Small Spaces and How to Live in One

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Alice Lesman: welcome to the workshop on small spaces and how to live in one. I'm Alice Lessman. I'm the director of Housing Information Referral in the office of work life and the office of work. Life offers a lot of programs and services that will hopefully make your life easier from childcare schooling,

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Alice Lesman: elder care, relocation and housing, which is me. And also we have a very, very robust wellness program. So take a look at our website, worklifecolumbiaedu for kind of all of our programs and services. There's a lot of information there. But specifically what I do and what's on the website for me is

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Alice Lesman: we have an affinity mortgage lending program. So if you're interested in mortgages, some information about affordable housing, a moving guide, rental guide, and some information about temporary housing. If anyone has a need for that at any given point, but always feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, or if you want to have one on one counseling about renting or purchasing or have mortgage questions? I'm happy to help everybody.

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Alice Lesman: And there's our our website. Link. Thank you, Becca. So I gave this workshop for the 1st time a while ago.

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Alice Lesman: And I haven't done it. Obviously, since I think since 2019, because it's never been recorded. So I did it pre pre covid, and it felt like it was time to kind of

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Alice Lesman: bring it up again and have it recorded this time. So it will be on our website within like a week or 2. If you need to go back, want to go back and look at it, or you want to like. Let any of your colleagues know about it. It is on our work website on the upper right hand corner. There's a video library. Just need to log into it through your with your Columbia Uni, and then look up the name of the workshop. It's all enough order. So it's under small spaces. All right.

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Alice Lesman: Let's get started with the slideshow, because the visuals are kind of everything.

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Alice Lesman: So there's us. There we are, and there's me and then

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Alice Lesman: our 1st slide is I kept this slide in from a while ago. This is this, this apartment has been grandfathered. You cannot build

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Alice Lesman: an apartment this small anymore, as of right now, the building code only allows for the smallest apartment to be 400 square feet. This. This apartment is only 90 square feet, but I liked it because I wouldn't want to live in it. Really, it's a little too small. But

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Alice Lesman: this really, this person really used the space as efficiently as possible. Vertically, there's so many things that are hung on the walls. Even the chairs are hung on the walls, as you can see here. Clothing. Obviously, I'm assuming this person has a storage space someplace, because this is

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Alice Lesman: not a whole lot of clothing to last 4 seasons. But it's amazing what people can do. With it with a small amount of space. So and you know, also, vertically, like building up and around over the window. So it also gives a little perspective. If you think your space is small, just take a look at this. So, but

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Alice Lesman: this is what we're going to talk about

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Alice Lesman: during this presentation, or the things to consider decluttering and organizing. That's actually kind of one of the 1st things you really want to do before you even start to think of what else to do with your space, because you should understand what you have and how to store it where you can store it, what store space you have, what you need. There are a couple of really great

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Alice Lesman: workshops that have already been done about organizing and and decluttering. They're again on our video library. There's 2 of them when I think was in both of them. Last year one was in April. One was in October, 2 different speakers. They're professional organizers, so that they're certified, and they have a lot of really great tips about how to think about

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Alice Lesman: looking at your space and organizing it. So to me, that's step number one. And then these are all the things to consider which you know, we're going to go through each one.

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Alice Lesman: But what's your scale of your space? Is it a very small apartment. You're living in a small studio. Or is it just you have. You live in a house, but you have small rooms.

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Alice Lesman: or if you have even large rooms. If you have a big space, you actually need big furniture to fill it up properly. The scale of the furniture needs to kind of work with the space, and that doesn't need to be 100. You can have a big piece of furniture in a smaller room just as long as the other things are kind of helping to balance it out.

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Alice Lesman: and vice versa. You can have a big room with some small pieces, but it's the balance of what is the size of the space, height and width, and all of that. And then what furniture fits into that properly sight lines! We're going to talk about sidelines. Kind of what is your IC. Where is it? Is it stopping someplace that also helps to make a space either feel larger if it kind of continues out

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Alice Lesman: and through the entire space, and potentially even out the window?

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Alice Lesman: Or does it get stopped like with a hard, opaque surface lightness and transparency furniture that that's you'll see some good examples of that maximizing storage and furniture that does double duty. We'll see some examples of that as well, and going vertical, using the walls like we just saw on that that very, very small 90 square foot apartment color. How to use it. You don't need to stick to neutrals. I did put that in, and we're going to have a lot of slides that show neutral colors.

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Alice Lesman: But you do need to be very careful about how you use color and how how it all works together. And we're going to talk about lighting as well, and how that kind of helps to influence

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Alice Lesman: making a small space feel larger.

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Alice Lesman: decluttering. Okay, that is our 1st one. And as I said, there's 2 2 really good workshops on our video library. But I loved this example so the heaviness of all that stuff that that person has, and then the lightness of just holding on to that beautiful vase that has some emotional attachment to it, and kind of how happy that person now feels. So that's how I feel about

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Alice Lesman: decluttering and organizing of kind of like it. It does help to lighten up the whole feeling, not only the space, but of you, but for you as well.

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Alice Lesman: Here are some quotes from Marie Kondo, and she wrote a book. She's a Japanese organizer. She wrote a book, The Life Changing Magic of tidying up. She wrote this a few years ago. These are some quotes from it. You have the the pdf of these slides. You can take a look at them, but I picked out a few that I thought were really to me meant something, as in, you know, when you pick up something. Do you really want to? Does it really make you happy, or does it make you already make you feel like, oh.

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Alice Lesman: what do I do with this? You know, Heavy, but it doesn't like you. Look at it has great memories to it, or if it's just plain, old, useful something you really really need. But like, I'm not going to go through each each quote, but she does talk about kind of

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Alice Lesman: decluttering and organizing all at one shot, which is kind of helpful, putting same type things into the same place. So that way you know what?

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Alice Lesman: Like all of your like tools, or like tapes and all that can be an all in one spot supposed to scattered out around the house, or or you know, or different drawers of your apartment. So that's 1 way to think about about organizing

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Alice Lesman: what you have.

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Alice Lesman: All right. So let's get started and kind of like the visuals of what what I'm talking about here. With things to consider. So, scale of space.

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Alice Lesman: This is actually a very, very small room. This is the living room, but it doesn't really feel that small, and you can see how narrow it is.

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Alice Lesman: But this person used

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Alice Lesman: the right size furniture for this space. So this is a very, not very deep cabinet that provides a pretty significant amount of storage. This sofa is looks really comfortable. It's pretty deep, but it's light colored, and it doesn't have any arms. If it had arms, it actually would visually close you off a little bit more like right over here and over here.

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Alice Lesman: So this the scale of it is still prop, you know, pretty good for the size of the space. These are small chairs around this table. And now this we're not talking about in this particular side, but

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Alice Lesman: you know, using the space vertically and the overhead over the window.

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Alice Lesman: In this slide. This is not a small room, but the the furniture is all pretty light.

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Alice Lesman: You can see underneath the sofa the light of the window right underneath the sofa. So this, even the sofa is not blocking. Kind of your visual ability. Kind of see through and feel the space a little bit more. This isn't looks like a relatively comfortable chair, but again doesn't take up a lot of visual space. The ottomans. This could be a storage ottoman.

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Alice Lesman: Now this I I found interesting, because this is kind of contrary to pretty much everything I've said before about lightness of color, smaller furniture, but this works. It looks very, very comfortable. It's darker colors, but the only really big piece of furniture in this small room is this sofa.

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Alice Lesman: and it is the center point, and it has been made the center point. But it's still. It's big and fluffy, but it's still not overwhelming to the space, and it still fits into the space properly. The other pieces of furniture are low. They're not, you know, small little light things, but you know they're dark colored, and kind of chunky, but they still they fit in with the scale of the rest of the furniture and the size of that room again. Not a big room, but it looks very comfortable and inviting.

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Alice Lesman: Okay, more about the scale of space and scale of furniture. So in this photo, this looks like it's, you know. Not a teeny, teeny apartment, but not, you know, huge either, so it's very light and bright. Not big, heavy pieces of furniture. This sofa, though, is is the kind of one darker piece.

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Alice Lesman: Everything else is kind of like. See through and small and you know, kind of keeps that keeps this the space feeling pretty open. But this kind of ties together, this kitchen with this dark

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Alice Lesman: countertop. So this kind of helps to center that the living space. And again, it's not

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Alice Lesman: overly big and and stuffy. You still kind of seeing over it to the, to the wall behind.

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Alice Lesman: At this this I really enjoy only because it's just this feels so balanced. There is a dark wall.

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Alice Lesman: but the whole space doesn't feel dark. The furniture is pretty light and open, but this big painting that really draws your attention gets balanced by you know the colors and how the colors are used, but it doesn't feel like it's a very, very colorful space, but yet it still has a lot of color, and I still have some some darker elements to it. So that this is like very well thought out of like how to balance

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Alice Lesman: different sizes. It's a very large painting. That fits really nicely into into that space again, because

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Alice Lesman: the painting itself the background of the painting is pretty much more or less the color of the wall. So it's kind of blending in a little bit right there, too. So it's not really kind of standing out of this huge, overwhelming painting for the space.

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Alice Lesman: Couple more examples about well, sidelines, anyway. So this is a studio. And this is this person has put up a curtain to kind of be able to not only give privacy, but also to

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Alice Lesman: you know. Just kind of close up the the bedroom area. You know, if guests or anything like that. But, as you can see, it's still very like light and transparent the curtain, and when open, then you really feel the whole space. Nothing again, is kind of like blocking your your your vision.

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Alice Lesman: And this is a very, very small apartment, and it does have a loft bed area above the the kitchen, but it is really a small apartment. It's not very wide, but you're seeing the whole thing. And again, there's color in it. But the color is

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Alice Lesman: like one color, otherwise everything else is pretty light and bright, and the furniture is kind of, you know. Pretty light, is it not? Very heavy?

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Alice Lesman: So I find this to be. It doesn't feel like you're really cramped, but it's like a very, very small space at the same time. So this is something to think about is really seeing the whole space in one shot.

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Alice Lesman: This is not the most appealing of spaces, I would say, as far as like a beautiful space is concerned, but it is again a small studio. You are getting visually blocked by this bookcase right here. It's saving grace. I mean, it does give you a lot of storage right there. It would be better visually if it was just one long countertop, because in your eye wouldn't stop at all, but it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling. So you're still seeing that little corner of the ceiling above you still kind of feel the end

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Alice Lesman: of the of the space in this wall, and that matters. Believe it or not, that that little bit.

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Alice Lesman: this is also a lot going on in here some, you know, heavy, dark pieces. But again, it doesn't feel very overwhelming.

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Alice Lesman: this. Still, the scale fits the space you're seeing through this this bookcase to the all the way to the window beyond. I'm assuming that's the bedroom back there, you see, going through the kitchen into the bedroom back there all the way to that, to the light of the window. So again, you are kind of feeling the full length of the space, even though you have things that are dividing it and dividing the spaces, it's it's not totally blocking your vision.

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Alice Lesman: I like this example a lot, because this is your, and this is the front door. There's a little people of the front door, and you're right into the kitchen, except you're not in the kitchen. You have a nice divider here that not only provides storage, but also provides

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Alice Lesman: the light from the the kitchen window coming through. So this looks like it is clear glass. It could also be translucent glass. So you're not really looking into the kitchen, but it creates the space of the entry. That's extremely small, but I don't think it feels very small when you come in, because you're still able to see through the glass into the entire space.

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Alice Lesman: If this had been a solid wall, then it would feel like extremely constrained when you 1st walk in, and what you see when you 1st walk into any space, whether it's a full

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Alice Lesman: house apartment room. What you see 1st matters that initial impression kind of sticks to you, and so I help people with real estate. That is what real estate brokers have always said. It's called curb appeal. When you're looking at a house, it's like you drive up to a house. What is the 1st thing, you see, and then within 5 seconds, people have decided whether they're like really interested in the house or not, because it's their initial impression of the outside of the house, so does you walk into the house same thing

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Alice Lesman: with apartments. It's a little bit different. Yes, when you walk into a building, if that matters. But it's really when you walk into an apartment, what do you see? What is the 1st thing you see? If you see a solid wall that's just 3 feet in front of you. That is a little like off-putting. You want to hopefully see

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Alice Lesman: something beyond it. So it's feeling much more open, particularly if it's a if it's a small apartment, and of course a small space and the same thing here. This big wardrobe and and drawer system right here does eat up a lot of space. Without it it would feel much, much more open. But again, it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling, and they've really used the space by

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Alice Lesman: building, you know the bookshelf above the the doorway. But you're also within these 2 rooms. You're looking at the windows beyond that are bringing in an awful lot of light. So that is helping to keep this all very open despite this big

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Alice Lesman: piece of furniture.

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Alice Lesman: All right, some more furniture, examples and lightness.

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Alice Lesman: so this is a big piece of furniture. We have very high ceilings, though, so it's not feeling very overwhelming. It would feel very different, though it was big if it was a dark wood or just a darker color, but it really is disappearing, despite it being very, very big. It's disappearing because it's the same color as the wall. So it's really kind of blending in with it. This wall could have been any color

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Alice Lesman: as we can see over here on the desk. Dark wall, dark top to this desk.

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Alice Lesman: This is not taking up a lot of space at all this whole desk area.

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Alice Lesman: and you not using white, don't have to always use like a very, very light color. But the desk is really like folding right into that wall, because it's the same color as the wall. So that would be the same thing over here if you painted it the same way. But I I found this to be a great example of fitting a kind of small office desk area into really a teeny little corner that you know you wouldn't be able to really utilize as probably as efficiently as this has been used.

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Alice Lesman: This little little foyer, this little, you know. Entryway.

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Alice Lesman: it's such a nice little vignette of a of a space. Now, I'm not a big fan of plastic furniture, and this is, you know, a lucite

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Alice Lesman: table, but it disappears like you are. You are feeling and seeing that entire small little area. Yet you have a Fourier table, and you're kind of like, have some nice elements of of an of an entryway, including the basket, which I guess you could throw some gloves and scarves in the wintertime. So

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Alice Lesman: you know, push comes to shove. There is always loose height to really make things disappear. But I but I found this to be very appealing when again, normally plastic furniture is not really something I particularly am drawn to. But I liked the feeling of this, and you know nice little color, and in the background to help to separate this entry. Small, very small entry area. From you know what is the rest of your apartment

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Alice Lesman: here? Transparency of furniture. This furniture is disappearing. This is dark wood, but these are folding chairs. They're very, very light, very light little table. You, this whole little thing you have a little, you know, table and 2 chairs. Yet it disappears as you're seeing the wall behind all you know, right through it. You've seen the window right there. It's really just the whole that instead of big chairs and a big table, this just disappears.

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Alice Lesman: you know, into the window. Really

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Alice Lesman: alright. More examples of how to kind of see through furniture. So this, I believe, is the the Ikea calyx system, which at the end of the presentation I have some examples of furniture that do exist, and that you can find to accomplish some of these things. But this you hold a lot of storage in there, but you're seeing through it again, is separating this little office area from presumably the the living room.

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Alice Lesman: to kind of help to give some privacy to and set off the the office.

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Alice Lesman: Give a provide an awful lot of storage without having a wall. You don't have to build anything and see you see over the top of it, so light and air come through, and light and air come through. All these little openings as well, which really kind of helps to just keep it

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Alice Lesman: again, you know. Kind of seeing through the space. Keeping those sidelines open. And not having big, bulky furniture.

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Alice Lesman: Of course. Here we're also again seeing through it. There aren't side panels to this console. So you're seeing the wall behind all the way through here and this screen which is helping to section off the foyer area. You're also seeing right through in into into the living area

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Alice Lesman: maximizing storage furniture that does double duty. So all of these these 3 examples are basically like, you know, built ins which, if you don't own your apartment or or house, if you're you're renting, you know, might not really want to make this investment, because this can get pretty expensive. There are ways of doing this without, you know, having built-ins, too or doing it real, you know, relatively inexpensive, like you can get by pre-made

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Alice Lesman: bookcases and then get a carpenter to just kind of do a couple of shelves and put a put a crown molding on top. So you're not building out the entire thing

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Alice Lesman: and always proceed with caution with this. You need to use a good professional whenever you're doing any built-ins, anyway. But it's the same thing here, too, like you can buy pre-made cabinets.

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Alice Lesman: and then I probably could get a pre-made cabinet here, too, and then have a carpenter kind of finish it off, either in the ends to fill in in the ends. Oops. Sorry I didn't need to like jump ahead

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Alice Lesman: either, to fill in some of the ends, or just to make sure it's all attached properly, so you can still again do it without huge costs. This is not the prettiest of spaces, but it is really using the space very, very efficiently. I mean, this is the kitchen area to sit and eat on the flip side of it.

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Alice Lesman: using instead of a wasted wall. You have more storage over here and built in storage over here. So this is a very, very small little area that has, you know, pretty efficient use of space with a lot of lot of storage.

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Alice Lesman: When you're doing something like this, though.

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Alice Lesman: and I'm going to talk about that a little bit further on as well about measuring. So this, you know, I'm assuming, is a not a custom, little loveseat. It is a pre-made love seat. You have to be, measure and measure twice. Measure 3 times before you buy anything. Make sure you know what? How big something is? Does it really? Is it really to scale? Does it really fit? I mean, what helps this, too?

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Alice Lesman: With? Because, again, that's not a big sofa. This is not a big space, but the color. This sofa blends right into the the pink color of the the wall and the unit.

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Alice Lesman: but be very careful with measuring anything. And when you buy

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Alice Lesman: pre-made furniture, if it's not going to have this built in feeling, you don't actually want to measure and have it fit exactly to the wall. You do want some air space around it. It's only when you want that that kind of custom built in feeling that you really kind of need it to fit so tightly. Otherwise, if you're just going to have roof floating pieces, you definitely do not want it

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Alice Lesman: all the way up to a wall, and everything fitting completely next to each other. You want there to be some sort of air around it.

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Alice Lesman: And that will also depend on how scale of that the piece scale of the room. As to kind of what.

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Alice Lesman: how much air shall we call it? It needs

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Alice Lesman: there's some more examples of maximizing storage. So under this this you know sofa. So this probably could be done pretty inexpensively, too. This could be

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Alice Lesman: pre-manufactured pieces that then a top is put on it, and then this is probably just these are probably just foam cushions. So this kind of built in look of maximizing storage underneath. You know, a sitting area. Can be done relatively, inexpensively, and it really kind of fits. This

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Alice Lesman: wall. Very well. You got a lot of seating, and you get a lot of like under under

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Alice Lesman: the the seating storage. This I liked only because it's kind of like sculptural. You can again. It's, you know, maximizing storage dividing space. It's like it's a it's a studio. There's a bed there. And then this is probably the living area over here, so very light in feeling, but yet really add some interest again, without having to build a wall and also keeping air and light floating around it, and on top of it

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Alice Lesman: this little bar area is floating.

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Alice Lesman: make sure to do something like this. You need to make sure it's installed properly. It needs to be anchored very well to the wall. Usually you need a a good carpenter to do that. But

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Alice Lesman: you, this is has not really taking up a lot of visual space, because you're seeing the wall

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Alice Lesman: right behind it. This is just kind of the open cabinet underneath. There is nothing you're seeing the baseboard, and you're seeing the wall. So this is just kind of floating in space for as much as that's storing.

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Alice Lesman: It's not taking up any visual space, really. And it's not taking up literally. It's not taking up floor space.

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Alice Lesman: so this, you know. Same thing that you have some vertical storage going on over here. This chair is kind of fitting right underneath that. That lower shelf there. So when somebody actually is needs to sit in it, I imagine you want to pull it out just a little bit. But when it's not being used. You can save a little floor space by tucking it under there, so that, you know, using the vertical space this way is very good in this coffee table without question has storage in it.

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Alice Lesman: so that that again, more storage with, you know, kind of a double duty usage there.

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Alice Lesman: Some more examples of that.

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Alice Lesman: This, I just thought, was a nice little vignette of how to like. If you don't have a lot of drawer space. And you you want to have things easily accessible. Just kind of a way of arranging. It's kind of becomes a little like

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Alice Lesman: art visual

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Alice Lesman: vignette of how to display things. If you have no easy way of storing anything in the bathroom, you can like have a nice little curtain put around it to, to store things underneath, that, again.

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Alice Lesman: not hides all the ugly things, and does not create any visual impairness, any kind of stoppage. And this is another example of having a little kind of this is like a little day bed with storage underneath. And again you're seeing the baseboard underneath it a little wall behind it. So this is also easily kind of can be done. And it shouldn't be too expensive.

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Alice Lesman: This case you have cabinets, but this is a probably like an alcohol studio. The bed is fitting into this very small little space and got a lot of storage overhead right there.

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Alice Lesman: so that's you know

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Alice Lesman: what another way to kind of at maximize storage is to kind of think what what goes on overhead as well.

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Alice Lesman: or examples of going vertical.

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Alice Lesman: This I liked. A friend of mine did this once in her bathroom when she renovated so in between, and that you do need a contractor to do this, and so you do want to own whatever the space of the property that you're doing this in. But

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Alice Lesman: in between the wall, particularly a a plum wall plumbing wall like that. There's a lot of lost space in between the bathroom wall and whatever is on the other side of it. So you can

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Alice Lesman: use utilize some of that which is exactly what this person did. They built a little shelf out of that space that's not being utilized. So there's pipes, particularly in a building that run vertically

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Alice Lesman: so you need to avoid those. The pipes are. Probably I,

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Alice Lesman: if I'm not sure what side it would be on. Probably over here on this side. The pipes are running vertically, but you can kind of like carve out some space in between that lost space in between the 2 walls, whether they're plaster walls or sheetrock walls.

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Alice Lesman: This, of course, teeny little kitchen. This reminds me of a kitchen I used to have years and years ago, this smallest kitchen ever imaginable, and yes, we used

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Alice Lesman: vertically because there was no place to put pots and pans. So on the walls they went.

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Alice Lesman: This bookcase is pretty big and bulky, except it has no sides to it, so it's keeping this kind of open, so your eye isn't as blocked

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Alice Lesman: from kind of seeing what's beyond the the edge of that wall.

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Alice Lesman: This, of course, is, you know, for a child's room. Easy way to kind of like. Get gain some floor space back for for a desk area and kind of elevating the bed. And I think most kids really love to be able to kind of climb it into bed and kind of like starts to be almost a hiding place.

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Alice Lesman: This is a great way to use an extremely small bedroom, and getting some storage out of it, both under the bed, some storage, and around and above the bed oops. I keep on doing that. I click when I'm using the mouse.

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Alice Lesman: this obviously is built in with there's some like this becomes a little night table. Area as well. So this is pretty much pretty maximized. The use of

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Alice Lesman: of a very small space. Not sure I would have done this big headboard like that personally. Not as it not only is it blocking the window a little too much, but it's these little side things, I think, are also not helping as far as the heaviness. It would lighten it up a little bit if didn't have that there. But this is certainly one way to kind of get. Get some

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Alice Lesman: more out of a very small space.

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Alice Lesman: More examples. Lots of books.

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Alice Lesman: again. There, you're seeing the wall behind it, so you don't want it. This is pretty overstuffed, but we don't want to overstuff it too much because you do want to kind of still feel the depth

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Alice Lesman: of that where that wall is. So it's not completely blocking. This is also a great way to kind of get more

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Alice Lesman: storage.

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Alice Lesman: These have doors, of course, so you can hide things a little easier, but shelves above so lightens it up a little bit. If it was all cabinetry it would feel a little bit heavier, and not as light.

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Alice Lesman: Little hard to do this in kitchens have open shelves, but hey, it really does keep it

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Alice Lesman: feeling much lighter, because again, you're feeling the wall behind there

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Alice Lesman: and probably maximizing the space, because with cabinets you actually are losing some space with the thickness of the walls of each cabinet. So as far as maximizing shelf space. That's that's the way to go. We just have to keep it really neat and clean.

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Alice Lesman: all right. Another alcove studio. And this is kind of about color. So there's not a lot of color in here. It's very gray, but there are some like darker pieces, and it kind of carries through some very colorful little things going on here. So there are some splashes of color, but because it's so kind of

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Alice Lesman: pretty much light

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Alice Lesman: white and and gray it's it is keeping the whole feeling of it pretty pretty light, but there are some things that kind of accentuate it like this dark wall here, the gray right here, the gray here. So it's it's balancing it, too, without it being all completely 100 white. This, of course, is 100 light. This is my favorite desk chair. Ever it's a human miller chair.

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Alice Lesman: but you know very small scale, not very thick, very light again. The table, too. It's all kind of just blending in. There's no weight to that whatsoever. And again, one more example of a chest that's painted the same color of the wall. And again, it doesn't have to be white it could be, whatever color, but it is, blends into the wall much more when it's the same color.

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Alice Lesman: So this I thought, was kind of interesting. This is really pretty starkly black and white. It's just a little bit of brown.

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Alice Lesman: This chandelier couldn't feel so dark and heavy in any space

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Alice Lesman: except that it's surrounded by all this lightness. So there's some very dark, heavy pieces, the chandelier, the armchairs. This looks like it's some plants, and again some dark pillows.

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Alice Lesman: But it's really interesting. The contrast of it creates this like visual interest. And the heavy dark pieces are used very consciously as to where they are, and what's kind of behind it? What is what is surrounding it? There's not an awful lot surrounding this, the channel. I think the chandelier is beautiful, but if there was a

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Alice Lesman: dark color behind it it would feel a lot heavier. I think and wouldn't kind of like Pop anywhere near as much as it is now. Same thing with this. This is pretty bland, but there are some very like thoughtful use of color. The brown, the brown piping here, the brown piping here, the brown wood in the in the lamp.

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Alice Lesman: it's thoughtfully done. It's it's pretty balanced, and again it all kind of like just

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Alice Lesman: doesn't feel big and overwhelming, none of it.

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Alice Lesman: So we'll talk a little bit about lighting. Now we have. We do have some slides with some color in it. It's like, you know, I'm not just saying, please make all your entire space white. That is not the idea. The idea is to just think about

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Alice Lesman: what

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Alice Lesman: color, both light and dark does, and how it's balanced within a space. But lighting lighting is super important.

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Alice Lesman: One of my biggest irks and I never turn on overhead lighting when it's flush up against the wall, because that or it's the ceiling rather when it's flush up against the ceiling, because that light just puts it full kind of bland.

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Alice Lesman: No contrast. Look to an entire room.

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Alice Lesman: You do need lighting. You do need to be able to see what you're doing. But lighting that's suspended down like that, or this

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Alice Lesman: doesn't, does not create that overall like no shadow wash.

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Alice Lesman: This create starts to create shadows like this. This is highlighting. There's, you know, spotlighting for this artwork right here.

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Alice Lesman: and then there is some sort of pendant that's shining down right on on this table. So the lighting is like very much more dramatic when it's done this way. Same thing with this. This is a Scandinavian design. Paulson, I believe is the designer again suspended from the ceiling. As is this, so it's going to create pattern. You can't really see it on. But in these photos, but it's going to create pattern without creating this overall blandness.

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Alice Lesman: And there's lamps for some spotlighting for either reading or just kind of spotlighting for this artwork that's over here.

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Alice Lesman: Of course you need task lighting when you're sitting at a desk, really, to be able to see properly at least me, because I don't see very well. I don't think I need kind of more direct light onto what you're looking at.

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Alice Lesman: we have another slide of lighting. Same thing. This, you know, is a

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Alice Lesman: these are lamps that can be pre-bought. This can be, you know, this could be made, actually believe it or not. If you feel at all creative. You can just get a socket with

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Alice Lesman: probably a home depot. You can buy something like that with some an interesting light bulb.

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Alice Lesman: Friend of mine bought something like this once, except that she had very

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Alice Lesman: short, not very high ceilings, and so it looked really out of place because it almost hit the ceiling, so it just didn't work in her her apartment. But if you have a little bit of height to your ceilings. This is actually a lovely way to kind of get lighting

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Alice Lesman: in a place where you would a little harder to get without having, like cords or anything hanging, hanging, hanging around. So this is. This is actually one of my favorite type of light fixtures, or, you know, ways of adding light into the into the middle of a room, or spotlighting on something

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Alice Lesman: this has a this photo has a lot of light going light fixtures in it. So again, light fixture for this table. When that's just on this again suspended from the ceiling. So this will I create pattern, and some some focused lighting like right underneath it. And again some lighting for for this little chase lounge over here.

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Alice Lesman: So when you're thinking about lighting, where is it. I mean, I'm not, and I'm not, you know, suggesting. Go out and get electrician and rewire a whole apartment.

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Alice Lesman: You can do these things with what you have where do you have outlets? If you have a light fixture that's flush up against the ceiling. Go into some of these lighting showrooms and take a look at what what this does when it's suspended down, and you know that's an easy fix for most electricians, or even like a good handyman in your building

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Alice Lesman: to change out a light fixture, and there's some like relatively inexpensive ones out there. So you can do that. You know, to be able to do that relatively easily. But, where are your outlets? You can do something like this

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Alice Lesman: to again, you know. Buy pre-made light fixture, same thing with this you know, to suspend it from the ceiling. So there are ways of doing this, but that's

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Alice Lesman: spending a tremendous amount of money on electrical costs.

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Alice Lesman: mirrors. This is, you know, an age old kind of way of making a small space feel larger, but it really does work reflected light, and these are, I thought, was some interesting examples of mirrors. So this one is, you know, not an expensive mirror. I think this, I think. This is West. Elm sells something like this. But this little design, you know, it's kind of reflective of

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Alice Lesman: the brickwork, you know, painted brick right behind it. So it kind of really works very nicely, as a you know, some, some interest. These are just simple, round mirrors that have just been

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Alice Lesman: strung together, you know

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Alice Lesman: an abstract way again. This 2 different shapes, just, you know, sitting on a ledge. This is an antique, beautiful, antique mirror, like really really lovely and really a focal point of it would be a focal point of any room. But again, all the reflection that you see coming back into it just

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Alice Lesman: totally expands the space. This is just a simple little little square window in the bathroom or mirror, rather square mirror in the bathroom. But you know it uses up most of the wall, and it really

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Alice Lesman: expands with presumably is in a very, very small bathroom.

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Alice Lesman: Somebody else I know.

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Alice Lesman: It started a mirror collection because he had such a small bathroom. He collected all these mirrors and just put them on this one long wall that he had, you know, typical New York City apartment bathroom.

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Alice Lesman: Not not exactly spacious, you know. Pre-war one long wall covered in all these like very, very interesting mirrors and so completely expanded. The space was a focal point, for the bathroom made the bathroom like really interesting to go to, otherwise it would have been pretty boring. So you can get pretty creative with this.

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Alice Lesman: Okay, I love this. I love examples. You know the befores and afters of anything, because it really kind of shows, with just a little bit of thought and imagination, or a lot of thought and imagination. What you can do. So this somebody's moving into this very, very small apartment. Here I have. How many square feet is it? It's not even

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Alice Lesman: I don't know where this is. I don't know if this is New York even or not.

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Alice Lesman: it is 307 square feet pretty darn small. There are rooms that are, you know, that size typically.

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Alice Lesman: or that would be a large room, but still very small apartment, because it's a 1 bedroom apartment. So it's a very small kitchen. It's really just basically a wall. It's a kitchenette.

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Alice Lesman: and this is not appealing. It's all very bland, not, you know, a whole lot of thought to put into storage, and how things, how to make things

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Alice Lesman: work better and be more more functional. And then this is the after, and this is also has color in it, but it's consistent color.

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Alice Lesman: It's not a lot of different colors.

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Alice Lesman: So maybe in the books, or something like that where there's like little pieces of it, but

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Alice Lesman: the overall kind of pale green, pale blue look of it pale gray.

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Alice Lesman: There's still lots of white, but

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Alice Lesman: it! It feels light, bright, thoughtful. Put together lots of storage. This little niche lots of like, just, you know, shelves on standards. This is very inexpensive to do. Behind this curtain is this is the kitchen.

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Alice Lesman: where the kitchen again is thoughtfully

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Alice Lesman: put together of how to utilize the space. Better still, not a lot of counter space. However, the the

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Alice Lesman: cabinets have glass. So you're seeing again the wall behind. So you don't have this like solid front. That's kind of making the space feel even smaller. The space above it is being utilized nicely. These do not feel big and heavy. If the cabinets went all the way to the ceiling. We feel much kind of it would feel heavier. But you're seeing the the wall behind up there as well.

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Alice Lesman: And there's a consistency like, I said in color, which kind of helps to make the space just feel kind of warmer, more welcoming, and expensive. And I think it's utilizing all the things that we just talked about, how to use storage vertically, how furniture that does double duty. There's some books down there, mirrors that help to expand the space.

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Alice Lesman: hiding spaces, closing off spaces. So you have the better division of space because you do like, you know, unless you keep your kitchen immaculate all the time. There are times you're going to want to close it off, and even if it is all nice and clean, don't necessarily want to look at the sink when you're sitting in the living room. There's also some more examples of

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Alice Lesman: that very, this very, very teeny bedroom.

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Alice Lesman: some night tables, and then all the storage is underneath the bed.

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Alice Lesman: could probably have done even more. Put some more storage above here. But I think this, you know, really kind of expands. What this u utilizing, this, this small bedroom, and the storage capabilities pretty effectively. This table is a folding gateway, gateway.

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Alice Lesman: date, leg table. I guess it's called I think this is an Ikea one. Actually. So not too expensive.

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Alice Lesman: Small scale chairs. But they're very comfortable. These are actually, you know. One of my more favorite chairs is also a Scandinavian designer,

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Alice Lesman: and even this is very thoughtful. So the monitor kind of screen where looking at movies or whatever not like normal, like counter height, or, you know, table height, it's they utilizing more like a coffee table height to bring it down, and therefore, keeping this all open and not cluttered up with a screen. So just the scale of furniture even, is like really fits this extremely small space.

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Alice Lesman: all right. Here are some examples of some of the furniture. This I mean, you know, that's not that. It's my favorite manufacturer. Just that they do know how to do this. This is all Ikea on the top. All Ikea beds. There are other manufacturers. However, Ikea's improved a lot over the years, or the quality has definitely gotten better, and the price is still pretty darn good. So this is, you know, great, for, like a a school age kid or a teenager.

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Alice Lesman: some great examples of understorage drawers. And then this. So in the organizing

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Alice Lesman: videos and workshops that we've done in the past. Talk about these

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Alice Lesman: beds that are on these hinges that you flip up like this, and Ikea does have have one. There are many more out there that are much more expensive than this. But you get a lot of storage, and you can get some. Put some very big things in there, too. So this really like optimizes the use of storage underneath the bed. This is the most expensive bed, and I let's see what on the price.

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Alice Lesman: Yes.

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Alice Lesman: Oh, gosh! Where is it?

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Alice Lesman: It is? $549. So you know. Still relatively inexpensive, of course, that's just the frame itself. That's not with the mattress, but to get a lot more storage, it's, you know, probably well worth it. This is. These are also Ikea shelves. They look like they're just floating. You need to be very careful how you install them, of course, so that that depending on what the substrate is.

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Alice Lesman: you know. Is it plaster that needs to be anchored properly? If it's sheetrock, you want to try to hit the studs. You don't know how to do that get a handyman or somebody that can do that for you, so that they're pretty secure.

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Alice Lesman: This is extremely expensive, but I loved it, so I threw it in there because I thought, this is just this is sculpture and art, and it's really dividing the space. But you know it's a good example of how to utilize storage space and still be able to divide it. This is an Ikea, the calyx. It's 6 feet by 6 feet, so very big, really can like, you know.

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Alice Lesman: close off a space, or, you know, divide a space rather while providing an awful lot of of storage in there, and Ikea has also little storage

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Alice Lesman: bins that you could use on the bottom. I wouldn't put all of this with storage bins, because, again, visually. It closes you off your sight lines, but maybe on the bottom you get an awful lot of storage out of that. This is from Amazon. I thought it was really kind of fun and something a little bit different, and this is a little bit more expensive than the Ikea table that we saw in the previous slide. But again, a way of kind of getting

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Alice Lesman: what can fold up to a full size table into a much smaller space coffee table. That has storage inside of it, and that is where is that from?

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Alice Lesman: That's from Dania furniture. That's about $550. So not that expensive, but you know very nice little storage space, and this is from Josh Josh and Maine, and that is also a storage ottoman for about $190, and I thought that was kind of like fun and fluffy.

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Alice Lesman: Alright, planning your small space, or almost done. I'm I'm I'm you know,

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Alice Lesman: wrapping it up here? How do you go about this? 1st of all, how many people do you have living there? What I have found myself is that, however, many people are living there, everybody needs at some point, some private space for a space where you can just

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Alice Lesman: kind of have your own little corner. So that's something to think about. If you have a

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Alice Lesman: one bedroom apartment, and there's 3 people living in it. How do you divide it up so that everybody at some point everybody can kind of have their own

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Alice Lesman: their own little corner.

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Alice Lesman: same thing with a couple living in a studio. I've known plenty of people that have done that have done that, for you know they don't usually do it for too too long, maybe a year or 2. But one person wants to sleep, and one more person is working doing something. How do you divide it up so that you kind of can like

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Alice Lesman: not be literally on top of each other. You know. Still, be able to kind of get done what you need to do and get the rest, you need

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Alice Lesman: make a detailed list of your requirements per room. So if you're really going to rethink this, what are you keeping? What do you need to change.

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Alice Lesman: Think about how the space is going to be filled up, how you can utilize it. The best. What's most important to you if you have grandma's antique sofa, that's huge, and you have a teeny little apartment, but you are keeping that, and that's that's what you keep. And then you figure out how to make everything work around it.

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Alice Lesman: Consolidate items like I said, having things spread out like same type of thing spread out throughout your your apartment or your house. 1st of all, finding, knowing exactly where everything is, and finding it is, is difficult, but then, when you gather it all together.

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Alice Lesman: Then you say, oh, I have 5 different kinds tapes of the same type of tape. Do I need all of them? No, you need one. And what was the last time I used this tape, anyway? So

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Alice Lesman: consolidate items think about what you really need and use, and the rest of it donate. There's lots of places that take lots of donations. Think about your aesthetics and your practicality.

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Alice Lesman: All these slides that I just showed some of them. I don't find as appealing as others, and I'm sure you feel the same way. But look through different websites of different looks, and see what's really appealing to you? Is it the color, the use of color? Or is it the type of furniture that's used? That room? That was a very, very big, stuffy, colorful room with a big, stuffed, upholstered sofa. Is that what's appealing to you? And that works.

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Alice Lesman: How much of that can your can your space handle? Probably not a lot if it's small.

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Alice Lesman: So just that's just something to think about. But what's what are the aesthetics that appeal to you? You know it has to be your home. It has to feel comfortable when you walk in

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Alice Lesman: measure the space and measure twice and use a big

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Alice Lesman: tape. Measure 25 foot, because even if it's not a 25 foot space, if it's a 15 foot space and you're using a 15 foot tape measure, those are not as thick and reliable and like sturdy as the 25 footers, or even 50 footers. But just be careful. And what you know carpenters say, is you

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Alice Lesman: measure twice and cut once. Well, measure the space and measure twice is what I got to say. Make sure you're measuring it properly, and when you're measuring it on the floor

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Alice Lesman: baseboards if you're trying to fit furniture and believe it or not. And, like, I said, try to leave some airspace around furniture. So that's not just fitting right up against any directly up into the corner of any wall, unless that's it's it's use, unless that's really how it's supposed to fit. But

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Alice Lesman: baseboards take up space. So if you're measuring the wall, you're not including the baseboard baseboards. Usually wood baseboards have about a half an inch of a thickness to them. So that's on either side of a wall, you know. 2 walls that's an inch right there, and believe it or not, those inches do add up, make a budget and a schedule, and stick to it. You know, in the budget you know what I learned many years ago is

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Alice Lesman: when setting budgets for clients is you add at least 10% to your budget, if not 20%, because things will always. You'll always find something more expensive. Something will always somehow cost more between tax or delivery, or what the the case might be. So

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Alice Lesman: you know, always think it's going to take longer and always, you know, budget more than what you had originally thought.

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Alice Lesman: Okay, those are some of the references I used for this presentation. These are some, some furniture manufacturers, just a few. There's plenty when you start Googling, I mean some of these, do you know, do built-ins? Some of these, for sure you've heard of most of them, for sure you've heard of, and some of that. This is varying costs and types of furniture, and quality.

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Alice Lesman: And then these are the websites that I pulled a lot of the photos from.

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Alice Lesman: All right. Well, that's it for me. Does anybody have any questions about anything I've said or see. There's a couple of questions in the chat. There's things in chat, anyway.

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Alice Lesman: If you have dark wood floors, what color, furniture and lighting, do you suggest? Well, okay. So we saw a couple of examples of wood floors. It really depends on you.

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Alice Lesman: So would

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Alice Lesman: dark wood already kind of draw like draws the eye down already makes the space kind of heavy, as opposed to like a light oak, or something like that. So what do you want sitting on it? You could put dark furniture on it, but not you probably don't want a lot of big, big, dark furniture. It's going to make the space feel heavy.

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Alice Lesman: So you probably want some things that are a little bit lighter and brighter. But that black and white space. That was a very dark floor, and there were some very dark pieces of furniture sitting on it, but there was a lot of light around it as well. So it's really a balance thing.

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Alice Lesman: And lighting you want accent lighting. You want spots like, where do you want the light to hit in the in any given room. Think about that

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Alice Lesman: 1st of all, sometimes just plain or functional, need light to be able to read. So if you're sitting on the sofa reading something. You need light right there. That's kind of more like a task. Light type thing. Or you know some sort of accent lighting. So think about where you need the lighting, and then

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Alice Lesman: what the overall effect is of the balance of light.

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Alice Lesman: so I mean, if you don't really need a light in what a corner! But that corner looks awfully dark without some sort of lighting. As you get a small little lamp there to kind of brighten up that that spot. So you have a spot here, a spot, there a spot over someplace, else. So again it creates a little bit of a lighting balance.

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Alice Lesman: and like I'd said about kind of of the overall lighting thing you do want to suspend. It's nice to have light suspended over like a dining table or a coffee table.

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Alice Lesman: It does add a little little

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Alice Lesman: we'll get a little bit of overall lighting as well as a little bit of a of an accent. So I hope that helps Do you do affordable complementary organizing consultations or no people companies that you recommend? Yes, we, the some of the the people that we have professional organizers that we have used, and to provide our

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Alice Lesman: other workshops on organizing definitely can recommend them. So if you don't mind, maybe you can shoot me an email and I'll be happy to send you the names of them. They're fabulous. They're all, you know, certified. They belong to a professional organization. I do not do that. I somehow feel like I missed my calling, but I don't do that. But thank you, though. But I can definitely refer some

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Alice Lesman: some some good people to you. And there's there is a national organization that you can also just kind of look and peruse who's in the New York area or in the area that you live?

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Alice Lesman: Any other questions anybody might have.

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Alice Lesman: No, all right, we're just about, you know, at the hour, Mark, and thank you so much for coming. Please shoot me an email about any questions you might have, either about small spaces, or anything about housing or real estate. I'm happy to help you.