keep in top-notch shape as an exceptionally undersized studio, condo or apartment.
Sure, some fastidious folks keep their place looking like a magazine cover, but it takes a huge amount of will and energy and there isn’t much storage space.
Many people lead far too busy a life to keep everything as it was intended to be: neatly put away and out of sight. When I first married my 53-yearold old husband, who had lived alone for most of his life, his house was like a beach rental kiosk.
The wet bar was the receptacle for sacks of groceries and mail, and the bills were sorted in the sink. Two beach cruisers made themselves at home in the dining room, and meals were eaten sitting on the floor in front of the TV.
I was extremely unpopular when I moved my own dining table into the place and parked the bikes outside on the balcony. Sometimes, people in micro-units with gracious ceiling heights hang their bicycle from above. But our ceilings were low, and the unit was dark.
Still, here are a few hints for how to make organization easier, and even attractive, when spare room is precious:
Introduce colorful storage cubbies: Stackable storage units are inexpensive and easily found in stores like Target, Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel. You can often find them with lids. They are perfect for magazines, photos and games, or underwear, socks and Tshirts. The slide-out style is desirable because the contents of the individual bins remain hidden from view.
Buy old suitcases for unique storage: You can hunt for used leather suitcases at consignment stores and antiques malls. Visit local vintage markets to scout for sturdy ones that you can arrange as needed and stuff full of whatever you need to store. Stack them like an end table or a bedside table. Also consider old streamer trunks.
Use schoolbooks as table bases: You may not read everything on a tablet or Kindle. Lots of students still prefer a textbook so they can make notes in the margins. If you have an accumulation of heavy and large textbooks and want to keep them but lack storage room, consider stacking them precisely and topping them off with a polished round glass top to make a side table.
Christine Brun, ASID, is a San Diego based interior designer and author of Small Space Living. Send questions and comments to her by email at christinebrun@sbcglobal.net.