Living Spaces: Edel Morgan reviews a book looking at people living in tight quarters on budgets.
Anyone dismissing Living Large in Small Spaces by Marisa Bartolucci (Thames & Hudson) as a book that applies only to people living in high-rise cities like New York where living compactly is the norm should think again.
With the three-bed semi accounting for less than 5 per cent of new homes in this State, apartment living is upon us and space is a luxury. Even those living out the suburban idyll in a 112 sq m (1,200 sq ft) house with gardens front and back can draw inspiration from the space-saving ideas in this book.
Bartolucci doesn't try to make the reader feel hopelessly inadequate by parading endless examples of impossibly stylish and ordered apartments. In a lively style she tells the stories of people trying to live in cramped quarters on a range of budgets. In tone, it's almost like a self-help book for those beginning to suffer from cabin fever. There is "no need to sing the real estate blues", says Bartolucci. "With a change of attitude, it is possible to live large in small spaces." Selecting a small home is much like therapy, she says. "It requires drilling down to get to the real you."
The book is so optimistic and aspirational that when you're finished reading it, you either want to run out and buy the nearest shoe-box to test your ingenuity or feel guilty about squandering the space you already have with too many possessions. The average apartment in America is 74 sq m (800 sq ft), according to the National Apartment Association - in New York the average one-bed studio is half that size. Bartolucci features examples of apartments ranging from 9.3 sq m (100 sq ft) to 93 sq m (1,000 sq ft).
At the minuscule end - 9.3 sq m (100 sq ft) - is the studio of Yen Feng, a freshman at New York's Columbia University. He maximised his space by sleeping Japanese-style with his mattress on the floor and propping the bed frame up against the wall as a shoe rack. While some of those interviewed preferred no-nonsense functionalism - like the couple who hid their wall bed and shelves behind sleek wooden doors - others went for high voltage drama.
One guy flaunted design convention when he decorated his Lilliputian Manhattan pad in fire engine red. The result is cheerfully electric and the kitchen is demarcated from the rest of the room with red and white check wallpaper. While it wouldn't be for everyone, it works because he keeps some of the walls relatively plain, everything is small scale and most of the furniture is on wheels or collapsible. The sofabed, wall-bed and suspended ceiling-bed figure in many of the one-room apartments - allowing the occupants to turn a sittingroom into a bedroom at will.
One couple who bought a 32.5 sq m (350 sq ft) pied-à-terre in Manhattan, decided to go for a bed dressed like a sofa during the day for a loungey feel. Plain walls were dressed up with a few eye catching pieces. There are plenty of table lamps for a soft ambience and a big shag pile rug on the floor to encourage stretching on the premise that the lower you sit, the more spacious it seems.
A couple with a small child pared down their books to their favourite 10 and only display those objects most charged with meaning for them. Their 37.1 sq m (400 sq ft) apartment isn't sterile or über minimalist because it uses bright colour and upholstered cushions in saffron and olive sofa to give a comfy feel. When their baby was born they sliced away part of the worktop to make a feeding station. In the kitchen an alcove created a room for the baby by installing acrylic partition.
You may get away with having lots of furniture if they have lean lines and neutral tones and a mix of shapes, so your eyes dance around the space and it never feels confined. It helps if the furnishings are double-duty like a chest that opens to reveal writing desk or a coffee table that's a storage unit.
There are some quirky examples of apartment living in the book. Like the man who sleeps and stores his possessions in his bathroom so he can use his livingroom to display his collection of furniture and glass and objets d'art or the ballet dancer whose designer friend painted his apartment in a colour flattering to his skin tone, because he thought the white walls in his previous apartments never suited him.
Living Large in Small Spaces is published by Thames & Hudson.
