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| HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ABOUT ONE-ROOM LIVING? |
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We all know that apartments come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and layouts. Still, many of us have always believed that apartments and houses are a grouping of clear-cut, separate rooms, each designed for specific functions, and that four walls and a door designate those areas. And often, this is how it works. But not always. As a teenager, I visited a loft apartment for the first time. It was an incredible space in an old warehouse building. The ceiling was soaring, and I could only guess that it was at least twenty feet high. In its original state, the loft was one, huge square with no interior walls defining any of the areas, not even the bathroom. (That was simply a commode and a shower in one corner.) The woman who lived there was an artist, and she was quite ingenious when it came to designing, decorating, and manipulating her space. To preserve the open, airy quality of the loft but still construct some private areas, she created "walls" that were about five feet tall. They resembled office cubicle walls but were much more stylish. (Some were actually frosted glass panels that let in the light but obscured the view.) They also had wheels so she could move them around however she pleased. Using these portable walls, she created a bedroom for herself, another for her roommate, and a bathroom they shared. Her living room, kitchen, and dining room were still one large area, but she used furnishings to visually "separate" them from each other. This apartment made quite an impression on me, and I still recall it vividly, although nearly twenty years have now passed. But lofts, popular as they are, are certainly not the only kind of one-room living available to apartment renters. Of course, tiny, plain college dorms rooms come to mind, but one-room living also includes basement apartments, apartments over garages, studio apartments, and other types of spaces. If you're faced with the task of decorating a one-room living space, you may need to be even more creative than apartment dwellers living in more traditional spaces with clear-cut room boundaries. But don't let that scare you. One-room apartments can be wonderful places to live if you are creative enough. |
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