What is the smallest, coolest item, thing, or piece of furniture in your apartment? Inquiring minds want to know as we take time this month to celebrate the vast possibilities and eccentric beauty of our small urban homes.
We're looking for great small washing machines, small sofas, small televisions and small refrigerators... tips, sources and items that make small easy. Send them in to editor (at) apartmenttherapy (dot) com.
On other news, we'll be posting a little lightly today as we have a busy day offline facing us, but we'll be sure to get up the three entries of the day, so stick around.
(pic: Small is Beautiful by EF Shumacher)
Oooh. Here's my chance. Does anyone have ideas for keeping an ironing board that takes up almost no space? I have considered those things that let you hang a normal ironing board on the back of your door. Any smaller ideas?
Ikea just introduced an ironing board that fits into a kitchen drawer. Believe it was posted here recently.
Here it is:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=69128
It's been done, but I love the wall cubes that I use as my nightstands next to the bed. They are small about 9 x 9, but they fit the space perfectly. I have just enough room for some books, my tiny alarm clock and place to plug in my cell at night. I love it.
Also affing shoe cabinets to the wall, cleared up a lot of floor space and just looks so much sleeker.
An iMac is an obvious solution in the computer area.
Jessica - I have a regular ironing board - what i did was attach a double hook to the inside left wall of my hall closet. I insert the leg of the ironing board in between the two hooks so that the hooks support the foot of the ironing board and it hangs down flat against the closet wall. It takes up almost no space and is out of sight.
Other space saving ideas I've implemented:
Instead of nightstands, I attached plain white shelves to the wall on each side of my bed. It looks really streamlined, as opposed to a bulky nightstand, it's inexpensive and you can use whatever size shelf that suits your needs.
I wanted a widescreen t.v. but the lcds and plasmas were out of my price range and I did not want a huge crt sticking out from my wall. So I got the Samsung slimfit, which is thinner than a crt but much cheaper than an lcd/plasma. it looks great and fits the scale of my living room perfectly.
I have a little closet next to my bathroom that has a stackable washer/dryer. Changed my life.
One small-scale item that I hate is the bathtub in my apartment. I know that it is common nowadays to put small-scale bathroom fixtures into small apartments, but if you're going to do that, why not make the tub extra deep to make up for the fact that it is short? it's hard to have a relaxing bath when bits of you are sticking up out of the water.
I hosted E. F. Schumacher at a college lecture series and he was great.
Really inspirational...and much better behaved than when I hosted Timothy Leary who went and smoked-up with the locals before showtime.
I live in an apartment without an eat-in kitchen or a formal dining area. Since I love to have dinner parties, I had to find a place for my guests to eat. I found a vinatge table that acts as a coffee table most of the time but lifts and folds out to a dining table big enough for eight!