Someone (let's call her Susie O) wants to cancel her subscription to the interior design magazine she receives monthly. Susie O is tired of design magazines featuring huge homes, sometimes even in "small space" specials.
"A 20 foot long kitchen island?!?" she exclaimed one day.
[Expletives omitted]
"So?" said I.
"My house isn't even 20 feet wide!!" Said she.
[More expletives, followed by some muttering, omitted]
Thinking this was hyperbole (twenty feet seems awfully motor home small), I asked Hubby to measure the width of the townhouse during commercial breaks of Hawaii Five-O. And wouldn't you know? Our house is 20 feet wide - exactly. Seems Susie O is right: a 20 foot island is ridiculous for her & I. Why bore you with the details of how wide the townhouse is? I think the townhouse is officially a "small space". You won't find a post about my 20 foot island or giant sectional sofa. Instead, this post marks the first in my "Small Space Suggestions" section. I'll tell you about some "Small Space Rules," how I follow them & when to break them.
First issue: furniture scale. Style at Home Magazine advises small space owners not to buy shrimpy furniture. Instead, buy full scale furniture and simply scale back on the number of pieces:
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| Style at Home: Tania Sarracini's Home |
That's a good suggestion, that I tend to follow.
In the dining room, we have just a normal sized table and chairs (and currently a canvas - who knows when I'll get around to moving it - three days and counting).
In the bedroom we have just nightstands, a headboard and small chest. No dresser or armoire - we try to keep all of our clothes in the closet (shoes, purses & coats do live elsewhere). But the bed is a King Size and the headboard, in person, is quite large and even more dramatic than in photos. We went full size with the furniture - we just have fewer pieces.
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| Have you ever even seen this angle? |
So, we do tend to pick full sized items, but sometimes we can't just go without. Sometimes dropping a piece of furniture from the floor plan isn't an option. Take for example the two chairs facing the fireplace (I move them seasonally). I really needed a table to put a cup of tea on, but a full sized table pushed the chairs too far into the room. So, I found this adorable little handmade, vintage stool the other day (at a flea market) and I re-purposed it as a table:
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| Yes, I am searching for a gorgeous pair of vintage teak chairs to replace this pair. These chairs may of may not have been purchased at a grocery store. |
So, although we follow the common advice: don't buy teeny furniture, sometimes we just HAVE to mix in a few smaller scale pieces so the furniture works for us.
