pt II... collected for your perusal.

[kaigou]

*waits*

Okay. Yes, I know! It IS a stereotype for Virgos -- but it's the damn truth! We need to be aware of the importance of home as sacred space, as a place that's both protective and inviolate and removed from what's-out-there. And, as long as we feel like intruders or permanent guests or not-really-here in undecorated/uncommanded homes/spaces, we never truly relax. That makes it doubly hard to exert ourselves when we need to, when we look around and every single thing reminds us that we're not truly in our own space.

As humans, we do crave enclosure, boundaries on our personal area, walls to prevent others from traipsing in and out, the safety of walls and roof: but this isn't enough, in and of itself. When you begin to understand how you move through space, have an understanding of the relationship between being and objects (oh crap I'm going to slide sideways into Heidegger again) -- then you start to pick up things like why you never, completely, truly feel 'at home' in a hotel room. Or why some folks (like myself) can only -- under the rarest of situations -- feel comfortable sleeping in someone else's space, surrounded by someone else's territory marks.

Hell, those 'territory markers' are the reason I can't stay in some homes: when even the guest room is jam-packed with mementos and pictures and a bazillion geegaws on the dresser, I feel like the entire space is yelling at me that it's not mine and I don't belong. (Guest bedrooms, even when used for multiple purposes, should be as neutral as possible; it doesn't have to be a hotel room but please, for the love of little uglies, put the twenty-seven china shepherdess statues somewhere else please!)

LIVING/DINING ROOM

1. Give serious thought to new homes for stuff.
   
   For some reason (and in this, I blame the furniture salespeople for being deliberately misleading) people just take it for granted that one must have an 84" sofa and a 68" loveseat and then sometimes throw a chair in, as well. Okay, maybe if you had a family of five and you were constantly all in the living room at once. But face it: a full-size sofa eats up a crapload of space, cuts down on flexibility, and pretty much takes over -- visually -- the living area. It doesn't seem to matter how big your space is -- in fact, in my experience you have to have a shitload of living room space to not end up with that sofa-monster just taking over: visually, psychologically, everything, and even though there are ways to work around it, the number of options are still going to be hella reduced.
   
   The same goes for coffee tables. If out of proportion, they draw even more attention to themselves, and end up fighting with the other furniture instead of blending in so you notice the people and not the surroundings. Coffee tables should be relative to the sofa; you don't want people feeling like they're leaning over from a height to put their drink down on a low table, but neither do you want people feeling like they could lean forward and rest their chin on the coffee table because the sofa's so low. Whichever is higher, bring the other up to meet it (easier than cutting down either coffee table or sofa!). You definitely want the seat-level no less than 16" from the floor; most chairs are about 17.5" -- drop below that threshold and not only will people feel awkward because their knees are higher than their hips (leaving the person uncertain whether to hunch forward, or lean too far back), but it's also real hell on anyone with a bad back to get up from such a low position. Fortunately, getting lift-blocks (or making them) is pretty easy.
   
   The key is all proportion, physically, emotionally, visually. You could have three large pieces -- sofa, loveseat, coffee table -- and if they're alone, the room will still feel "big" by virtue of the solitude of those three units. Five smaller pieces -- loveseat, two chairs, small coffee table, one side table -- in meshing upholstery and wood-tones, and the room will still feel spacious. The eyes will see the ensemble, register it as a "single unit", and conclude there's "not a lot" in the room. But... eight pieces from under-sized to over-sized and out of proportion to each other will cause a sense of busy-ness or discordance.
   
   It's not just color, it's shape/size and flow. I learned this stuff from practical experience of trying to arrange a living room when I had a house where the front room was about, hrm, eight feet from fireplace wall to door, the door was only 2' wide, and the stairs were (yes, built in 1810, folks) about 18" wide... seriously non-code, but who's counting? So the useable space in the room was maybe 10' wide, by 10' or 11' deep. With the sofa pressed up against the wall by the front door, and the two wingback chairs opposite, that left six feet between them, with an 18" wide coffee table in the middle, bisecting the fireplace opposite the stairs. Anyone sitting down had to perch on the edge of their seat to reach across two-plus feet to the coffee table.
   
   Several things to notice: the distance between here and there felt larger, because I could see two-plus feet of floor space, the table, and then more floor space, which made we occupants feel isolated in little islands. But, at the same time, the room felt/looked smaller, because you could only see 6x10 worth of floor space: the sofa and chairs "became" part of the wall, and cut the room off right there. And on top of that, the dynamics of the room were so static as to be fully dead: fireplace staring straight across at stairs, bisected by sofa staring straight across at two chairs; someone entered through the front door and cut the room again on a path to the equally small kitchen behind the front room. A series of straight lines, all at right angles.
   
   When we moved the sofa so it faced the fireplace (with room behind it for the door-to-kitchen path), the room seemed to expand on some integral level. The two wingback chairs went in the corners; with sofa and coffee table closer together and chairs set at a dynamic angle to the sofa rather than square-on, the 3' or so between the coffee table and the fireplace became just enough room for Odetta and Saimhain to lay on the rug enjoying the warmth during the winter. But although that's less space between the furniture, the room seemed bigger, because the eye looks at the sofa and thinks, "massive!" and then sees the floor space around it, and decides, "so the room must be much larger than I realized!"
   
   In a lot of the interior design & architectural books I read, it's a common observation that people are afraid of color (especially on the walls). This is true, to some degree; we're never sure what will end up looking good and what will leave us flat on our backs with the breath knocked out of us. (My best tip on resolving this is to play the most with the least-used rooms: guest bath, laundry area, guest bedroom -- go crazy there, and if you hate it, it's less effort to repaint.) But I think people are also convinced that the only way to arrange furniture is to slam it all up against the walls, with the strange belief that the open space between makes the room "larger". No, it doesn't. It makes me feel like I have to yell at you from nine feet away. The fundamental reason for the sofa, loveseat, and table, after all, are to have places to sit while visiting. Who relishes the notion of a couple's dinner while seated at opposite ends of a nine-foot table?
   
   (AR: bring the round table down from your bedroom and use that as main coffee table; take up the current TV coffee-table to bedroom to use as "end of the bed" thing, or place it along the wall under the window. Then it can hold various boxed items, and non-breakables on top, perhaps a line of books and bookends. Put a chair at either end, and you've a nice visual arrangement, AND you saved G's atrociously ugly mid-70's TV thing, until he figures out the living room looks better without it, and the atrocious thing really does take up too much space and do too little. Hrmph.)
   
   Once you know what needs to go, but for which you can't find a use elsewhere in the house, call Goodwill, failing that, Salvation Army. (Yes, I loathe SA's politics, but a write-off's a write-off.) Someone in your town will pick up the furniture (though they may require you to have it waiting outside for them). They'll give you receipt, and you can write it off on next taxes. If you don't make enough to itemize the write-off, "sell" it to a friend who will then "donate" to S.A. and take write-off instead.
   
   
2. Replace too-large sofa with two chairs.
   
   On a crazy side note: OMG I WANT IT SO BAD ... ahem, okay, yeah, I'm fine now. *cries*
   
   Consider brightening up the room with two Tullsta chairs, covered in red. (I can't tell if these are the removeable slipcovers, but I thought Tullsta had take-off-wash covers. Hrm.) If you're big into floor seating, hey, go for beanbags, then, or maybe a Pier One papasan -- not a bad deal at $50. There are plenty of chairs out there, and not all are outrageously expensive; I mention the Tullsta because they're solid quality, decently comfy, with clean and classic lines that add a rounding touch to a seating arrangement.
   
   
3. Make sure all tables do double-duty as storage without being visually heavy.
   
   Preventing heaviness: raise box-tables off the floor by adding legs. Again, being able to see the floor continuing under an object gives the impression of space continuing while the object floats above; this is why I really do not like sofas-with-skirts (and even less so, as the space gets smaller). Go for furniture that sits up high enough to let you see for a bit underneath (plus then you can vacuum underneath, and when something does roll under there, it's easily found).
   
   If you have boxes for tables, and you prefer metal legs, there's Capita; or you could cut four 3" lengths of 2" dowel at HomeDepot and get shorter legs instead of the 4" metal ones. Then paint, stain, whatever, flip the box over to reveal the hollow interior, slap the legs on the now-bottom (what was the top!) and put a lid on the now-top. Use half-inch plywood, which you can get really cheap, and cut to 1" more around than the box. Paint the plywood as you please, then seal, or maybe mosaic... yes! mosaic, why not? Glue blocks on the lid's underside in at least three places -- this keeps the lid from sliding right off the top. Finish the edges with 1"x2" moulding strip, use iron-on veneer if you're uncertain about mitering moulding strip, or cover the edges with colorful 1" glass tile from Michael's.
   
   
4. Put a coat-rack by the door.
   
   My favorite is the Babord shelf. At $10 each, you just can't beat it with a stick. It's got a rail for hanging clothes on hangers, and hooks along the back for purses, belts, etc, or (in this case) in the front hall, coats go on those hooks and maybe hang a few baskets from the rail for keys, sunglasses, and other pocket-filling incidentals.
   
   Hang the Babord just above elbow-point for the shortest adult in the family, & that's high enough for coats below but low enough for you to see baskets for mail and another for keys, maybe a third to empty spare change into. If you put the coatrack right up against a doorway, there'll be a stud right there. Then find the next one over (usually between 16-18" down) and there you go with a handy coat-rack by the front door.
   
   Babord are all untreated wood, so paint or stain as you like -- I used Ikea's bleach-wood stain (the white kind) on some shelves and it came out really nicely. Trick seem to be to shake REALLY hard before painting, then let sit for five minutes before wiping. Longer if you want it whiter. Or you can do the beech-stain and get that gorgeous warm gold-red color.
   
   (AR: the Babord would work as clothes-storage in the bedroom, too, though it may take more effort to deal with proper prep & screw for concrete walls, or just suspend the entire thing via chain or wire, from eyebolts in the ceiling. Those suspension wires would also form the 'corners' if you wrapped it all in curtains, providing an implied structure beneath the drape. Hrm...)
   
   
5. Set a shoe-rack by the door and declare the house Shoeless From Now On.
   
   Use two Babord shoe racks. (We used these in our front hall until I could build a more formal geta-bako.) The trick with these is to get two Babords, and then go to Home Depot and look in the "craft wood" section, where they have pre-cut smaller pieces of wood. Get one with the same dimensions as the uprights (I believe they're 1"x1").
   
   Lay out shoes most often worn -- in family, this means looking at four pair his-shoes, four pair her-shoes, four pair kid-shoes. Measure tallest to determine highest stretch between shelves. Between the top of the first set of shelves, and the bottom of the second set, insert the extra length. Use elephant glue to attach the four inserts, and then stack the second set of Babord on top of that; now you have lowest shelf at regular height, second shelf + insert-wood for tall boots, third at regular height, and a place for baskets on top shelf that hold flip-flips, hats, gloves, whatever. I have a 'seasonal' basket that holds gloves, hats, scarves; when the weather warms up, that basket goes up on the top shelf of a closet, out of the way. When out of season, enclose the entire 'winter basket' in plastic and store; if you don't have soffits in your kitchen, you could set it on top of the kitchen cabinets; the plastic's just so oil/dirt doesn't coat the stuff up there.
   
   The lowest shelf might also be where you'd tell visitors to put their shoes. (Traditionally, the guests get the open shoe-rack spots; the family members should be putting their shoes away in some kind of enclosed cabinet, but eh, whatever.) It's much, MUCH easier to keep a carpet clean with a shoeless house, and it's a ritual of entering. Arriving at the door, sitting down right there and removing shoes to put them away, then hanging up keys, coat, etc, becomes a "this is me moving from public space to private space". Laugh all you like, but I think Mr. Rogers was onto something! ;-)
   
   Note: if your kitchen is directly adjacent to your front door, then coming in with an armload of groceries means just a step to the side to unload; you're in a 'working' area of the house, not a 'communing' area -- when you finish putting groceries away, then your task is complete and you shed the outside to move to the interior. IOW: it's good to have kitchen by front door, because then you don't end up traipsing back and forth in shoes across living space on grocery-days!
   
   Plus I like having a shoeless household with guests arriving: telling them to remove their shoes is a way of subtly saying, "this is a sacred place, where you remove hat and shoes, where you don't just casually walk in as-you-are". It taps into something far older in our collective psyche, I think; we associate shoe-removal in the west with specific, limited places, often "special" places, like churches or historical sites or eating at a traditional Japanese restaurant... it sets the space apart and says, "this is not the outdoors, and it's not your house, and you're entering a bubble of us outside your idea of the norm".
   
   Sometimes I do get a bit of a "hunh?" I've had a few petite people refuse, probably because massive platforms makes them taller, but I say, firmly, "no shoes, thank you." With a small child in the house, I'd probably point out, "a little barefoot person is underneath, and shoes can crush toes, please remove them." But 99% of people will balk at first then awkwardly remove their shoes, hesitating, then tucking shoes into shoerack in silence... because, in a way, making them slow down to remove their shoes is also making them remember something we so often, these days, take for granted: that we are entering another's private space, and as guests, we have formal steps of our own to follow, a little ritual of requesting, receiving, and accepting entrance. Once we removed weapons... And then, among Western guests, there's a bit of a hush as they move into the living area, as though they expect something different -- it's a more respectful kind of entrance, as a result of that unfamiliar but somehow right little ritual.
   
   (My non-Western friends, in contrast, look surprised when I say, "shoes, please," and then they realize there's a shoe rack and that I'm not a shoe-wearing Westerner... that's when you see the minutest relaxation in the shoulders, that I'd not realized they'd held until I saw the shift as my friends bent over to remove their shoes and tuck them up against the wall. Then they stand up with a pleased smile that probably isn't that much different from mine when I find someone knows the difference between sweet tea and unsweet tea...)
   
   Note about shoe racks: if you have these under the coat-rack, the coat-rack will have to be raised to a height only adults will find comfy. In that case, don't double the shoe-rack, but put one below the coats (with tall boots going on the top shoe-rack shelf), and get a bench with a lower shelf -- more on that below.
   
   
6. Color-code baskets that can sit on top of shoe rack (for the kids) and top of coat rack (for the adults).
   
   Because BÖLSNÄS come in six colors: red, green, black, orange, yellow, and blue! If you color-coded for every one in the house + a basket for each person's mail, then everyone has their OWN spot to "drop everything" when they come through the door. And whomever picks up the mail doesn't end up leaving it all in one spot, or having to remind the other person of mail left somewhere -- it's right there in the basket to be found when it's time.
   
   
7. Provide a place to sit down while removing/putting on shoes.
   
   If you have a low chest that's only about 2' long (really the most a person needs for shoe on/off business), use it; otherwise, get a small bench (possibly with further storage under the seat). You could even use a Linden side table since at 13" off the floor it's low enough for kids but not so low it's uncomfortable for adults. (Guess that's a personal test-it-first thing, though; standard seat-height is approx 17".) I'm not sure I'd store anything under the bench that sits directly on the floor, though, since you want to imply continuation (of floor, in this case) beyond the direct line-of-sight.
   
   Or find a bench with a design similar to Ikea's Molger bench, which at $35 is rather nice considering it's not just for sitting -- there's a slatted level below the seat where you can put two or three large baskets for holding kid shoes, another for winter stuff, another for whatever.
   
   One thing to remember about shoe racks: get the slatted ones, and when it's horrendously rainy/cold weather, go get a plastic tray that fits under the shoe-rack. Put any soaking or drippy shoes on the bottom rack, and let them drip-dry onto the plastic tray. Learned from hard experience in New England, shoes really do dry faster if they can get air circulation all the way around.
   
   Now we carry on, because this bench becomes part of the entrance/foyer area, btw, in the next point:
   
   
8. Create an entrance foyer/transition space.
   
   Another thing I truly hate about modern home design: no foyers. No place where it's transistion, no place where the person is inside yet not inside. Anyone who comes to the door to 'chat' is now on the threshold of your inner sanctum, including all the junk piled on the end tables and the dirty dishes left on the coffee table and the clean laundry waiting to be folded and put away. Ahem. Ultimately, a foyer should be several things, to really have a solid sense of a passageway.
   
   It should block direct lines of sight to major rooms in the house; you want an angled glimpse, not a full-on view. It should be enclosed to some degree, whether the walls are bookshelves or curtains hanging from the ceiling, but something to designate it as "this is not part of our living space". And, if at all possible, the ceiling should be as low as you can make it without irritating your tallest friends. Suspend a slatted frame from the ceiling that's the same size as the foyer-area; absolute minimum would be 3' by 3'. You want to compress the space in some way, so when you move from this enclosed space -- shedding the accoutrements of the outside world via shoes, keys, spare change, etc -- you then move into a space that, by contrast, is expanded. Alright, I admit it, this is a Lloyd Wright design trick, but I experienced it first-hand in a house he built, no more than 1100sq feet, and yet in going from that low-ceiling, dark, compressed foyer and then stepping down at the same time the ceiling went up... it just takes your breath away, in a good sense: it feels like you've stepped into this massive space, because you've still got this strong impression of compression in your recent memory. It's a pretty amazing trick.
   
   In the way I'm suggesting, the combination of coat-rack and shoe-rack create a visual bump-out if they're on a wall perpindicular to the entry; the visual intrusion alerts visitors that they're standing in a transistion space (plus we identify closets/coats as being items-stored-at-doors). Drive this 'foyer' sense even more with a small area rug no larger than the foyer-space. It's all subtle visual indications that you are moving from outside (and outdoor voices/stresses) to inside, where one can leave behind those external stresses, which brings me to...
   
   
9. Set clear boundaries between public and private spaces in the house.
   
   It's not enough to mark areas in the room with rugs as the focal points; you need to also break up the line of sight if other areas are in view of the seating (or worse, the front door). For instance, having stairs clearly visible as they rise to the private parts of the house: I think it's time for noren -- like this, or this, or this. Noren tend to be expensive; they're made out of a specific weave, and are often hand-painted or hand-batiked. But the point is that you could use this concept to block the line-of-sight and present the stair-way wall as another threshold that can't be passed without invitation, just as passing through the foyer required one.
   
   Noren are easy to make, fortunately -- just get 5' stretches of at least 36" wide fabric, slit the middle to a foot shy of the top, hem/use iron-on hem-tape at the bottom, and hang. If the fabric's a raveling kind, finish off the cut edges with ravel-stopper (get it at any fabric store). Most of the time noren aren't lined, because the design is on both sides, so woven fabric rather than printed is better, if you'll make your own.
   
   Also, as someone comes down the stairs, they can easily tweak the curtain aside to see into living room without being too obvious. It won't block sounds, really, but it makes the rooms "feel" quieter somehow. Pushing through them unnerves some people at first, but you get used to just walking through, and the motion of raising your hand to lift the noren out of the way (to be precise, you do it with the back of your hand, fingers together, in a round-sweeping motion, ahahaha I am such a geek) -- really tells you that you're moving from one specific Place to another specific Place -- in this case, that you're moving from Public, through noren, to stairs/transistion-space, which will take you to Private space.
   
   Do the same to enclose your 'self-made' foyer. If, say, your seating bench is to the left of your front door, hang another pseudo-noren directly behind the bench-seating. If you consistently use a 5' noren, the average adult, seated at 17" from the floor, will still have a blocked view of the room. (Using a consistent noren-length creates a continuity throughout the space, which gets more important as the space gets smaller, IMO, at least.)
   
   Hang another noren over the kitchen door to block view of kitchen; with the half-curtains on either side, the guest is forced to focus ahead. If your stairway-wall is at the end of the living room, a string of noren across the back wall -- long enough to just cover the point where the stair rail begins to rise -- will, with the two on either side, create a slight sense of compression. From across the room, it should look like a long panel covering the back wall; it'll take a second look for the first-time guest to realize that the wall behind one panel is not-there, and to intuit that private space must lie beyond. (IOW: it's a way to designate private space without a door slammed shut in a guest's face.)
   
   (AR: You could also put a water basin (alternate example) outside your front door to underline the "sacred space" element... you've got the windchimes already!)
   
   
10. Use the noren-concept to open the living space to the garden.
    
    For townhouse dwellers: if your garden is fenced high enough, remove your curtains (or pull them open and tuck them away), and hang more noren across the windows. Whether you're standing or sitting, the noren-curtains will block your line of sight to anything above a certain height; you'll only see the lower half of your yard. To make sure the noren height works for you, fold a bedsheet to 5' length and tack it to the ceiling. Stand outside your fence on a step-stool or box (to raise you to 6'2" or 6'3" for highest line of sight) and see how much you can see into living room -- it's okay to see people's feet. You just don't want to see above shoulder-height or so of a seated person. Adjust folded sheet until you get something that (a) breaks the line of sight for anyone glancing over your fence but also (b) provides as much of a line of sight to someone seated in teh living room. Use that length as the basis for noren throughout the rest of the room.
    
    A curtain hung so it's revealing only the lower half 'opens' the room more either the traditional full-length or cafe curtains that cover only the lower half. The entire point of this is to guide the line of sight, once a person's seated: what you see when standing should change as you sit, to reveal a new vista: you're not just 'borrowing' the outdoor space (and lengthening the line of sight to increase sense of space), but you're also layering the vista, so that standing, chair-sitting, and floor-sitting each have different perspectives to discover and enjoy. Reveal in bits and pieces, rather than all at once -- and it doesn't take a huge amount of internal space to do it; hell, in this case, you'd be doing it entirely by how much someone can see out the window.
    
    Which brings me to:
    
    
11. Give thought to the room's focus as a representation of your own focus.
    
    There are three standard places Westerners focus while in the living room: on the television, on the fireplace, or on the outside views. Which means more to you? Which says more about you? Which is what you want to look at throughout the day, as the daylight changes?
    
    If it's the garden, rearrange the seating area to take advantage of it, while keeping the main focus on the interchange between residents/guest/host: that is, seating in a circular-enclosed arrangement with table at center, but tilted so everyone seated could see the garden without too much trouble: this gives you dual focal points, again with the layering. Now, granted, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the garden while you eat dinner, but it really comes down to whether you'd want to see it while sitting/reading/visiting or while eating.
    
    Your thoughts on that -- placed against your space's size & architecture -- will determine how you put things together, and there's no rule that says you absolutely must go past the dining room before you get to the living room. (In fact, historically the dining room was usually past the parlor; we retain a quietly superstitious sense of inviting people to eat, I think.)
    
    (AR, again: If you put the dining table at the back of the room (close to the door leading to the bathroom), then not only can you tell guests to go to the bathroom *without* going through the kitchen, but you can also bring food from kitchen around the way directly to table, without the jog you'd do at the front end to get around coat-rack then sight-blocking noren. Plus, you won't have to carry food through noren at all, if you didn't put one over the door in the back corner -- though I might, just for visual balance.)
    
    
12. Don't let electronics tie you down.
    
    Drag your cable box to wherever you damn well want it to go. Get extra long cable-type cable (Home Depot can tell you which); plug cable into working wall-point; run the shortest distance -- either around the baseboards and tucked under the carpet edge if you can, or just say to hell with it and take it straight up the wall, either in a cable-channel or tacked with 1" pieces of clear packing-tape every two or three feet. Take it around the ceiling, or straight across if you can hide it against ceiling beams, run down opposing wall, plug into TV, and good to go. There's no reason to consider yourself truly tied to one location, and the cable extension's length will not substantially reduce cable quality.
    
    
13. Introduce lighting with more texture, and less weight.
    
    People really seem to underestimate how much light means to us (even more than color or shape, I think). In a small living room, a large lamp base with one of those cone-shaped shades -- even if it's all in a neutral color -- will really overpower the space. Sit down on a dining room chair across the room, and study the arrangement: you'll see it's low, low, low from sofa to chairs to tables, and then this big honking lamp sitting up on an end table that just towers (in comparison) over everything else. (This is also why, over the years, I have grown to intensely dislike upright halogen lamps; they isolate themselves by height, and make everything else shorter/lumpier in contrast.) Reading lamps aside -- that's another matter altogether -- the best ambient lighting in a smaller space is lighting that, like furniture, is proportional.
    
    A standard sofa's height is usually around 35"; a comfortable side table height is about 19" -- which means a good proportion side table is only about two inches above the seat-level of the sofa. If you like the look of taller lamps at either end of a sofa, then the max you'd want -- proportionally -- would be 2-3" above the sofa's back. If you want lighting to imply coziness, intimacy, then you want a lamp whose top matches the sofa's height: 16" in this case. Part of the reason this engenders coziness is that if you're sitting in the chair at right-angles to the other chair, you can see the other sitter without having to lean forward to see around the stupid lamp. You can just look right over it.
    
    The strange thing, though, is that lamps do have a sight-line that isn't always their highest point: if the light coming from the lamp is completely downward-cast, then that 16" mark would be the bottom of the lamp's shade, not the top. Your eye isn't drawn to darkness, it's drawn to the bright. Everyone likes the shiny lit-up parts. If the lamp's shade glows to any degree with the light passing through, then count from the top of the lamp.
    
    When I say 'texture', I mean that it's important to look at the quality of the light. Far better to have two lamps whose light-quality fits the space, than six that don't. With lighting, less really is more, if you do it right; in a small space, it's of monumentous importance, because too much light throws the entire room into relief -- at night, you'll still be aware how close everything is. This isn't task lighting; this is general mood/ambient lighting, and you want it diffused, gentle, and retiring. You want to notice what the light shines on, and not the light itself. With me so far?
    
    (hahahaha NO ONE IS STILL WITH ME ... except maybe two or three Virgos in the crowd.)
    
    Light coming through paper, or membranes like thin horn (as in some arts & crafts style), or wavy glass: all of these do more than block your view from the bare bulb. They alter the quality of the light, diffusing it, so that the lamp itself glows and the light it throws shifts depending on the angle -- light cast upward on the ceiling may be clear, that on the walls less so and warmed by paper/glass, that on the table itself a solid, clear light to see by.
    
    The full-height lamps we have are Ikea's Orgels. That style comes with lightly crumpled paper shades, introducing both a warmth in the light they produce and a nubby texture to the lamp itself, a quiet bit of... hrm, visual fullness, perhaps?...even during the day when the lamp's off. There's the Orgel pendant lamp for $8, the Orgel matching floor lamp for $20, or the Orgel 3-bulb floor lamp for $25. Orgel's table lamp is a bit tall IMO unless you have a low-arm sofa (and thus could have a 17" side table instead of the usual 19"); the Orgel single-bulb floor lamp reminds me too much of halogens for my own taste but it does create a sort of 'floating' textured-but-weightless approach; I like the set we have of the third because they're almost softly structural artwork even when not lit.
    
    There's also Ikea's Grono, which is two glass lamps for $14... or you could really splurge. Day-ahm.
    
    Ikea's pendant lamps are almost 90% plug-in, which rocks if you're renting. Use the same directions as when running cable, bascially: put a hook in ceiling, hook cord over it, raising/lowering to get right height for pendant over table. (The trick to this is to get someone to sit down at the table while you stand on a chair prepared to raise and lower; you do not want the lamp high enough for the bare bulb to shine in anyone's eyes, but neither do you want it low enough to get knocked when you set stuff on the table.) Tie off the cord so it won't slip (twist-tie or tape works fine), run cord along the ceiling and down the wall (taping or stapling every three or four feet), and plug into outlet. Tadah!
    
    Of course, you could use a type of quasi-baseboard corner duct for wires, with clips if you run it up a wall that's not in the corner.
    
    
14. Hang pictures, as many as you've got!
    
    This is a Brit-site, but I'm sure there's equivalent at Home Depot (or could be jury-rigged to be similar):
    
    http://www.picturehanging.com/u-rail.shtml
    http://www.picturehanging.com/p-rail.shtml
    
    I list that site just because it's got useful stuff about picture-hanging, and if you're renting and/or dealing with difficult walls, ceiling-hung pictures may be the only way to go -- don't let difficult walls stop you. Pictures, photographs, art, whatever it is, aren't just something to look at; they create a sense of a hanging boundary around the space, looking in. Think of them as both reverse windows (in a psychological sense), and as barriers/boundary-stones, and as something that anchors the walls in place. Maybe that sounds like a lot of frou-frou, but I don't know how else to explain something inherently inexplicable: but if you spend a month in a room with no pictures, and then you hang pictures, you will notice the difference, and it will be remarkable. Y'know, dogs piss along the edges of their turf; we put up pictures of ourselves and our families. Dogs are much happier when able to mark their turf; why is it any surprise that we would be, too?
    
    
15. Use portable baskets for toy-storage.
    
    World Market's Marled Seagrass Cubes are seriously pricey comparatively speaking, but I've seen other friends do this, and it might help visual peace for anyone who lives with a clutterbug or small child. Both become not only places to put toys not being used, but with the lid on, they're nice little end tables.
    
    You could go with cheaper, with choice of a few colors with Walmart's baskets (yes, I know, Walmart, but hey, if they've got what works...) but I'm sure you can find more options with a little bit of looking around: Pier One, Target, Ikea, etc. (I bet Ikea will continue to be the cheapest outside Walmart, though.)
    
    If you don't mind not having a top, there are cheap (and more with the color-coding!) options like ClosetMaid's cubicles, little "add-on drawers" in red, blue, green, and so on, for $5. At that price, keep up with the color-coding used by the front door, and let everyone in the house have their own "dumping ground" for things to be taken upstairs to office, to bedroom, to wherever.
    
    I say "portable" because in the future, when toys aren't as much of an issue, the baskets could be ported upstairs and used in the bedrooms, or could remain in the living room and become places to hold extra floor pillows, or board games, or whatever else occurs to you.
    
    
16. If you have celing beams, use them.
    
    Measure the distance between each beam -- do it for every single one, just in case there's variation. Make a note in some way so you remember which rafter has which specific measurement. Purchase a 1-by, 8" wide and 12' long (whatever is most economical). 8" should be enough for most of what you'll be using these for. Have the folks at Home Depot cut the board down to the specific lengths you want to fit between each beam.
    
    At the same time, pick up four times as many L-brackets as shelves, since you'll need these to get the shelves in place. Prime (if needed) and paint the shelves to match wall and ceiling, or paint them a different color to be accents (though if everything else is white, fire-engine-red shelves might look a little funky, eheh), or stain the shelves using a one-step water-based stain. While those dry (won't take long for a one-step stain, maybe two hours), screw brackets to the insides of the beams with the bottoms as flush as you can get to the underside of the beams.
    
    Bring in shelves, set them on L-brackets, run a small screw in just to hold them (gravity will do the rest), and there... now you have a place to put breakable things, or books rarely read but still treasured, all tucked up between the beams as one more visual delight when someone looks up. ;-)
    
    
17. Add shelving in awkward spaces.
    
    At the end of a run of cabinets, if you have space and need shelves, look for something like Ikea's Perfekt Duvbo, which is technically a base cabinet. Attach it to the wall and to the end-cabinet, and you're set; it will end up about 5" off the floor if the top's to be even with the cabinet beside it. Be sure to catch a stud behind it, and just screw right through the cabinet's back to the wall. Again, the lack of touching-the-floor will create a floating sensation, and will relieve any sense of the room getting smaller from having shelves added.
    
    (AR: I suspect this cabinet would fit perfectly in your upstairs hallway, between the furnace bump-out and the bathroom door. The plus is the rounded edge -- last thing anyone wants is to come around the corner too fast and whack a hip or head or hand on the corner of the shelves!)
    
    
18. When using one space for multiple purposes, keep work areas out of the main focus.
    
    That means getting the most space-efficient desk possible, and putting it way over to the side. If it's on the edges of the main living area, think of a way to screen it when you're not working (or to screen it when you are and don't want to be disturbed!). I'd suggest a Tovik ($69), which can tuck right up into a corner. Slide a seat underneath the desk when you're not there, and it barely takes up much floor space or room space; the open design means clear line of sight to the wall.
    
    There's also Stacks & Stacks' wall-mounted kits, from $55 and up depending on the arrangement. That, though, requires wall space from which to hang; it won't work if you've set your desk across a window or closed door. Other than that, it has the same effect as the Tovik: it lets you see clear through to the baseboard and a few feet of wall, and thus the desk becomes something that 'floats' rather than 'settles'. Heavy things shrink the room.

Okay, that's it.

Oh, wait, no, it's not: also have to say this. It's NOT a good idea to mail-order from Ikea. They are very, very bad at it. They'll forget to ship, forget to charge, ship the wrong thing, not ship at all, lose track... they're just not a mail-order business. If you cannot get to Ikea, either find a friend who lives near one & will purchase/ship to you with your paypal wending its way back to them -- or find an equivalent on the 'net and order from a business with something more than a mediocre mail-order track record.

And to the four people on my flist still reading -- and I know exactly who you are -- now I say: here ends the Virgoing.

Until next time, when Sol cries, "To the rat mobile! We're Home Depot bound!"

Comments

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

On IKEA lamps -- I've found they don't keep very long, at least their desk- and other work-space lamps. It's the only complaint I've ever had about IKEA-made stuff though (IKEA is where I go spend the day and thousands of imaginary Euros when I'm home in Hamburg, we have two of their stores in town ♥), they also have some nice fabric one might consider for noren.

Which reminds me, the man who gave me Japanese lessons way back before I went there on exchange lived in the tiniest student apartment, maybe 8-10m² all in all. Noren divided his bathroom/foyer/closet-space (1.5, 2m²) from the "actual room". I'd totally forgotten about that, but reading this brought it right back up.

Say what. I finished both parts, and I'm not even a Virgo (Cancer/Leo, depending on which horoscope you follow). HEH.

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

...what kind of sentence was that? Damn, I really need that "Easily distraaaaa---BUNNY!" icon. What I meant is, I've never had any other complaints about IKEA-made stuff. Also, one might take into consideration that... etc.

Ehehe. Whoops.

[annotated_em]

*grin* I'm so not a Virgo, but I did read through all of this, and am tucking away ideas for later.

[elanivalae.livejournal.com]

You could certainly work as a professional organizer. xD

I'd like to add that for anyone who lives near Seattle (or in Canada, or knows someone who does and can ship), Daiso is a GREAT place to get things like wall grids, hooks, baskets, cushions, corkboards, and all kinds of other cheap space-saving stuff. You can't beat the $1.50-$2 price, and the quality is at least as good as what you'd get at IKEA for most of it. At our old place, where there was plenty of space but in all the wrong places, we primarily used grids to make up for it...they'd fit on the insides of cabinet doors, over the back of the stove and sink (great places to hold cooking oils/commonly used spices or dish soap and brushes), on the wall above the toilet...just about anywhere. Visually, they were very light (especially the chrome); they were flexible since you could hook and unhook the baskets and switch them around as necessary; and with the variety of baskets available, they can be used for almost anything. For instance, I use one that's supposed to hold a tissue box to hold our cookie sheets in the very narrow pantry, and the tool hooks Storables sells for their IP system hold four wine glasses each.

The other space that doesn't get used in apartments is in hallways. We have no storage room in our bathroom, so we installed pot-lid racks just outside the bathroom door at about eye height (they're the narrow-profile inside-the-cabinet type), rolled our towels, and and stored them by color. They're in easy reach, it looks nice, and it saves bathroom space for bottles and extra toilet paper and whatnot.

Now I want to reorganize. xD

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

"(hahahaha NO ONE IS STILL WITH ME ... except maybe two or three Virgos in the crowd.)"

Hey, no fair! But accurate.

Have been on an organizing binge myself lately -- I think it's being stuck inside more (winter) and having to look at the mess.

RE: big sofas/chairs -- I have to deal with Mr. Long Legs when we shop for sofas, chairs, etc. I wanted to get Tullsta chairs, but he insisted that ALL the seating in the room be sized so that he could sit in it comfortably (i.e. sized for someone 6'3" with long legs). I think the next time we shop, I'll put my foot down and tell him that the sofa is for him, and the chairs can be smaller, dammit. Our wing chairs are comfy, but they do take up too much visual space.

Nobody could accuse me of being afraid of color! I live in a Crayola box {g}.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Heh, but I adore your Crayola box! I remember seeing that rich green carpet when you'd first moved in and thinking, wow, I'd never have the nerve to choose that, let alone actually install it! ...but seeing it in place, it worked.

I agree about chairs -- not every chair has to be sized for everyone in the house. Mr Long Legs, heh, what's wrong with the way a lot of people do it: that's his chair, this is mine. (Where does anyone think Lay-Z-Boys came from, anyway?) Both my sets of grandparents had specific chairs; my mother's mother had her lazyboy which was just right for putting her feet up, with a tray for her moveable desk when she did crossword puzzles while watching TV, and my grandfather's chair was a rocking leather chair just big enough for him plus at least one grandchild. My father's father had a lazyboy (the plaid one I ended up with); my paternal grandmother always sat in the rocking chair. Odd, that in both houses, the sofa was for guests!

At some point I need to recognize Texas is entering its growing season, and I really need to do something about the front garden -- all over again, sadly. I think the ruella in the front might have made it; the bottlebrush plants remain green w/leaves but don't seem to have grown in height; the rosemary is brown on the last few inches but green below that. Everything else really got whacked when we had a sudden freeze last fall, and I think it killed the butterfly bush along with the majority of the other plants. Damn it! Especially damn it because the freeze still didn't kill the stupid rosebush!

But first, I think I'll finish the kitchen. Less dirt involved. Heh.

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

The butterfly bush _might_ have made it, since they grow in the DC area, too.

Speaking of the Crayola thing, I'll have to send you a pic of my kitchen, with the new green trim, for an opinion. Am hoping that wasn't a mistake, b/c going back to white trim now would be a huge pain.

Have you seen the episodes of This Old House (current season) filmed in Austin? They're doing a green (i.e., ecologically friendly, not the color) house. Pretty cool. (whines) I want solar panels!

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess you'd probably feel a bit uncomfortable in our guest space. It's got knitting books, musical instruments, art supplies... But I just don't have anywhere else to store that stuff until we finish out the basement. The guest bedroom might get moved to the basement if/when we finish out the fourth bedroom down there.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I think for a guest room to be a good one, there has to be an open space for guests to assert themselves: that means room in the closet, even if never used by guests -- somewhere to hang up clothes, and perhaps a small dresser that (even if emptied prior to arrival), where the top is bare and the drawers are empty, and the guest is told: "if you want to put things away, here's a place we set aside for you."

I normally just open my suitcase across a table-top or suitcase stand, and then my stuff -- like bathroom supplies, makeup/contacts, odds and ends, ends up across a dresser-top. Knowing the room's used for other stuff only becomes an issue when the guest feels like they're occupying space the host would like to be using just then. I feel, as a guest, like I'm "in the way" the worst when a host says, "oh, don't mind me, I'm working on X or Y," and the work they're doing is in the room they've reportedly set aside for me.

As a host, if I know I'm working on X or Y and it's in the guest-room, I simply don't do X or Y while the guest is there, or I apologize profusely, get what I need, and then vacate again. I did that when habibti was in our basement, trying to observe the space as 'hers' for the duration of her stay, and thus requiring 'her permission' to enter and retrieve stuff.

The worst, absolute worst, though, had to be when JHJ and I stayed at that bed & breakfast in RI -- delightful house, amazing history, very cool centuries-old architecture and elements, but the room we were in... oh my gawdz, it was filled to the brim with stupid china statuettes. And not even one bedside table -- nothing to put glasses on, or a book, let alone an alarm clock! No, the damn clock was over on one of two statuette-covered dressers, and I was left with terrified certainty that in my blindness I'd stumble over to smack off the alarm and accidentally smack a china shepherdess instead. Oh, it was just a nightmare of a little room, feeling like you're sleeping while being watched by decorating hell...

hehehe.