How to create space in your apartment by filling it with more stuff

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

I used to watch TV upside down. Or it least it would feel that way before bed, when I would plop onto my tattered twin mattress—head where the feet should be, feet where my head preferred to be—to catch a few minutes of Conan before reversing the other way to sleep.

I performed this nightly ritual because I didn’t know any better. When I had moved into my studio—wood floors, rather spacious kitchen, quaint back patio—my possessions (TV, desk, bed, couch, coffee table, bookshelf, bike) were arranged for purposes of maximum entertainment—other people’s entertainment.  And so the couch faced the TV, which sat atop the desk (unused otherwise) and the bed went in the corner, parallel to the staring contests held between the TV (which could not be seen from the pillow) and the couch. Coffee table in the middle, bookshelf in the closet, bike . . . well, it went wherever guests were not. The place was great for parties (bed pulling double duties as a couch), but not so much after everyone split. I lived like this for a year and a half, until two eight-week-old kittens resulted in somewhat of a sea change for my studio. Records that had once been on the floor had to be moved or face certain death by the kittens, and jackets and scarves—tossed on a broken lamp doubling as a coat rack—did, too. The bike had become a giant jungle gym, and the bookshelf? Well, it never belonged in a closet, anyway.

Today, I store two bikes, a full bed, an entertainment center, large couch and two fat cats in my studio—and there’s still plenty of space for myself and a handful of guests. Best of all, I now watch TV from bed—with my feet resting comfortably at the foot. Here’s how I did it:

GRAB A PENCIL
All it took was a sketchbook and a bottle of wine. Knowing that I wanted to keep the TV in the same spot—tossing the desk—and that I needed a bigger bed, I doodled rough room layouts until one made sense: move the couch near where the bed was; take the doors off the closet and trash the bookshelf; put the books, records, TV, stereo in an entertainment center; and—crucial to the plan—slide the bed into the closet, about a foot and a half deep. Bed faces the couch, both can view the TV, and the coffee table remains in the middle.

KILL TIME
Design-focused blog sites like NOTCOT (notcot.com) and Design*Sponge (designspongeonline.com) are invaluable resources for products, decorating ideas and DIY tips. A NOTCOT post about coat hooks led me to the website for Delta Design, where I found the Leonardo single bike hook, a tire hook that mounts on your wall to store your bike vertically and off the ground. (Bonus: looks like wall art.)

At Design*Sponge, I found a post originally inspired by a Domino magazine DIY feature about hanging pots, pans and other kitchen cookware on a pegboard (a la Julia Child). A trip to Lowe’s and two coats of paint later, I installed two pegboards in my kitchen (and created a pegboard coat rack/key holder for inside my door).

KEEP DREAMING
The happier I was with my apartment, the more I wanted to change. After the pegboards, I wanted to paint the walls—only I had forgotten that I don’t own this place. Cursory Google searches for “decorating tips for renters” eventually led me to a few comments on Apartment Therapy (apartmenttherapy.com) mentioning something called “temporary wallpaper.” Searching for more information, I found a number of sites advising that you can create temporary—read: removable—wallpaper with just cotton fabric and liquid fabric starch (paint starch on the wall, apply fabric, seal it with starch on top).

Although this particular weekend project wasn’t 100% successful like the others—the fabric I found at LA’s Fabric District was a bit too heavy, and I’ve since learned it’s best that you make your own starch in vats and dunk the fabric before applying it to the wall—I anchored the fabric with cheap molding strips from Lowe’s and a few framed photos.

It’s not perfect, but neither is apartment life.

Tags: apartments, Design, DIY, Long Beach