Into this:

And apparently she learned to do it as part of a class she took with her husband. Lucky? I would SO like to take my boring little family room loveseat and turn it into something amazing. Want a little peek into how it was done, then look no further. Here’s a sweet time-lapse video of the couch during nine two-hour classes:

Have you ever tackled a DIY project on such a massive scale? Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t.

Built-Ins, Built-Ins, Built-Ins
Obviously you can bring a ton of furniture into a small house or apartment, but you can maximize the space you have with built-ins like cabinets and cupboards and window benches and bookcases. These don’t have to be as deep as standalone furniture so you’re not encroaching too much on the airspace of the room, and you end up with a place for everything and everything in its place. Have I mentioned that clutter is a major no-no for those of us who live in small houses and apartments?

Divide With Doors
In my house, the kitchen and the living room are open to each other in two ways: a big interior window sort of thing in the wall and the wide doorless doorway between the two rooms. The idea is that a small kitchen and a small living room will feel larger if they’re attached, but instead it ends up feeling like one cramped room because there’s no usage division. Installing a set of French doors in the doorway between the two rooms helps the mind see two separate spaces that are useful and sizable.

Let In the Light
While not a solution for the renter, the homeowner can install more or larger windows that let in light, air, and a view of the wider world that will make a small space feel more ample. Bumped out windows can do a lot to enlarge an awkward space, as can very tall windows.

Make Rooms Do Double Duty
The reality is that if you don’t have a lot of space, you don’t have the luxury of having a room just for X and another just for Y. That means that whenever possible, a room should have more than one purpose. You can put a pretty writing desk in your living room, for example. Your home office can double as your crafting room. A landing can play host to a chest of linens. Bookcases in the dining room. And so on.

What are your favorite tips for making a small house or apartment feel bigger?

Luckily, if you’re only tackling the basics, according to the NY Times, you don’t need much. Sure, we talked a lot about redoing the upstairs ourselves, but when we started reading about drywall lift rentals, our zest for DIYing the second floor went right out the window. So for now, we need to make holes, fill holes, change what’s in holes, and maybe loosen and tighten this or that. Nothing major. The NY Times list is right up our alley – here’s the gist:

To start off, you need a hammer.

Buy a multihead screwdriver…, said Mr. Stone of M.I.T. It should have at least two different size bits for slotted and Phillips screws, as well as Robertson (square) and Torx bits.

Mr. Ball, of Pulte Group, actually recommends a cordless hammer drill, which is twice as expensive as a standard drill. “That really opens up the ability of the tool,” he said. “And it’ll last you a lifetime.”

He also recommends a one-inch-wide, 25-foot-long tape measure with a lock.

Finally, crown your arsenal with Mole-Grip pliers, commonly known as Vise-Grips.

Next, wrenches. You’ll need one adjustable wrench and a set of standard and metric wrenches.

A set of socket wrenches — metric and standard — also helps in the age of unassembled furniture.

A level and an electronic stud finder.

A footlong wrecking bar is essential, especially one with a nicely tapered edge so you can slip it beneath existing wood.

A handsaw small enough to fit in your toolbox.

Toss in a small assortment of screws, drywall fasteners and eight-penny nails, a small notebook (for recording dimensions) and a carpenter’s pencil, and you’re set.

I see I’m missing a few things I really ought to have – not many, though. How about you? Where are the gaps in your tool collection?

Here’s what it looks like:

Raised panel wainscoting (via)

Flat panel wainscoting (via)

Overlay panel wainscoting (via)

Board and batten wainscoting (via)

Beadboard wainscoting (via)

Combination wainscoting (via)

Other wainscoting (via)

As it stands right now, there’s no room to add a sink, even one of those tiny corner sinks. What we’d like to do someday is expand the room, finish the walls properly, and add something like this:

Inspiration provided by Kristen Buckingham. I think something like this could really cheer up my sad basement half bath (which as I said is currently a quarter bath). I’ve thought about scrapping the project altogether as rather ambitious, but really, it would be nice to have somewhere to wash one’s hands after using the facilities instead of having to pop back upstairs to use the kitchen sink.

Maybe not places exactly like this, as those lovely little bungalows are in Wells-Next-The-Sea, a seaport situated on the North Norfolk coast in England. I’m sure Wells-Next-The-Sea is quite picturesque just now with all those pretty colors, but I can’t imagine that it’s at all warm, which makes it less than inviting in my mind. Summer (or at the very least springtime) cannot come quickly enough, in my opinion.

(Photo by russelljsmith)

All right, so by the time Paloma actually has a proper nursery (hey, she was early) she’ll probably be extremely embarrassed to hear me even saying the word. For now, she spends most of her time in my black-and-red themed home office — the space that will eventually become her room. And we’ll probably keep that theme. But until that dream becomes a reality, I can fantasize all I want about building the perfect nursery from the ground up… or letting ducduc do it for me.

2. The color gray:

Cool, somber, elegant. What’s not to like? Don’t think gray is too dark for small spaces. It’s not. A lighter gray can actually make a small space look bigger!

3. Houzz

The Washington Post calls it “the Flickr of design idea sites,” which isn’t too bad of a description. You can search through thousands of photos of interiors by professional designers and save the ones that inspire you in your online idea book… Which means yours truly can finally toss out some of the magazine clippings she’s been sitting on for ages.

4. Hanging things up:

With the baby underfoot or attached to me at all times, I don’t get much done around the house anymore. Projects like tiling the mudroom or tackling the bare upstairs room have been put on the back burner for the time being. Just about the only thing I can do is affix things to the walls. Hanging things up makes me feel like I’m actually doing something to add a little zest to my living spaces, and I heartily recommend it to those with a desire for change but not a lot of free time.

Okay, I’m playing the weather up just a tad, but I do sometimes wonder how a sunbird like me ended up living in an area where snowblowers are de rigueur. I can legitimately blame The Beard for that one, because he adamantly refused to move down to Florida where it’s nice and warm all year round. Now I find myself tethered to a house we vowed we will keep until our future children have moved out. Then, perhaps, we’ll move to Costa Rica where it’s nice and HOT all year round.

Before that happens, I get to do things like winterize the house. Yes, it’s still summer if you live where I live, but up until about five minutes ago, I was entirely unaware one is supposed to prepare one’s dwelling for cold weather. It’s never too early to learn about these things, right?

So what are we homeowners supposed to be doing when autumn rolls around? Here are just a few of the things you should be checking:

THE ROOF: Look for leaks around eaves, vents, skylights, and chimneys. While you’re up there, have a peek at the gutters, the downspouts, and the attic, if you have one. Repair and clean as necessary. Better yet, get down off the roof, call a pro, and enjoy the last of Indian Summer with a nice mojito.

YOUR HEATING SYSTEM: It wouldn’t do to have the burner peter out on a cold winter’s night, so vacuum baseboards or register grills, check the thermostat, change your furnace filter, oil the motorized bits, bleed the valves, and if it’s been a while, have a HVAC guy come in and inspect everything. Obviously, some of these recommendations apply to certain furnaces and not others, so do only that which applies to you.

DOORS AND WINDOWS: Do you feel a draft? Look for flattened weather stripping, and replace it. Seal any holes around windows with caulk, replace broken windows, and cover basement windows with plastic shields. Swap out screens for glass in exterior doors, and put in those pesky storm windows if you have ‘em.

PROTECT YOUR PLUMBING: Frozen pipes suck bad, so trust me when I say it pays to give them a little love before the mercury plunges too far. Have a look at the lines you can see, and ensure they’re cozy all season long by wrapping them in pipe jackets or fiberglass insulation.

Naturally, that’s not all you should be doing. Nothing’s *that* easy! Check out the winterizing how-tos at Paradoxpro and About.com to find out just how much work goes into homeownership. While you do that, I’ll be here daydreaming about living in a tropical clime…which of course are associated with a whole different set of problems.

For the curious among you, Dutch doors were originally used — and still are used — to keep farm animals in farmhouses while keeping wild animals out of farmhouses. They originated in the Netherlands, but it’s not hard to see why they became popular elsewhere! With a Dutch door, you can let light and air in, but toddlers and pets cannot escape.

Plus, they’re tremendously inviting. I’m imagining myself chatting with a neighbor or the mailman over the bottom half of my pretty new door. In this fantasy, I’m also wearing one of my aprons and the ::incredibly clean:: kitchen smells of freshly baked pie, but I’m no domestic goddess, so make of it what you will.

Then there’s time and motivation. My approach to DIY is pretty frenetic — I spend a lot of time thinking about a project until I can see the final result in my head before I do anything. I’ll talk it over with The Beard until he gets my vision so I can be sure he’s on board. He doesn’t always appreciate what I’m picturing in my head until my projects are halfway finished, but he trusts me.

But once I start a project, just try to hold me back! Finishing what I’ve started becomes really important to me because I have trouble concentrating on other things when there’s a partially-done project staring me in the face. For example, when we moved into our house, I had to at least get the bedroom in order before I could go to sleep. It didn’t matter that I was utterly exhausted and midnight had come and gone.

My newest obsession revolves around my formerly nasty space that I call a vestibule and The Beard calls a mudroom. Picture peeling paint, shoddily applied paint, random nails being used as hooks, and a huge warped hook board. All in all, the space was BLEAH. Long story short, I wagered that the nice vertical wood I saw peeking out from under the hook board went all the way up, and my brain started envisioning a white country-style entryway with black cast iron hardware.

Luckily, I was right, because I went right ahead and pried the stupid hook board off the wall over The Beard’s gentle objections. Then I pried out all of the useless nails and filled them up with wood putty, scraped and sanded until I was practically falling over, primed every nook and cranny, and laid down one coat of lovely white paint. I will be laying down a second (and possibly a third coat) today. Boy, are my arms tired.

The only thing I’ve already done today is buy a bunch of cast iron hooks. While searching for said hooks, I found Stag Lane Primitives.

If you like old stuff — sometimes extremely pointless old stuff — you’ll probably like it as much as I do. I’ve found my source for the random assortment of antiques and faux antiques that will sit on the shelves of my vestibule/mudroom, and that makes me very, very happy.