Maxwell Ryan - Apartment therapy’s big book of small, cool spaces

For the people in this book who welcomed me into their homes and for Sara Kate and Ursula who help me make mine

I love figuring out how to make a room work. I have always been obsessed with beautiful and comfortable homes, with trying to figure out what makes them tick and helping to create them.

When I was about twelve, my mother told me I could do anything I wanted with my room, and I spent months drawing elaborate plans on paper. My bed was going to sit at the bottom of a smooth bowl (early skate-park influence), at the top of a set of stairs; it was all going to be made of plywood, covered with padding and carpeting. As soon as my plans were done, I began working on improvements, and my vision got more complicated and more fabulous with each iteration. While my room didnt actually change that much in the end, my research had definitely begun.

Now I decorate and reenvision rooms for a living, and the more spaces Ive seen, the more Ive become convinced that there are basic lessons and common elements that make a room greatlessons that are not hard to learn and that dont require a substantial amount of money to implement.

This stylish wall unit is a great example of design solving the space problem. The wall provides tons of clothing and book storage as well as housing a full office along a very thin slice of this studio apartment.

Ever since I started working with clients, in 2001, this has been the focus of Apartment Therapy: distilling the most common problems and finding solutions that are transformative, stylish, and often surprisingly easy to carry out.

People come to me with their problems, as they would to a therapist, and of all the home-related problems Ive heard, the most common one is lack of space. Most people who say they cant create the home they want claim its because they require more room. My place just isnt big enough and I cant wait until I move and have more space are common refrains. If youve picked up this book, theres a good chance that you, too, are looking for solutions to the problem of your limited space.

You may not have a small home, but nearly all of us around the world have at least one small room that we dont know how to handle, such as an entryway or a galley kitchen. In interior design, big is not our common languagesmall is.

In addition to living in a series of small homesincluding the 250-square-foot one-bedroom apartment I shared with my wife and young daughterIve had the pleasure of visiting a lot of homes and have been inspired by how inventive and efficient small-space dwellers are. They also are among the most passionate. Proud of what theyve done, small-space lovers are natural designers, constantly reworking their homes and figuring out how to do more with less. New design discoveries arise with every new challenge.

Playing with scale is one of the secrets to enlivening and enlarging a small space. These quirky, personal objects on a mantelpiece draw us in close, while the large mirror above directs our gaze away.

In 2004, ApartmentTherapy.com launched the first annual Smallest Coolest Home Contest. It was an idea born of my own situation, inspired by the experience of stumbling upon surprising jewel-box homes tucked into New York Citys canyons, and hearing urban legends of people who had transformed water towers into tiny apartments that you could reach only by climbing a ladder. Five years later the contest has grown exponentially and surpassed my wildest dreams. We now receive hundreds of entries from all over the world: from Boston, Pasadena, and Iowa City to Vienna, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, and Bangalore. Every home is full of passion, hard work, and amazing creativity.

Inspired by all of this, when the idea for this book first arose, I resisted a concept Id seen so often before: a bunch of impersonal, staged rooms. I wanted to dig up small homes with uniqueness and character, homes that are truly lived-in, ones you dont often see. And I wanted to personally visit them, so that I could unpack their secrets firsthand.

Indirect light is crucial. The double lamps on the small vintage record cabinet provide half of the light for this dining room. Stylish black shades and two mourning doves complete the vignette.

Home pleasures can be simple pleasures. This vintage cup, spoon, and rose fabric make the room feel cozy and invite one to stay home, have tea, and curl up with a book.

In the end, I spent weeks on the road, followed up on nearly two hundred leads, and visited thirty handpicked homes. I spent hours in each place, asking questions, taking notes, and, occasionally, sharing a meal as well. Formerly the guru, I was now the student, listening to others tell me about their amazing spaces and how theyd done it all. I loved it.