The big squeeze
An Architect makes use of every inch of his teeny-tiny South End apartment.
When Bruce Miller moved into his 475-square-foot condo in a historic brownstone in the South End seven years ago, the Boston architect knew it was a place he could stay - if he worked a little designing magic. "I knew I wanted to fix it up and change it," he says. "Right away I started trying different ideas and taking things apart."
The layout is simple. There's a small foyer, then a main living space that includes a living room/dining area, and a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Since Miller couldn't expand the parlor-level unit, he got creative - starting with the space's soaring 11-foot ceilings. The condo "looks bigger than it is because the ceilings are so high," Miller says. "That draws the eye upward, and I added other elements that go all the way up."
Thinking vertically, he constructed built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the foyer that render the eyes-up effect immediately upon entering the home and offer a key benefit of extra shelving.
Miller installed a set of sliding doors nearly 8 feet tall that can close off the kitchen to give the living room a more formal feel. With the doors open, "the kitchen can spill into the living room when it needs to," Miller says. Then he hung several pieces of artwork - including a series of mod, eye-catching paper collages by his late uncle, Jimmie Miller, who was a Baltimore-based artist - high on the walls of the main living space.
Needing storage, Miller incorporated it everywhere. In the kitchen, he lowered the ceilings slightly and created space above, accessed by a panel in the ceiling, and installed upper cabinets high on the wall. He built a bed platform - no box spring required - with storage drawers underneath. In the bathroom, he added an extra-tall, custom-built medicine cabinet that holds essentials. In the living room, he constructed a perfectly-sized credenza and positioned it under a bold oil painting (a portrait of his uncle, the artist), an elegant addition.
Miller's clever use of space surprises. A stone-topped cabinet in the living room right next to the kitchen is actually his dishwasher. "Almost everything does double duty," Miller says. That's true even of the kitchen itself. Miller relocated the bathroom door so it opens into the kitchen instead of the living room. Now the kitchen provides a nice privacy buffer for anyone in the bathroom.
After lots of tweaking, this space is more functional than some apartments twice its size. But Miller says he's finally outgrown it and is moving out this summer; his condo sold after only four days on the market. "It's time," says Miller, who craves a proper dining room and a guest room, "for a little more space."
