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?

Yes, I know. This is a kid’s room. But double the bed and scale up the desk and I wouldn’t mind at all if it was my room – though I might also replace the tiny little side table with this one so I could actually set a few books down. I’m sure The Beard would be just thrilled to serenade me to sleep on the ukulele. Right?

Image via

Am I the only one who can’t quite decide if she’d like her house to look like this?

Or like this?

Black and white… color… black and white… color. I just can’t decide! Right now, my little Cape is colorful. So much so, in fact, that it’s often the thing people notice first and it’s certainly the most commented on characteristic of my home. But not infrequently I find myself thinking how chic it would look if I switched up my interior with a monochromatic palette.

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Nine times out of ten – make that nine-and-three-quarters times out of ten – Palmer Weiss hits a total home run with me. For real, I will tell anyone who listen that I just love how Palmer Weiss puts together a room. So hugs and kisses, Palmer Weiss. I adore you, but this, not so much:

Maybe it’s just me, but the prints and color combination in this old Victorian house family room just scream old lady to me. Or if they don’t scream old lady now, they will in five years. Of course, what do I know? Maybe an old lady lives there!

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The second story of my house was meant to be an attic. Maybe. We’re not really sure. An elderly neighbor who has lived in our house’s double since both were built told us the tale of refinishing his upper story a little bit at a time, so we know that the second stories of our Capes didn’t start out finished. But there were standard-size staircases in both houses from the very beginning. So our homes started out with giant unfinished attics accessible by full stairways and two windows in each “room”? Or were the houses built with the intention that the homeowners would eventually finish the second story spaces? We don’t know.

What we do know is that between then and now, someone decided to finish one half of our second story very, very badly. I’m talking gaps between drywall, icky carpet, cheap heaters, outlets on the sloping parts of the walls, and more. And the other “room” is still unfinished. Bare beams and boards. No outlets at all. What’s this mean for us? It means we’re looking for sloped wall bedroom/office inspiration so we can make our second story an adults-only zone.

Here’s just some of what I’ve bookmarked thus far:

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Telecommuting rocks, but it’s easy to let work get derailed by a sink full of dishes, a pesky bathroom faucet leak, or other tasks that you’d normally try to avoid doing. Isn’t it funny how the boring-but-necessary becomes so palatable when one is searching for ways to procrastinate? Telecommuting gets easier when you have a home office, but still that sink full of dishes is just a short hallway away. What’s a work-from-home employee to do? There’s always shedworking, which is apparently what’s hot in the alternative home office world! (Suck it, coffee shop!)

Oh em gee, I love it! It’s scads nicer than the home office I have now, I’m ashamed to say.

Unfortunately, while I have a shed, it’s currently full of a wheelbarrow, a push mower, grass seed, trowels and things, and about a gajillion lady spiders watching over egg balls. Creepy. Not conducive to work. Also kind of dirty. But I suppose I could haul all of my outdoor gear into the basement, tear down my yucko shed, and replace it with some chic Swedish work/life shed.

(Image via Shedworking)

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Ask me one day and I’ll tell you that I’d gladly live in an all-black universe. Ask me the next and I’ll tell you that I adore bright, dramatic colors. Today must be one of the latter days because I’m salivating over rooms created by designer Dutch Ghislaine Viñas – she combines vivid hues with simplicity, so the colors frequently play a starring role in her interiors (as opposed to a few stand-out pieces of furniture or a unique room profile).

Which isn’t to say that her choices of furniture are anything but amazing. She mixes modern and vintage pieces in such a way as to create a kind of perfect harmony. Hers are not rooms in which one might say “How clever to have mixed something old with so much new.” Rather, eras blend, united by Viñas’ color choices.

I would be happy to give Viñas carte blanche to come into my home, throw out most of what I own, and replace it with stuff she picked out in my stead. Now I would love to link to her site, but every time I try to visit I’m warned off by Google, which says there’s malware there. So I’ll share a link to her Interior Design Magazine blog instead – check it out, she seems like a lot of fun!

It is truly an unfortunate thing that there is no room in my home that could currently accommodate a proper window seat. Where the windows are large enough, they are far too high up. Sure, I could find a tall bench and place it under a window, complete with plenty of soft, punched pillows, but it’s not really the same thing. A real window seat has storage underneath, and is a quiet, sturdy place to relax and read or watch the world.

Someday The Beard and I are going to do all sorts of interesting things to our little Cape, but for now I have to be content posting pics here of all the things that float my boat. Perhaps you like window seats as much as I do? If so, you’re going to love the following pics.

Love the lamp, love the view. I have no clue where this is, but I want to believe it’s in one of those cities that feels more like a town. Maybe somewhere by the water? I’m ready to move in.

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