Kalakala's Profile

Oooh, natural light in the bathroom ... I'm jealous! Love the openness and corner seating area. And unlike many mostly white apartments, I don't feel like I'd be permanently on the verge of making a mess.

I'm loving the clever bed placement and claiming the hallway as closet space.

I'm noticing a trend of small-space dwellers embracing full-size couches and I love that too. A big couch in a small space gives a built-in vibe, and it makes it feels like the whole room is place to be cozy.

I can see the appeal of a recipe shaker -- I'm a sucker for text-heavy design -- but positioning them as space savers is silly. It's like an infomercial set up: "Does this happen to you? Every time you open a cabinet, an avalanche of cocktail recipe books falls out! It's a disaster! Now, thanks to a revolutionary new design, you can replace all those books with one simple tool! Act now, and we'll send two for the price of one!"

A cocktail recipe book doesn't take up that much space, and there's generally very little "fumbling" involved in looking up a recipe in a book or on your phone / laptop / tablet.

My husband and I are kid free, but now that lots of our friends have reproduced, we've found that specifying a "kids welcome" time (usually 6 to 8) and an "adults only" time (8 'til late) on the invites works really well. Usually just a few people show up for the first couple of hours, so we actually get a chance to talk to the friends with kids, and when the still-very-much-unencumbered folks arrive, there are no worries about the little ones getting underfoot.

I'm usually not a fan of cool-toned paint in the bedroom, but this is just lovely. The dark furniture and pale blue walls look fantastic together.

This gives me hope for my own tiny two-person bedroom. Well done!

I'm sure you'll get plenty of comments criticizing the bookshelf above the bed -- What if it falls? I know I couldn't sleep like that! That looks dangerous! -- but I think it looks great and adds a fun dash of color.

My college apartment: a studio with windows on three sides, an eat-in kitchen with built-in shelves up to the ceiling, exposed brick, hardwoods, walk-in closet, and a funky wood stove that I wasn't supposed to use but looked very cozy with candles inside. It was a block from the university and cost $490 a month in 2002 / 2003 (any Seattle apartment under $600 was considered a steal at the time). My previous home had been a big shared house with a bunch of party kids (they were the reason college kids can't have nice things), so having a place to myself for the very first time especially sweet. I left to move in with the fellow who's now my husband, but I still remember my sweet little studio fondly.

As a Northerner who wakes up in darkness for half the year and a chronic night owl, having natural morning light in the bedroom is essential. It's important to me to be able to be look through the cracks in the curtains and get a rough idea of the time (even if it's just "no light" = not time to get up yet). Not having morning light messes up circadian rhythms since light is the primary environmental cue that tells our bodies it's time to wake up.

Gorgeous, but it looks like the place is decorated with furniture and housewares, not space!

Sorry. I'm a copy editor. I can't stop myself. I have a condition.

Really lovely pad, though. I love the elegant-but-not-stuffy vibe.

Although I think it's weird (and a little infantile) to expect other people to throw you a birthday party once you're out of your teens, I don't see anything wrong with throwing a party for yourself. A birthday seems like as good of an excuse as any to get your friends together. Heck, if you're providing delicious food and drink for your guests, you're practically doing a public service. I'd much, much rather have drinks and cake at someone's house -- where I can arrive and leave when I please and circulate among different groups of people -- than go to yet another awkward and expensive birthday dinner at a restaurant.