- Name:
- Kim and Scott
- Location:
- Chicago, IL
- Square Feet:
- 675
- Division:
- Little
- What I Love About My Small Home:
- Adaptability. Our home's small footprint motivates us to utilize every space in multiple ways. The office/studio serves double duty as a sometimes guest room, and our kitchen/living space can be a gathering place for a dozen friends - or turn into a relaxing lounge space with the pull of a curtain. The open floor plan affords us multiple purposes (from casual dining to movie nights in), and with small tweaks (plus dimmer switches!), we can change the feeling and mood of an entire room.
- Biggest Challenge of Living in a Small Space
- After almost a century and multiple renovations on the building, wall space and room sizes are inconsistent and chopped up. We've had to be creative with where wall paint starts and stops, and properly sized furniture is hard to come by. Our longest wall may be a few inches too short for a standard console, and centering your sofa under the off-centered window is not an option! (But tricking your eyes with equally off-centered curtains is.) And when everything you bring into your home results in a battle of inches, it pushes you to be careful with what you choose to surround yourself with.
Categories:
Style,
Main,
2012,
Chicago,
Small Cool,
Small Spaces
Like this Small Cool 2012 contest entry? Favorite it below!
10 No-Fail Decor Tricks & Tips for Small Spaces
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shaw's Original Fir...
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
awwww I love it! I love your cat too! Isnt it funny when cats get annoyed when you take their pic! "I have always known it was you" That is frickin cute!!!
Nicely laid out! I really like the entertainment center.
<3
so nice! so AT!
A little Scandinavian going on here. Good for Chicago's gray days.
LOVE THIS ONE.
Love the studio space! Would love to see more!
Really, just a lovely home!
You had me at the living room. Where is this chair from. Love the pops of color with the stark white.
Is the entertainment center custom made? That thing is amazing!
Love this home and the sweet furbabies! The living room wall color is my fav! Is that a Vizsla? We have a two year old V at home and I can't tell from the pic if he's that or a Rhodesian. Either way, he/she looks like a sweetie. :)
I never say this, but... House Tour, please! You have a lovely home.
looks very nice, but i think the bedroom shot should show more than just a small vignette.
I wanted to see the kitchen! What a lovely home you have!
You can find way more about all the work these two talented folks have put into their home at http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/. I've been following their blog for a while now and was super stoked to see them here! They're also amazing community members with lots of love for their dog and I love what they've done.
Didn't even have to scroll through the pictures before I Favorited this one. I love Kim and Scott's home and their blog.
The angled shelves seem so thoughtful and deliberate. I love them.
I love how light and airy this place gives. Your cat completely just owns the spot, lol!! mine does too. Where is the desk/high table from?
Peir723: She's got a great tutorial on how she modded a desk she already had to look like that.
Love this!
Can someone tell me where to find shelf brackets like the ones in the living room pic that basically cap the ends and extend above and below slightly? I've been wanting to use these for the shelves in my kitchen, but I can't even figure out what search terms to use to describe them.
@KATB: Those shelf brackets and the shelves are from IKEA. :)
Thanks @samiam!
I'm stuck with a spot for 6" depth though. And the shallowest they have is over 7". So close!
favorite! I love how open and cool and bright the place is! It works really well with the home. But I must ask...what's with the molecules on the chalkboard wall?
Love. Can't wait to see the house tour (please...)!
HOUSE TOUR!!!!!!!
Just checked out their website and they already have a house tour!!
http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/our-sweet-home-chicago/
My favourite "little" entry so far. Very well laid out, lovely decor!
wait, what? This home was featured in a house tour already--2 years ago.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/house-tour-18-113587
I bookmarked it and was just looking at it the other day.
sorry, didn't mean to sound so accusatory!
Thank you everyone! You've made our day!
@Alainnotebook: the chair was a happy Craigslist find.
@Jaetea: the media center was custom designed and built by us. AT featured it last year (thanks, AT!): http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/build-a-custom-media-wall-for-145845
@SherrieAkin: our pup is a pit bull mix! We love the bejeezus out of him. You can see more photos of him here: http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/2012/04/06/peanut-butter-red-lipstick-and-being-home/
@Pier723: The table was originally black, purchased from Target a few years ago. Most recently, we painted it white and added the gold legs!
@Girl Jen: our friend is a science teacher, hence the molecules on our chalkboard wall :)
@Crosberg: you're awesome! Thank you for filling in while we couldn't...
... and thank you to our amazing blog readers who helped answer any questions!
Oh, and @Pier723: Our kitty, Maddie, totally rules this roost!
Umm...is that organic chemistry on your chalkboard? Love it! Beautiful house!
Inspired by the chalkboard wall! great use of the space!
Drool. Love. Want.
Also, I need the source for that orange elephant if I am to sleep tonight. Pretty please. :)
Nice! I love the bright office space. It makes me want to repaint my office today.
so bright and beautiful! favorite elements are the living room chair, the kitchen cabinets, the studio, and the prints in the bedroom! wonderful space!
I love this apartment--just added it to my favorites. Where are the picture in the bedroom and the rug in the studio from?
Love this home. Follow her blog - they tweak and update their house constantly!
@Charlie26: Thank you! The elephant was a flea market find years ago, and sadly, there are no marking to indicate a store/artist/etc.
@Katy T.: The rug in the studio is from Flor, Sophistikat!
Beautiful, I would have wanted to see the bathroom too !!!. Cute, HOUSE TOUR !!!
What a great living space! Love it! You did an excellent job with decorating and lay out.
The chalkboard makeover really is sweet and the lighter paint colors overall make the place way more airy. I'm so glad the old studio blue and kelly green are gone! It could be my age talking, but what a difference!
The floor plan doesn't seem right. From the pictures, it looks like there is a closet door to the left when you walk in the front door, but that's not on the floor plan! So confused.
Hi Laur244, good catch! The floor plan was given to us from our developer, but we realized later that it was for a neighboring unit, so it was reversed. I reversed the plan, and a difference (other than being reversed) is the hallway - in that, ours juts out where you see the utility closet. Hope that helps!
Just out of curiosity ... Where did you get your sofa? I love the shape!
The cohesion and organization of the space while keeping it still feeling warm and liveable is wonderful. What is the colour on the walls? I remember this from when it was a house tour.
Thanks again, everyone!
@Laescupidera: The sofa was a Craigslist find, originally purchased from Room and Board.
@Indigosailor: The living room and kitchen walls have Behr, Winterfresh, and the hallway is Behr, Porpoise.
We actually have a source list (it needs a little bit of updating, since a few rooms recently changed this year!), right here:
http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/source-list/
Of course I love you guys! Good luck!
This is a great apartment. I see why people are fawning all over it.
However, to quote rizkmichelle's comments from Rodelee's Pretty Little Dwelling entry, "I don't think it's fair to the other contestants that her home was already featured in a House Tour. We all can search AT and see all the other pictures... she has an unfair advantage, IHMO."
Added to the fact that 1) Kim has a recent blog post on yellowbrickhome asking her readers to vote for her; 2) posted a link to a source list above with TONS of additional photos of her home (even though contest entries allow only five), and 3) entered the contest with what looks like staged professional photos...this puts the other contestants in her category at a huge disadvantage, and I hope readers take all these factors into account when voting for their favorites!
The apartment IS beautiful, but its not really fair to judge the other entries against this home. AT should have stricter guidelines for posting links and additional photos.
I see nothing unfair about their entry...bloggers know how to take a picture, they have blogged for so long, they have figured it out (best lighting, best time of day to take pics for their home, best angles).
As far as asking readers to vote for them on their blog...well, why not? I bet you if you check everyone's facebook page that have entered, they have all asked for the vote from their friends, have tweeted about it and everything else. Actually, I found out that they were on here based off of someone else's blog that I follow religiously (not that I don't follow Yellow Brick Home, I look at it at the end of the week for strategic pinning purposes).
As far as posting a source link with other photos...pish posh. Most people voted before seeing the other photos or going to their blog. I am sorry, but Kim and Scott have the best entryway by far of ANY entry and that alone can warrant a vote ( I absolutely adore the blackboard paint). They are nice enough to give a source list of the cool stuff they have, well, that is being a nice blogger.
Good luck to you...I hope you win. :-)
Love their blog! But they get my vote because I heart their space :)
Love your place - it's one of my favesies! :)
TRISSI, I'm really not sure how many people voted before seeing other photos or going to Kim & Scott's blog, and neither are you. I, for one, always look at comments before voting. Regardless, because the link is out there, there is still a possibility that additional photos swayed people's votes, and that shouldn't be the case when the contest entries explicitly asks for only FIVE photos. If contest rules also asked for a link to a blog, if available, then I would have no problem with links to their blog. It is unfair to other contestants in the same category. It's something AT should address.
Btw, my sentiments, that linking to a page on your blog that shows multiple photos of your home, is unfair to other contestants, have been echoed by other readers in multiple entries. I am sure Kim & Scott deserve every vote, and they are nice people with amazing design sense, and its kind of them to share their sources etc etc, but I do want to point out that showing additional photos of their home, and placing that link in the comments section of their entry for anyone to freely access, is unfair to the other contestants. Unless the contest rules explicitly request blog links, I don't see how it's not.
I love this! Everyone loves the living room but my favorite part is the entry way. The color is gorgeous, where did you find it? That paired with the blue striped rug is genius. And the chalkboard was brilliant. I don't see anything unfair about it, as long as this isn't the second time it's been entered into the small cool contest. LOVE IT.
Hi Lstemple, the color on the hall walls is Behr Porpoise, and the chalkboard wall is Rustoleum paint, picked up from Home Depot. Thank you!
And thank you everyone for the kind comments!
I love the curtains that separate your living space from your kitchen. Did you have the curtains custom made? What type of track did you use? I am looking at doing something similar in my space. Any insight you could provide would be helpful! Great space, a favorite for sure!
Hi Designasaur, thank you!
The curtains are from Ikea - we love them for their extra long lengths and great prices. The tracks came from Curtain-tracks.com, and there are many, many styles to choose from. Hope that helps!
I'm in love.
And you're from Chicago! :) Makes me happy to see such a beautiful place in my city!!!! I just bookmarked your blog... when I get an apartment of my own I will be stealing some ideas for sure!
Aw, thank you, MMilham!