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Small Space, Big Style Shoot

5_5_brainbox (1).jpgBack in the office. It was a long day of sitting in a dark studio in Maryland yesterday, shooting clips for HGTV's upcoming show, Small Space, Big Style.

After makeup at 7:30 and a lot of strong coffee, I was sat down in a chair in front of an HD TV camera, shown nearly 40 different small houses and asked to comment and otherwise give "expert" commentary on each of them.... immediately. The shooting day ended at 5:30. It was a whirlwind.

While it is incredibly hard to comment in an interesting and articulate way on spaces you have never been in and have only just seen, it was very cool to tour so many homes. Every one was under 1000 sq. ft. (small by US standards), and located in either Texas, New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. And they varied widely.

5_5_small.jpgThere was an 86 sq. ft. home that was a beautiful, little shingled house on wheels that was lived in by a fellow whose fiance refused to move in with him, so he was building her one next door. There was a 800 sq. ft., two story, 7ft wide house that was totally decked out in luxury (read - pied a terre). There was a 500 sq. ft. apartment in which the owner refused to have any furniture besides a bed and one chair (which was an art object). He sat, read and ate on the floor.

There was a beautiful tiny one bedroom in Chelsea where a young couple had built a large four poster bed inside the smallest room and hung a soft chandelier down through the canopy to light the bed. The walls were all colored eggshshell colors and the moldings were so bad that they had painted out beyond the moldings @ 4" - creating straight lines and thick molding effect. Very nice. Oh, and they had a 6 month old baby AND it was a 5 floor walk-up. Ouch.

There were far more - including the couple that had a large taxidermy collection and a steel plate for a rug in their bedroom, OH, and the guy whose bedroom was painted to look like the inside of a Egyptian tomb....

While we don't know what the show will look like yet, we suspect that it will be a winner. It simply shows you so much and gives you so many ideas without all the makover business. You can look out for it in August/September. MGR

Comments (9)

I love the tiny-tiny house idea, but I think I'd get caustrophobic after awhile...

What's with the green screen on-set?

posted by mary on 2005-05-05 11:37:54

I saw this show, thought it was a one-time only but i guess they are doing another.

I specifically remember the apt shown in the second photo above. The wall which the sofa is on actually rolled out and folded towards the window and there was a desk back there. Very cool.

posted by louis on 2005-05-05 11:54:02

louis -- Maybe you saw the pilot?

posted by mary on 2005-05-05 12:29:00

louis - I couldn't have said it better myself
www.apartmenttherapy.com/main/archives/002709.html#2709

posted by jamie pup on 2005-05-05 12:31:55

Maxwell-- Wearing make-up and making snap judgments on other people's homes? You are LIVING THE DREAM, baby!! ;)
Glad you got in on this. No doubt HGTV will be coming to YOU for where to find cool small spaces for their next edition!!

posted by patrick (the other one) on 2005-05-05 12:47:18

LOL again (and again) ptoo

posted by jamie pup on 2005-05-05 12:59:21

i wonder what the 86 sq. ft house builders space limit is.
i lived in an 80 sq. foot apartment once and thankfully it had a great sleeping loft built in, i went mental enough as is.
just a few more sq. feet in width would have been much better (like the unit above mine).

really looking forward to this show tho.

posted by orangered on 2005-05-06 03:18:32

oops, it was 60 sq. feet.
86 sq. feet is way better!

posted by orangered on 2005-05-06 03:21:59

orangered -- how did that work, actually... Was your apartment just 6x10 with a sleeping loft? Did it have a separate bathroom and kitchen?

posted by mary on 2005-05-06 11:14:40
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