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Small spaces, small budgets: How interior
designers create a sense of home.
by Allegra Mira
Thursday, September 6, 2007
INTERIOR designers Mike Morin and
Heather Germain, both of Easthampton, are pros at creating a sense of
home for their respective clients. They make small kitchens seem
large, balance cluttered living rooms, and customize color schemes to
perfection.
Skilled in such solutions, Morin
and Germain were confident, they say, when they faced their own
home-decorating challenges. For Mike Morin, who owns Utensil Studio, a
design firm in Easthampton, the challenge was a small space. For
Heather Germain, who designs under her name, the challenge was a small
budget.
Two-room studio
Although the space in Morin's
two-room studio apartment in Easthampton is limited, he succeeded in
maximizing it while reflecting his sophisticated, yet utilitarian
style. High-end furniture pieces from different style eras create a
feel of heft and quality. The layout is simple and user-friendly.
The secret to getting the most out
of his space was facing the facts about his lifestyle, Morin says.
"When I first saw my apartment I
had all these ideas of things I wanted, just immediately on seeing it.
But then, as you move into a place and you live in it for awhile, some
of those ideas didn't quite work out. Probably the biggest challenge
was to find out how to live in a small space," he said.
Morin had envisioned a dining room
area for dinner guests, but, he says, "when I actually looked at my
lifestyle, most of the time it was just me eating by myself ... so I
just decided to nix the whole kitchen-table idea and went with a more
bar style."
Giving up the kitchen table meant
there would be space for a large living room that can double as a
casual dining place, with room for visitor seating at the coffee
table.
"For a small space, it's really
about defining areas," Morin said. "There are a number of ways."
Morin's kitchen and living space are essentially in the same room, but
he added definition with furniture placement, lighting techniques, and
color. The kitchen is anchored by rich brown walls and a large
porcelain sink. An area rug centers the living room.
"Lighting is really important,
too," Morin added. "Having multiple light sources really drastically
creates different moods."
Three major types of lighting,
Morin says, are task lighting, natural lighting, and mood lighting -
all of which he uses to achieve different effects.
"I have large windows, which
totally changes the mood of my place," Morin said. "I open up the
blinds completely, and that allows natural light in. It seems so much
larger than it actually is."
Morin stuck with the overhead
lighting that came with the kitchen - a room, he says, that calls for
task lighting. "You often want lighting that's going to light up
counters, and areas where you're cooking," he said.
Mood lighting has its place in the
living room, he added. "For a living room, you might want multiple
lamps that you put artfully around the room. You want a softer light
space."
Morin looks to the ever-evolving
lighting options to help him create mood. "Some of the newer forms of
lighting are actually things that you place on the floor. Something
like that has a very different vibe than a more traditional lamp that
sits on a side table," he said. "Playing around with traditional forms
of lighting really sets the tone. A lamp sitting on the floor has a
more casual feel, where a table lamp sitting on an end table has a
more symmetrical, traditional feel to it."
Mirror, mirror
To add more dimension to his living
space, Morin installed a slim mirror on one wall with a small shelf
below. "Something to think about while placing mirrors is, you don't
want to have to stare directly into a mirror. You don't want the
mirror to be center stage when you walk into a room," he said. "The
key to mirrors is positioning them in a way that they're of maximum
benefit - especially if you don't have windows. Mirrors mimic
windows," he said.
In such a small space, he says,
every piece of furniture makes a difference. "I think it's important
to buy stuff with weight," Morin said. "Things have a weight to them.
They have a physical weight and a visual weight. And when you're
buying things, I think it's important to make sure that it has weight
to it, that feels rugged, that it's going to last."
Morin varies his style by shopping
at tag sales and auctions as well as at furniture showrooms. Shopping
around, he says, is a good way to avoid "catalog home syndrome," where
rooms look "like no one lives in them."
Morin stresses that planning his
small apartment did take some time. "There's an aspect of it that's
stripping your lifestyle down and understanding the way you operate,"
he said. But in the end, he says, he is pleased with the choices he
made.
"With giving up the kitchen table,
I made space for a whole living room, which I find to be way more
functional."
Big style, small budget
With two floors and a large
kitchen, Heather Germain's roomy Easthampton townhouse is a designer's
dream. But it also had its own set of challenges: in particular, dated
kitchen decor and a lack of storage space.
Like many of her clients, Germain
says, she lives on a tight budget. "With this apartment, I had to
figure out how to live on a budget and do it stylishly."
Faced with limited resources,
Germain rolled up her sleeves and got to work, using two common tools
of the trade: her glue gun and paint brushes. Her blend of bold
graphics and natural-world flourishes create an overall effect that is
bright and clean.
The kitchen is a focal point of the
home, with lots of cabinetry, so Germain and her husband, Shawn
Germain, tackled that room first. They started by tearing off the
faded floral wallpaper that covered the kitchen walls - repainting
them a neutral ivory.
"The cabinets were covered with
plaid wallpaper and floral knobs, so we bought all new hardware and
repainted them," Germain said. "And it's amazing how the place looks
just with those few changes," she said. "It's like a whole new
kitchen."
Designer's trick
Germain painted the cabinets in
green, her favorite color. Then she added more touches of green
throughout the home, a designer's trick that ties the home together,
she says. "If you take one color you really like and add touches
throughout the house, it unifies the space," she said. "It's subtle,
but you can feel it. It feels like everything flows."
Keeping a unified color scheme
throughout the home is important to Germain, because she likes to be
able to switch decorations on a whim. "I have a lot of accessories,
different drapes or pillows, and things that I can very easily use in
the living room, but I can switch them out and use in the kitchen,
too," she said.
A cachet of drapes, pillows and
accessories to choose from doesn't have to break the bank, Germain
says. For example, she once used a favorite - but broken - necklace to
drape around a vase with flowers in it, and has used old bracelets to
tie back curtains.
"I try and use what I have ... old
stuff I'm not using, I'll use for details," she said.
Germain has shied away from
expensive prints for her walls, she says, opting instead for handmade
art projects. "I'll frame pictures from old calendars that I really
like, or if there's a wrapping paper that has a really cool print,
I'll frame that," she said.
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