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Designing Maine: Key to Successful Small Spaces

Designing Maine: Key to Successful Small Spaces: In today’s trends of living green homes and apartments are becoming more and more compact. Rooms are serving as multifunctional spaces. Un...

Key to Successful Small Spaces

In today’s trends of living green homes and apartments are becoming more and more compact.  Rooms are serving as multifunctional spaces.  Unfortunately are desires for stuff doesn’t go hand and hand with our desires to help save the plant. This creates a mental drain on our lives daily as we sort through this stuff to find what we need.

So how do we resolve this dilemma? Our first challenge is to determine which stuff is adding value to our life and which is being a drain on our life making our living space feel much more like our utility or gear shed.  Whether you’re an avid outdoorsman or a book collector you need to first organize your stuff into three categories.  First is the stuff you use in your daily life. Second is the stuff you use at least once a month or seasonally, and finally the stuff if lucky you use once a year.  This can be done by taking an inventory room by room create a list with 4 column the first column is the item the other three are your three categories.  If you find broken items don’t add them to your list put them into a recycling pile and get rid of them immediately.  Create your list and categorize everything you own.

Now you’ve gone through every room of your house including the garage and any storage outside the house you may have the hard part is done. It’s time to go back through room by room and remove anything that is on your rarely used list. If you only use it once a year then there is a really good chance you won’t miss. Give it to a friend or donate it where it can be used. You’ll feel a lot better about getting rid of it this way and it keeps it out of the local land fill.

Now it’s time to evaluate what you have and how to store it. Make sure if the item on your frequently used list is store close to the area it is being used. Other items can be remotely stored in a spare room, basement or garage.  If you do not have room to store these items where they are used, look at you space and how is it used? It is important to keep thing as accessible as possible. Can you add horizontal storage by adding shelves?  Create a space for everything you own that will allow easy access to it. If you have a lot of small items that can go into a basket on a shelf, that gives you a convenient and attractive storage for little of no cost if you own the basket.

Small space can be very livable if you eliminate the unnecessary clutter and organize what you need. If rooms like kitchens are poorly designed you may need to seek professional help, but with stores like Ikea you will find a wealth of storage solutions that will make your closets and rooms more organized and enjoyable.  Small spaces are all about storage and organization!

Designing Maine: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning

Designing Maine: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning Today in a world of supersize we often think bigger is better. When it come to kitchens bigger is n...

Designing Maine: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning

Designing Maine: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning: 3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning Today in a world of supersize we often think bigger is better. When it come to kitchens bigger is n...

3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning

3 Key Steps to Kitchen Space Planning


Today in a world of supersize we often think bigger is better. When it come to kitchens bigger is not always better. Unless you’re a chef and you have a staff of cooks helping you prepare a meal, a more modest size kitchen will work best when designing a working kitchen.

Key 1: Know how many chefs’ there are in the family. A good rule of thumb if you designing a new kitchen for a family is design it for two people to be in it at any one time. Allow for enough space without being on top of each other, but not too much extra to spear.

Key 2: When designing a kitchen it is very important to create a functioning working triangle. The triangle is from the refrigerator to the stove to the sink and back to the refrigerator. The few steps you are require to take between these appliances the more functional the kitchen will be.

Key 3: Each working area on the points of your working triangle will need layout space for working without taking more than one step to get two it. The sink needs spaces for cleaning fresh fruits and vegetables as well as storing dirty dishes. Counter next to the refrigerator to place thing on so you can open the refrigerator door, and space need to the stove for preparing foods.

If you follow these three key step you will find you kitchen design to be far more successful!

Kitchen Design

Today kitchen are almost single handedly the most expensive rooms in the house. We buy the best appliances, the best cabinets and the best fixtures. The problem is we are so concerned with the best we forget the most important part of good design is function. It’s like baking a cake if you leave out an ingredient, it doesn’t matter how good it looks nobody will like it. Too often kitchens are design by individuals who are only trained how to make the cabinets fit into the space with very little consideration to how and whom it will be used by.  It’s like their building a puzzle with a piece missing. So when it comes to your kitchen make sure you have all your ingredients and or pieces including functionality in your formula as well as form. This way you’ll enjoy the use as much as the beauty!