Name: Brad & Kendra — Small Cool 2009 Little Division Winners
Location: South End, Boston
Size: 820 square feet
Years lived in: 5 years — owned

Our memory of Brad & Kendra's Small Cool entry last year was summed up in one word: WOW. Rarely does such a small space pack such a punch. Soaring ceilings, acres of custom-painted moldings, patterns and textures galore, delightfully aged wood floors, and layered lighting design create an epic impression upon entering. The open plan living / dining / kitchen is vibrant and social, while the back bedroom suite beckons like a warm, lush oasis. They've struck that illusive balance between high drama and accessible luxury.

We live in a great apartment — tons of space, reasonable rent, and a landlord who reimburses us for home improvements. This last bit is key because (a) we love to fix things up and (b) this apartment seriously needed it. Although its the first floor of an old Beacon Street brownstone, only the front half of the apartment looks like it. The back half — hall, kitchen, bath and bedroom — was an addition circa 1960 complete with dark wood paneling and cabinets everywhere.

Inspired by architectural forms and fragmented shapes, textile artist Eleanor Young recycles old or outdated furniture with conceptual, custom upholstery designs.

After design school, I (Kayla) took up a hobby in ceramics. The only part I was ever any good at was glazing and, at the end of 3 years, I had an extensive collection of irreverently colorful, wonderfully imperfect, and mostly unusable bowls. Most of the glazes are not food-safe and the rest have cracked bases so, until now, they’ve lived quietly among us — stacked on shelves, sadly under-appreciated. But I love these bowls — particularly the colorful insides — so as Wes and I continued our living room makeover, we also began strategizing a way to install my bowls on the wall as abstract pieces of art.

We own a lot of art — specifically a lot of small to medium sized art — and when we moved in together last year, our individual collections collided. While struggling over what to do with all this art, we were also brainstorming about how to use the room-sized foyer which separates the living and dining rooms. It didn't take long before we had this idea — a large grouping of art that could grow as we collected more and/or decided to change the function of the foyer space…

Name: Wes, Kayla & Bacon
Location: Brookline, Massachusetts
Size: 990 square feet
Years lived in: 1.5 Years

Begin with an architect and a graphic designer — engaged but living separately. Move them into a big apartment in need of a holistic overhaul, merge all their earthly possessions, and make them freelancers for Apartment Therapy. Toss in a Bacon and a wedding. Sprinkle with do-overs. Simmer for about a year and you’ll end up in our home.

These lovely works on paper come from Jackson Heights artist, Nina Max Daly. Working in gouache, collage, or pencil, Nina captures a delightful sense of whimsy in her thoughtful use of negative space, scale, and a rich yet restrained color palette...

Words cannot express how much we love fall in New England. For a precious few, glorious weeks, leaves of fiery red, burnt orange, and golden yellow filter light from above and blanket the earth below. We wanted to capture the color inspiration with a roundup and instantly thought of bedding...

We just celebrated our first wedding anniversary but our physical belongings had a 6 month jump on the actual marriage — slowly merging and flexing two former Small Cool Entries into a new state of marital bliss...

On our search to find a Nantucket whale to take home with us, we stumbled upon this shop where the owner was displaying reclaimed wood trunks he builds on top of makeshift antique stove bases. We think with the right top paired with a nice vintage base it could make a wonderful unique coffee table...