Compact Living

Rating:
Summary: Great ideas for remodeling a small space!
Review: Graining's book does a great job of illustrating the architectural challeges of working with small spaces. If you are currently designing/remodeling or building a new modern space...I would recommend this book highly for some unique ways to maximize your square footage. There are great storage ideas, especially for the kitchen and living areas, which require design and construction. Also, there are some excellent ideas for the bathroom that would be especially helpful if you've just begun space planning or picking out fixtures for a remodel or new construction. Unique ways of hiding heating units by making them part of the space, rather than an intrusion, are offered as well.

Although, it's not the book's focus, Compact Living offers some ideas for the apartment owner living in a spatially challenged flat. The most helpful tip to apartment owners is Graining's suggestion regarding the use of color to help create zones of living within the space. The book also offers a few great ways to utilize the small spaces that are often forgotten in a seemingly tiny room.

Generally, this book is great if you're building or extensively remodeling a small space, but doesn't offer much to apartment owners with little money or control over the structure of their space.

Rating:
Summary: Great ideas for remodeling a small space!
Review: Graining's book does a great job of illustrating the architectural challeges of working with small spaces. If you are currently designing/remodeling or building a new modern space...I would recommend this book highly for some unique ways to maximize your square footage. There are great storage ideas, especially for the kitchen and living areas, which require design and construction. Also, there are some excellent ideas for the bathroom that would be especially helpful if you've just begun space planning or picking out fixtures for a remodel or new construction. Unique ways of hiding heating units by making them part of the space, rather than an intrusion, are offered as well.

Although, it's not the book's focus, Compact Living offers some ideas for the apartment owner living in a spatially challenged flat. The most helpful tip to apartment owners is Graining's suggestion regarding the use of color to help create zones of living within the space. The book also offers a few great ways to utilize the small spaces that are often forgotten in a seemingly tiny room.

Generally, this book is great if you're building or extensively remodeling a small space, but doesn't offer much to apartment owners with little money or control over the structure of their space.

Rating:
Summary: The best of 7 "small decor" books
Review: I bought seven "Small space" decorating books. This book stands out
for its magnitude of adaptable ideas, for a variety of tastes. Unlike many others, Graining focuses solely on American housing, showing how singles, couples, and famiies live in small homes,
and in every space: dining, eating, cooking, sleeping, bathing, working, laundry. Abundant helpful photos, and the best "bird's eye" views of the rooms. By far the most inspiring of the lot,
and the best value.

Rating:
Summary: very useful
Review: I rent my apartment, but I found many of the ideas in Compact Living to be useful. For example, instead of buying a dining room table I just use a small table and chair like on pg. 9. Such a simple idea, but I was in the mind set that a dining room table had to be of a certain size to be useful. That is what this book is good at...helping you look at your space, no matter what size it is, in new ways. When I have someone over for dinner, I improvise. I borrow another chair and small table from in my bedroom. I do agree however, that home owners will derive more benefit from this book, than those that rent.

I also had not been so familiar with "Loft Style" before this, but now I know I like it. However, I think the tips in the book can be applied to many different styles, even though the style shown in the pictures is primarily Loft Style.

Recommendation: This is a book primarily for people who live in small spaces, but I think it would also appeal to a wide range of people.

Rating:
Summary: very useful
Review: I rent my apartment, but I found many of the ideas in Compact Living to be useful. For example, instead of buying a dining room table I just use a small table and chair like on pg. 9. Such a simple idea, but I was in the mind set that a dining room table had to be of a certain size to be useful. That is what this book is good at...helping you look at your space, no matter what size it is, in new ways. When I have someone over for dinner, I improvise. I borrow another chair and small table from in my bedroom. I do agree however, that home owners will derive more benefit from this book, than those that rent.

I also had not been so familiar with "Loft Style" before this, but now I know I like it. However, I think the tips in the book can be applied to many different styles, even though the style shown in the pictures is primarily Loft Style.

Recommendation: This is a book primarily for people who live in small spaces, but I think it would also appeal to a wide range of people.

Rating:
Summary: All the mod cons.....
Review: Two of my children recently moved into new homes -- one in San Diego (1450 square feet), and the other in Washington DC (1500 square feet & four children). They both have high rents/mortgage payments and modest budgets, so I've been helping them search for clever ways to live in small spaces -- i.e. maximize efficiency, minimize costs, and preserve attractiveness. COMPACT LIVING contains many attractive ideas for economizing on space (for those whose tastes run to modern), but executing these ideas may prove more expensive than the author Jane Graining suggests (at least in the high rent areas!).

Graining has attempted to address the needs of both the renter and the home owner, but most of her ideas are better suited to the home owner (whether condo or small house) who can afford to make relatively permanent changes. Some ideas involve clever collapsing furniture which is portable, but the furniture shown is relatively expensive (wall beds, telescoping tables).

She provides numerous examples of walls and ceilings opened with skylights and bigger windows and she advocates the use of glass blocks and mirrors for lighting interior areas with remote sources of light. She also suggests bright colors in the form of painted or tiled surfaces can be used to "lighten" a room and make it appear bigger. For example, one idea involves two wall beds housed behind bright enamel red "closet" doors that are separated by a vertical, foot-wide floor to ceiling glass block strip which allows daylight to penetrate into the bathroom beyond. This detailed work is not a minor modification however parsimonious and attractive the use of space.

Graining says those who live in small spaces must think vertically, and she offers a number of nifty ideas for employing overhead space to accomodate loft beds, book shelving, cupboards, pantries, closets, stackable appliances, and racks of pots and pans. Many of her illustrations include vertical elements designed by architects and installed by professionals or extremely talented amateurs. Clever and talented folks may be able to copy some of her ideas without breaking the bank, but I am not that clever.

Rating:
Summary: All the mod cons.....
Review: Two of my children recently moved into new homes -- one in San Diego (1450 square feet), and the other in Washington DC (1500 square feet & four children). They both have high rents/mortgage payments and modest budgets, so I've been helping them search for clever ways to live in small spaces -- i.e. maximize efficiency, minimize costs, and preserve attractiveness. COMPACT LIVING contains many attractive ideas for economizing on space (for those whose tastes run to modern), but executing these ideas may prove more expensive than the author Jane Graining suggests (at least in the high rent areas!).

Graining has attempted to address the needs of both the renter and the home owner, but most of her ideas are better suited to the home owner (whether condo or small house) who can afford to make relatively permanent changes. Some ideas involve clever collapsing furniture which is portable, but the furniture shown is relatively expensive (wall beds, telescoping tables).

She provides numerous examples of walls and ceilings opened with skylights and bigger windows and she advocates the use of glass blocks and mirrors for lighting interior areas with remote sources of light. She also suggests bright colors in the form of painted or tiled surfaces can be used to "lighten" a room and make it appear bigger. For example, one idea involves two wall beds housed behind bright enamel red "closet" doors that are separated by a vertical, foot-wide floor to ceiling glass block strip which allows daylight to penetrate into the bathroom beyond. This detailed work is not a minor modification however parsimonious and attractive the use of space.

Graining says those who live in small spaces must think vertically, and she offers a number of nifty ideas for employing overhead space to accomodate loft beds, book shelving, cupboards, pantries, closets, stackable appliances, and racks of pots and pans. Many of her illustrations include vertical elements designed by architects and installed by professionals or extremely talented amateurs. Clever and talented folks may be able to copy some of her ideas without breaking the bank, but I am not that clever.