Room with a View

At the end of the summer I was approached by a woman who was looking for someone who specialized in creating order in small spaces. Her new Brooklyn apartment was almost half the size of her home she was leaving in Portland, OR. While clutter was not her main issue, 600 square feet sounds extremely limiting to most people. In addition, she had a home full of furniture and needed help deciding what to bring to NYC, what to let go of, and what was worth saving in storage for a future home.

We hit it off immediately and met up in her new space in Dumbo which has an incredible view of downtown NYC. She was prepared with photos of her current home, including the insides of all of her drawers and closets and measurements of her furniture. The closets in the new apartment were small, which immediately has me in search of valuable “dead” vertical space to create more storage while keeping it easy on the eyes.

We followed up with a FaceTime call so I could ask and answer more specific questions before her moving company arrived to pack her up. It was during this call I was able to really hear her worries about space, what items were non-negotiable and her biggest concern, her large sneaker collection.

Once we figured out how much furniture would be enough in her space, I was able to look at 2 empty walls that had the ability to hold about 100 square feet of her personal belongings. This space saving solution is hard to explain, but once I had The Container Store install the elfa shelving, my client was thrilled to see:

a. the unobtrusiveness of the shelving allowing it to showcase or constrain storage

b. the flexible of the shelving heights

c. how much of her stuff easily fit on these solutions

Check out these fun before and afters:

Bedroom wall: the best part about this for me is when you look into the bedroom from the living room, you can’t see the shelves because they are behind the door. My clients favorite part is that she can gaze lovingly at her sneaker collection from her bed ;P

Living Room wall: this lovely console from Amsterdam was a no-brainer to hold the television but it felt lost in that nook and needed grounding. Creating the shelving around it feels custom yet invisible. My client is able to store all of the things that remind her of friends and family near and far on these shelves.