Today’s video is about Felice Cohen who lives in a 90 square foot microstudio in Manhattan. By choosing a studio that measures just 12 feet by 7 feet, Felice Cohen can afford to live in Manhattan’s Upper West Side where apartments rent for an average of $3,600 per month. She pays just over $700 for her 90-square-foot microstudio.

“I think a lot of people have a lot of space that they’re not using. I grew up in a place where my bedroom was 17 feet by 17 feet with two walk-in closets that combined where almost the size of this apartment that when I go home now I go in the closet just to feel like I’m back in New York.”

Video via faircompanies.com

When Tammy and Logan moved from Sacramento to Portland they downsized to where they were able to load all their belongings into the back of a standard size pickup. That is quite an accomplishment. The neat thing is that they have stuck with a minimalist foot print. Just check out Tammy’s tiny library and the clothes closet.

If you are interested in minimalism which most of us are who follow this blog be sure and read Tammy’s blog Rowdy Kittens and check out her books Smalltopia and Simply Car-free. Thank you Tammy and Logan for sharing your life with us.

Photo Credits: Tammy Strobel

Tammy and Logan plan to eventually build a tiny house on wheels and are planning to have Dee Williams and Katy Anderson from Portland Alternative Dwellings assist them in the construction. I am looking forward to seeing that project started.

Login in the apartment kitchen

Rowdy Kitten relaxing

The Great Room

Tammy's Tiny Library

Logan working in the home office

The Closet

The Bathroom on Laundry day

The Dining Room

The Bedroom

The study concluded that construction of new buildings on scattered narrow infill lots would fit well with the City of Winnipeg’s inventory of vacant lots in residential neighbourhoods.

Each building is two storeys high and has 8 units each with separate entrances, private washrooms, and separate ventilation systems. Each Pocket House features three barrier-free suites and one fully accessible suite on the main floor, with four other suites on the second level accessible by two outside staircases.

Each suite has a built-in cooking area complete with mini-fridge, microwave, sink, hot plate, dishes and cooking utensils. Suites also feature a single bed, a built-in table and a chair. The fully accessible main floor suite has modified doorways and a large roll-in shower for wheelchairs. All of the Pocket Houses meet the Manitoba Hydro requirements for being Power Smart and energy efficient signifying excellence in design and sustainability.

At 210 and 243 square feet these fit into the tiny apartment category.

To learn more visit Pocket Houses.

The article written by The Seattle Times Rebecca Teagarden is titled “Tiny apartment shows the value of a good fit” and talks about Steve Sauer’s 182-square-foot Seattle condo which shows the value of a good fit, from the soaking tub built into the entry floor to the “video lounge” tucked beneath the “cafe area.” Sauer shopped Ikea for many of his home’s furnishings, such as a little table, and used tabletops to fashion cabinet fronts.

Saurer’s says, “What I really wanted was one place with exactly what I needed and wanted. Quality is more important than quantity for me, and extra space only a problem,” he has written, describing his nearby too-big-for-him, one-bedroom condo.

“I wanted to compress my home to squirt me back out to the community,” he says, taking inspiration from dwellings in Scandinavia and Japan, places where space is dear. “That was one of the philosophical reasons. I want to be able to shop daily, not store a lot and eat really well.”

When Sauer couldn’t find the things he needed, he designed them and built them: The stainless-steel shower caddy, towel bar. For other pieces, “Ikea came through again.” Lighting, cabinet pulls, and butcher block for shelves, the table top and cabinet fronts. The rich flooring, Brazilian walnut, was installed by Matt Messenger. A bureau from West Elm fit to 1/8 of an inch, and so it was ordered.

“My dream is to put 300 of these in a building and not have it be a tenement.”

Read the Seattle Times article here.

Read the complete article called But Will It Make You Happy? at the New York Times website and visit Tammy’s website Rowdy Kittens and follow her journey there.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Tammy Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, in their pared-down, 400-square-foot apartment in Portland, Ore

There is a recent article in Man Overboard about this and here is a brief introduction: In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the “Domestic Transformer.”

Enjoy the video below and read the complete story here.

How to Maximize Space in a Studio Apartment

• Multi-tasking furniture is your best friend: Instead of trying to squeeze a couch, a guest bed, and a linen closet into my apartment, I bought a daybed with a storage space built in under the mattress. I store my sheets, towels, and (oddly) scrap paper in the hidden compartment under the mattress.
• Forego the coffee table and opt for a corner credenza instead: Filling every inch of floor space with furniture is a mistake that studio apartment dwellers often make. Only open floor space feels like, well, open floor space, and it is at a premium in studio apartments. I have a corner credenza that I use creatively. When company comes over, I use the top surface as a buffet. Day-to-day, I use the credenza’s surface area as a staging area for items I need to eventually store or get rid of. Although the credenza is across the room from my “kitchen,” I use its drawers for dry food storage (how hard is it really to walk 8 feet to get a tea bag?), which solves the problem of not having kitchen cabinets.
• Hang as much as you can from the walls, ceilings, and rafters: I am lucky that my studio has exposed metal beams. Instead of taking up valuable floor space with book shelves, I bought cheap wall mounted modular book shelves and hung them from a beam using C-clamps and karabiners. I have a teeny, tiny bathroom with no space for shelving, so I store my bathroom toiletries in a wire mesh basket that I screwed to the bathroom wall.
• When it comes to storage, think outside the box: Is it “normal” that I store my cosmetics in my top “kitchen” drawer? No, but the drawer is the right size and it happens to be adjacent to the bathroom. Creativity is the studio apartment-dweller’s ally.
• Reflect light: Designer Linda Merrill suggests using Lucite and polished wood furniture in order to reflect light throughout a small studio apartment space. Lucite furniture also allows you to see more of the floor beneath it, creating the illusion of more open floor space.

How to Separate Your Bedroom from Your Living Space in a Studio Apartment

• Use furniture to create an alcove: Linda Merrill suggests placing a freestanding bed behind a sofa, so that the back of the sofa creates a boundary between your living area and bed area.
• 4-poster beds with curtains: The bed’s curtains create a natural boundary between the bed and the rest of the room. If you can afford a 4-poster bed, it’s a very efficient way to create a private bedroom in an open floor-plan.
• Alcove spaces make great bedrooms: If you have an alcove space in your studio, placing a mattress on the floor is an efficient option. Even if your mattress extends beyond the alcove, placing shoji screens around it is a way to squeeze the most out of an alcove space.
• Build a loft bed: I am lucky to live in a studio with a built-in loft, which is where I have made my bedroom. I have seen some very clever lofted bed arrangements. Depending on the height of your ceiling, temporary loft bed options include everything from grown-up bunk beds with home office spaces underneath to DIY platform beds with storage below.

The bottom line in studio apartment arrangement is to reduce your clutter, keep decorations to a minimum, buy furniture that works double duty, and be creative.

Guest post by Chaya Goodman is the editor of Networx. To read more home advice like this, check out Networx.

General manager Jon Stovell says the micro-lofts will have pretty much everything essential for living, including a bathroom, kitchen, workspace and big loft-style windows that provide natural ventilation and bright views of the street.

“They have a fold-down wall bed, and when that wall bed is up, it has a fold-down table. We integrated a workbench with a built-in flat screen TV so that that does not take any room and created a glassy washroom enclosure that functions as a single area — shower, and toilet and sink all in one area.

Stovell doesn’t think the tiny size will affect livability of the suites, which he compares to similar developments in cities such as New York and London, England, as there are plenty of amenities in the neighbourhood, such as cafés, restaurants and other public spaces.

“I think a couple could live in there,” he said. “They are very beautiful and very modal, and you can switch them around in different ways, depending on what your needs are.”

Other cities are also experimenting with small-size suites in central neighbourhoods. Shoebox Lofts in Portland, Ore., Cubix Yerba Buena in San Francisco and Moda Apartments in Seattle all have units in the 250- or 300-square-foot range.

You can read both articles here: The Global Mail and CBC News.

Katie in Berlin, Germany recently wrote me to let me know about their tiny kitchen remodel. I am going to let Katie tell you their story.

We live in a 480 square foot apartment in Berlin.  Our kitchen in Berlin, Germany left a lot to be desired when we first saw it.  It was easy to see why.  At 36 square feet, there were no drawers, counter spaces, or places to store anything.  The last tenants kept a fridge and freezer in the living room with dishes stacked on top of it.  We thought that there just had to be a better solution. We had no idea where to get tools or construction supplies.  

Our apartment also didn’t have any lights except this one dangling hazard.  When people buy or rent in Germany, their homes don’t come with any light fixtures.  People prefer to take their lights with them from home to home.

We were considered lucky, though, most homes also don’t come with kitchens. 

Germans call American homes “cardboard houses”.  I don’t think we truly understood why until we started to tear down our kitchen walls. They were solid drywall, and they weren’t even load-bearing!  Each of those drywall bricks weighed at least 50 pounds.

And slowly, we progressed without breaking the law… What law?  The notorious German law that enforces strict quiet hours every single day.  It makes work for young remodelers nearly impossible; it offers their neighbors a bit of bliss.

• Our cabinets extend all the way to the ceiling, utilizing every inch of vertical space.
• Our oven is too small to cook a turkey, which is fine with us.  (We’re vegetarians)  It also happens to be our microwave, too.
• We picked a two-burner stove.  It turns out we hardly ever use three burners, let alone four.
• Our dishwasher is half-sized.  It really feels like just the right size for a family of two.
• Our fridge is a standard German fridge… which happens to be the same tiny size Americans have in college dorms.  It’s covered by wooden panels, which is traditional in German kitchens.
• Our recycling system is super compact… and still manages to provide us with a way to sort our recycling in TEN ways (required by German law).

We like to think that good living can come in any size.  And so far, so good!

To see more pictures of the project and read more of Katie’s experience go to her blog.

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24 Rooms Tucked Into One

Christian and Shelly both sent me an email this morning in regards to a New York Times article about a modern and cool and high tech and very expensive tiny home in Hong Kong, that has some neat ideas we can apply to tiny space living.

Mr. Chang, an architect, can impose on his 344-square-foot apartment, at least 24 different layouts. Using shifting wall units suspended from steel tracks bolted into the ceiling, the apartment becomes all manner of spaces — kitchen, library, laundry room, dressing room, a lounge with a hammock, an enclosed dining area and a wet bar. 

The article called 24 Rooms Tucked Into One by Virginia Gardiner can be viewed at the New York Times website. Following are a few pictures and descriptions.

Photo Credit: Marcel Lam for The New York Times

Living Area

The walls in the apartment’s main room, awash in yellow because of tinted windows, are pushed against the wall to the left to create an open space, with CDs to the left and the desk to the right.

Bedroom

Mr. Chang uses a hydraulic Murphy bed of his own design, hidden behind a sofa during the day.

Bathroom

Behind one movable wall of shelving is an extra-large Duravit bathtub. A glass shower stall doubles as a steamroom with color therapy and massage and a Toto toilet has a heated seat and remote control bidet. Sound emanates from a six-speaker home entertainment system.

Kitchen

A panel hides the nook, and the TV wall moves to reveal the kitchen.

Closet Storage

Mr. Chang, 46, has lived in this seventh-floor apartment since he was 14, when he moved in with his parents and three younger sisters. His experiment in flexible living began in 1988, when his family moved into a bigger apartment a few blocks away with his grandparents and uncles.

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