Carolyn Purnell

We’ve all got them—you know, those awkward empty spaces that are a little too small for an accent chair but way too big for just a side table. If blank spaces are making you uncomfortable, the good news is that you’ve got plenty of options for filling them without cluttering up your home.What are a few of the best empty space solutions? Well, plant parents will be pleased to hear that they have another excuse to go out and buy a few more indoor trees and succulents.

When I started reading Apartment Therapy years ago, the hook for me was the house tours. Seeing “real” spaces that felt creative, personal, and above all, attainable taught me that a beautiful home means much more than high-end furniture. As a way of revisiting those roots, here are ten house tours from the AT vaults. 2005, coming right up!

Sam, Stephanie & Lorena’s Harmonious Blend of Styles in Oakland As we all know, home is about much more than stuff; it’s about an atmosphere. A healthy home won’t always be quiet, and it won’t always be clean, but it should offer a sense of comfort and ease. Click through to find a year’s worth of ways to ensure that your home offers you all the joy that it possibly can.

As anyone reading this site knows, design is about a lot more than just having a pretty room. There are many different elements that go into the experience of a space, and they can all have a significant impact on the way that we relate to our surroundings. In Environmental Interiors, authors Mary Jo Weale, James W. Croake, and W. Bruce Weale argue that human beings experience their environments in five ways: Through the senses—sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell.

It seems that, increasingly, it’s becoming the norm for kids to have their own bedrooms, especially if there’s adequate space for it. But what if you have two rooms, two kids, and no playroom? Is it a better use of the space to have the kids share a bedroom? In my experience, young children don’t feel much of a need for a private bedroom. They would rather have ample space to play.

Piet Mondrian used reds, yellows, blues, and blacks. Donald Judd’s palette has included green, pink, and orange. Carl Andre relied on the colors of specific materials like wood and metals. And yet somehow, the term “minimalism” today calls to mind an image of a pure, clean, and orderly space with white as the dominant color. Why, despite seeing color everywhere, do we still tend to associate the minimal and the modern with whiteness?

When you hear the word “cabin,” what does it conjure? Wood, trees, taxidermy, leather? Going through our tour archives, I noticed that we’ve featured many a cabin here on Apartment Therapy, and while some of them adhere to the usual expectations for a cabin, many of them offer unexpected takes on rustic decor. TOP ROW: 1. Nancy, Ethan, Ohle’s 1903 Cabin in the Country 2. David Bethany’s Abode in the Woods 3. Keith Rebecca’s Cabin of Worldly Delights 4.

When it comes to design, sometimes you just have to go bold, and small spaces are perfect for giving your imagination free rein. Constraint breeds creativity, and corners, ceilings, closets, nooks, and crannies can all be converted easily into luxurious, dream-like spaces with a bit of verve and paper. Top Row: 1. Patterned hallway in Anna Spiro paper from Adore Home Blog. 2. Wallpapered ceiling in reading area from Caldwell Flake via House of Turquoise. 3.

Coming in at only 400 square feet, Joann’s teeny-tiny entry from the 2012 Small Cool Contest is filled with clever ideas for storage, furniture layouts, and small-space organization–not to mention that it’s also cute and colorful! In the living room, Joann figured out how to maximize seating so that she can host a number of friends, but no one feels cramped or closed in by an overabundance of furniture.

A family room is the workhorse of the home: television, playtime, conversation, games, relaxing. It’s the room that has to handle it all. Here are some examples of rooms that manage not only to accommodate all those activities, but also to do it beautifully. TOP ROW: 1. Chris Colleen’s Small, Hip Family Home: Here, instruments on the wall are ready-at-hand and decorative.

Living rooms are the workhorses of the home. Most us spend the majority of our time in these spaces, and they often have to fulfill a host of functions: seating, storage, dining, and leisure. In small homes, cramming all this in can be quite the challenge, but here are 10 eensy and efficient living rooms from our recent Small Cool Contests that have done it beautifully. Top row: 1.

Name: Beth & Mr. King Location: Lincoln Square; Chicago, Illinois Size: 1,500 square feet Years lived in: 7 years (3 as a couple); rented When you live in a place where the foyer looks like it could have been transported directly from a castle, there’s a certain degree of solemnity that might be expected of you. Beth and Mr.

The general rule of thumb is often to have a neutral sofa and to change up the color and pattern of your living room with accents and accessories. But some rules are made to be broken. Here are plenty of rooms featuring bright, fabulous sofas in every color of the rainbow. Red 1. Lizzy’s Lovely Little Dollhouse House Tour 2. Katie’s Hillside Bungalow Small/Cool 2011 3. Hivemind Designer: What Would You Do with This Wall? Pink 1. Inspired by This 2. Chinoiserie Chic 3. Life.Style.Etc.

In this post on easy-to-live-with paint colors, a number of you asked for a post on paint colors that go with wood trim. Ask, and you will receive! Here’s a roundup of some successful colors from our House Tours that allow wood trim to shine. When it comes to wood trim, neutrals are an easy choice, but as some of these rooms from our house tours show, having wood trim doesn’t mean that you have to be a shrinking violet. Bold colors can work just as well! TOP ROW: 1.

A friend of mine is redecorating her living room, and she mentioned that she had had a hard time coming up with a coffee table suitable for her toddler. Charged with a mission, I’ve come up with 10 options that have rounded corners and resilient and durable surfaces not made of glass, which are relatively easy to clean and are solid enough that they won’t tip over with the weight of a crawler. Top row: 1. Clover Coffee Table, West Elm, $189 2.

Bathrooms are essential to the function of a family home, and whether they’re efficient and sufficient can make or break the time it takes for kids to get ready in the morning get clean at night. Unfortunately, they aren’t always the easiest rooms to tailor to children’s needs. Here are five common problems that parents face in kids’ bathroom design, along with some potential solutions. Problem: The counters are too high. Solution: Give them a boost.

Color. Color. Color. It’s such a powerful aspect of our lives, and yet most of us probably haven’t stopped to think deeply about color as a concept. We appreciate particular colors, arrange them, and live with them, but there’s so much more to color than those actions may let on.