How To Design For A Small Space

Living in New York City, apartment dwellings are always a challenge. Try to fit your life into 750 square feet. It’s hard to believe that this includes a kitchen, dining space, living space and bedroom space. Closets are always a premium and making the most out of that one bathroom.

The Living Space needs a conversation area that makes sense. Sometimes chairs rather than a sofa make more sense if you need room for a small home office.

The bathroom vanity is usually no more than 21″ – 24″ wide. Where do you put the linens? Extra toilet paper and keep it clutter free?

Fitting in that area to eat at so you don’t have to eat on the living room coffee table is another wonder for many apartment dwellers.

Screens can help hide your surplus as well as closet systems as I noted in a previous blog.

But, the best part of living in a small space is simplifying your life. You have no choice – you can not horde. The more room you have the more stuff you have. In these economic times, someone else can use it more than you can.

How to Pick the Right Coffee Table

When I went to design school, the first rule of thumb taught was to make sure you have 18″ on all sides of the coffee table to the furniture you are sitting on. Well, rules can be broken, but, it is nice not to have to squeeze into the seating area and have luxury to do so.

Here’s a picture of the traditional coffee table and how it fits so well in the space

You can also use a traditional style coffee table but have a very unconventional seating area.

If you are short on space, round may work best as there is more room to walk around the conversaton area

And if all else fails, use some small clusters to push together or spread apart

How to Pick Your Bedding to Reflect your Bedroom

When approaching a new bedroom project, I always take the client bedding shopping. I believe the duvet, sheets and pillowcases set the tone of the room. You can become very romantic or very minimal just form the choice you make.

First, I suggest going to a large showroom like ABC Home, Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s so you can see vignettes made for ease of selection.

Second, color choice is key. Most people select colors or serenity for ease of sleeping but some like the stimulation of exciting colors.

Then, you have the choice of romantic…

Or, masculine as you may not be a couple…

Or, a child’s room…

Or, contemporary….

Or, chintz…

But, no matter what style of bedding you select, it will make a dominant statement in your bedroom

How to Turn a Closet into your Home Office

This week’s project at Holzman Interiors was an exercise in space planning. We all know space is precious in our New York City apartments and we need to squeeze our lives into them. Most of my clients can’t afford designating a full room or bedroom for a work station but, if you are lucky we can re-divide a closet and make one space function as two.

Hire an interior designer or architect and contractor to make sure that the walls we plan to adjust are not load bearing. Sometimes a header of steel is needed for such a change, but, unlikely in a NYC apartment.

Then make the adjustments on the floor plan deciding the amount of space you will want for your home office and how many chairs you want in the seating area.

Plan a design. Here are several photos that I used for inspiration to show my clients what they can have.

You will need board approval, permits and proper insurance from the contractor and subs he is using on the job.

Voila, enjoy. A good quality work station/home office will always be appreciated as a re-sale plus!

This is the results you can get from a walk in closet…