Living in a Nutshell

Janet Lee

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780062206015

A fireplace on wheels? A chandelier lit by Xerox? A shrink-wrapped designer closet? These are just a few of the more than 100 stylish and innovative projects in Janet Lee's Living in a Nutshell: a one-of-a-kind DIY decorating guide with fresh ideas to fool the eye into seeing—and believing—that even the most cramped little lair can hold more space and glamor than just the sum its of four walls.

The design maven behind livinginanutshell.com and Oprah Winfrey's interior style producer for a decade, Janet Lee has personally handpicked a battery of clever projects for enhancing every area of a tiny living space—all are simple to do, require no craft skills, are emphatically affordable, readily portable, and big on style, so you can make these design dreams become your reality.

Chapter One

Flaunt Your Flaws

“The room is so small, the mice are hunchbacked.”

—Henny Youngman, from Take My Life, Please!, 1992

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

Not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Short of acquiring superhero powers, transforming cramped quarters into a spacious and luxurious retreat is no easy feat. Throw in bad views, low lighting, and a popcorn stucco ceiling, and you have to ward off a trifecta of decorating villains.

How do you get back the power? By flaunting those flaws in unpredictable ways and reinventing eyesores into one-of-a-kind design attractions. It’s the imperfections that will give your home a depth of personality and loads of character.

This chapter features bona fide living, breathing spaces that are short on square footage and long on their lists of inherited flaws. But once the decorating dust settled, through trial and error, the most clever and chic design remedies remained standing. They prove that sometimes in small spaces, you have to adopt a whole new design mantra. Flaunt it. Don’t hide it.

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

Divide and Conquer Your Digs

It took some clever counterintuitive thinking to boost the style of this tiny 12-by-11-foot sleeping loft (with a 4-foot-tall ceiling) from claustrophobic to cozy. Dividing the loft into lots of little “rooms” or “zones” actually magnifies the feeling of expansiveness and dimension instead of shrinking the space. A reading nook, dressing area, bar lounge, and sleeping alcove make this nest look like a grand salon.

BEFORE
Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

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Look, there’s more!

Contrasting paint, lighting, rugs, and art carve out stylish zones.

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Bert the Turtle to the Rescue!

Watch your head! Measuring just 3 feet high, the entrance into this sleeping loft is potentially perilous with rows of low-hanging beams covered in stucco. Taking a cue from the Cold War era (extreme moments call for extreme measures), I downloaded and laminated a 1950s copy of Bert the Turtle, warning American children to “duck and cover” in case of an atomic attack. Now, thanks to Bert, a structural flaw is a cheeky design highlight.

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

BEFORE
Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

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Look, there’s more!

Large-head screws and metal washers give this retro sign an industrial look.

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Wallpaper Canopy

Stuck for ways to camouflage ugly beams? If you can’t beat ’em, wallpaper ’em. Accentuate a not-so-positive ceiling beam with sophisticated wallpaper that dazzles. In this bedroom, stucco was stripped from one of the beams and patterned wallpaper extended up and over it. Now, the beam provides a chic canopy effect over the new bed and visually raises the eyeline of the ceiling. The canopy deflects attention from the remaining stucco-covered beams and turns a problem area into a knockout feature in the room!

BEFORE
Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

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Who You Gonna Call?

Wallpaper hangers are the go-to pros for messy stucco removal jobs.

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Joan Crawford: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Aimée Herring, © Janet Lee

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Look, there’s more!

It sounds too good to be true, but a bedsheet and a little liquid starch can emulate the look of designer wallpaper. Brush starch on a sheet and...