Despite this age old wisdom, small spaces are not only difficult to live in but also to live with. When my future husband bought a NYC apartment in the late ‘80s, he thought he would never marry again. The apartment was small for a man living alone, but little did he know, I’d be moving in two years later, and with my art supplies, canvases, and tons of design books, it was really tight.
I mean, really tight. There wasn’t even room for a dresser, so all my clothes had to go on a single closet shelf. The space was so limited, I had to make do with only one coat and three pairs of footwear: winter boots, summer sandals, and everyday walking shoes.
Looking for Solutions
Choosing objects that served multiple functions became a game. Our best find was the vintage French White Corningware made in Pyroceram, which can be used on the stove top or in the oven. Adding plastic lids, they can also be used to freeze or refrigerate leftovers. The simple bistro design is so pleasing that the bowls work both as serving pieces and mixing bowls. Their graduated sizes nest, taking up very little room in the cupboard. Perfect for small spaces!
When my husband remodeled the apartment, he turned a former living room closet into a wee kitchen. We were able to put a full size dishwasher under the stovetop, but only had room for a small, shallow bar sink. The refrigerator was wonderful, though. Because it was visually part of the living room, we sprang for a pricey built-in: full height but only 24 inches wide and matching the cabinets.
Aesthetics Helped
An island, our only counter top, separates the appliances from the seating area. Still, guests sitting on the couch can witness pretty much every aspect of dinner prep, from the overflowing recycle bin to the splash of marinara sauce on the wall. Everything in the kitchen and on the island had to be color-coordinated with the living room. I matched the food processor base to the couch and soap dispenser to the chairs with no dish detergent or catsup bottle in sight.
We didn’t have a toaster for fifteen years, and instead made toast on a frying pan. Microwaves are ugly spatial hogs, so we went without until the built-in oven over the stove stopped working. We replaced it with a combination convection bake/microwave, which meant we lost broiling ability. I adapted by using my craft heat gun when I wanted to make crème brûlée or brown the top of bruschetta. When my aunt heard that I couldn’t broil a piece of salmon, she left me a voicemail saying that she was sending me a toaster oven, I started to hyperventilate. With storage so limited in our small space, adding a toaster oven would mean giving up a pair of shoes!
The Day Everything Changed
Despite these compromises, the kitchen functioned quite well at first. With a bit of planning, I could even manage gourmet dinners for twelve. Then after eighteen months, the refrigerator began to fail. A friend asked in a phone call if we had moved near the airport, for the compressor sounded like a jet taxiing down the runway for takeoff. We noticed that ice cream was getting soft. A few months later, we couldn’t even make ice cubes. Alas, replacing it was no longer possible. The manufacturer had gone bankrupt, and nobody else made such narrow built-ins. The only solution was to buy a small stand-up unit two feet shorter, which left a gaping hole above it that had to be fitted with a new cabinet. That seemingly minor change led to the carefully orchestrated dynamics of our tiny apartment starting to fall apart..
The new refrigerator was an orthopedic nightmare due to bending and twisting to find anything. A simple search for a piece of smoked Gouda or the coffee beans could necessitate a visit to the chiropractor. The interior was designed strangely. Food pushed against the back wall would freeze, and the bottom shelf was only half the depth of the others. Storing leftovers on that shelf was risky, since they often ended up sideways against the protruding back wall. The push and the angle loosened covers and “leftover juice” would run down the back under the vegetable crisper. Several times I held my head in my hands and just wept the next time I had to strain my back to clean hardened garlic sauce and moo shoo pork drippings.
Small Spaces Can Make You Crazy
I tried to become an organized vegetable and condiment freak because I thought if I had a place for everything, I wouldn’t have to spend twenty minutes looking for dinner ingredients. Though it’s hard to organize someone else’s habits, my husband made a good faith effort to get with my program until entropy took over. Then we’d “have words.” Most couples fight over sex and money while we’d fight about where the butter belongs.
Lately I’ve been whipping out the take-out menus far too often. Finding the right pot or spice jar in our crowded cabinets had always added time to meal prep; but it is the cramped, dysfunctional refrigerator-from-hell that finally took me down
A Metaphysical Approach
My website is dedicated to writing about design, using a metaphysical approach. Design is not only about what we see but also how we feel about our possessions. Our energy affects our objects and in turn those objects affect us. We can feel love, joy and gratitude for our possessions and feel energized when they, in turn, send them back. Sometimes we feel mild irritation at our things. Occasionally we feel subtle tugs of unprocessed grief, guilt or scarcity fears. And sometimes, as evidenced by my relationship with my refrigerator, we feel rage. I have been at war with my refrigerator, and it has retaliated by acting out.
It was time for me to start taking my own advice.
Instead of negative reactions, I decided to thank my refrigerator every day for its existence. Gratitude opens us to receive more. So many times, I have advised others who want new things to be grateful for what they already have. Surprisingly, our objects respond to gratitude. So, as I bless this refrigerator, I am open to having the problems resolved. Though I don’t know how it will happen, I’ll just give it up to the powers-that-be.
My Journey With Gratitude
One day I sat in a chair by the fridge to begin the evening meal. Sitting, according to an orthopedist friend, eliminates bending. At one point, I picked up a bag of bagels that felt wet. When I saw the pinkish-red liquid all over my blouse, I knew it was too late. The jar of pickled beets on the middle shelf had been pushed over by all the jammed leftovers. Dinner was not even started, and I had to clean beet juice off the eggs, jam jars, the vegetable bin and the floor.
Did my advice to myself work?
NOPE!
I am a long way off from icebox enlightenment … but, alas, the dharma the universe has selected for me is this refrigerator. I accept it is my spiritual teacher.
Finding Wisdom
In the meantime, as I practice gratitude I will deal with something I can change – the spices. When my husband was doing the renovation, the contractor found a twelve-inch wide space behind the wall that separates the kitchen wall from the bathroom and suggested that we make it into a pantry. It runs all the way from floor to ceiling and is used to store condiments, cans and various dry goods. The spices are stored in the middle section. Though not as bad as the refrigerator, the disorganized spice area makes cooking Indian or Mexican cuisines difficult.
One day, I saw an adjustable organizer advertised on TV that promised to fit in. Voila! It did. Then, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to have large bottles of spices. Though my first thought was to replace them all with those mini McCormick jars, they’re hyper-pricey for the amount they contain. So, I found some mini spice jars on line, which I filled from a bulk store, and found some labels from Staples that come with free Avery design software. Thanks to a mini motion-detector light I found at Home Depot, I can easily read the labels. The whole set-up is not only efficient, but pretty.
Hidden Aesthetics
My husband asked me why I bothered to print labels. Why not just write on the jars or on strips of masking tape? I like things that please my eyes, even if I’m only looking at them for a couple of minutes a day.
I suppose one could argue that all my aesthetic rules are nothing but symptoms of OCD. Perhaps I’m like the maniacal husband in Sleeping with the Enemy, who intimidates his poor wife into aligning the cans of peas in the cabinet. I also like my spice jars neat.
But why? Metaphysical decorating indicates that eye-pleasing patterns create subtle energy when they are seen. Is it worth the trouble to create patterns seen for only a few minutes a day? My gut says yes.
Does chi flow when there is no observer?
I believe it does. Even imagining its swirl behind closed doors makes me smile.
*****
There are two parts to this website, The Lessons, which are more difficult in concept, and the blogs, which are lighter in nature. Blogs that you might enjoy with the same theme as Small Spaces are:
Two Lessons that relate to this blog are:
XI. Finding Energy Through Our Relationship With Objects
XII. Our Relationship to Objects and the World
Please note that my website allows you to leave comments at the end of the blogs but not at the end of each lesson. If you have a comment or question about a lesson, you may email me at ruta@rutas-rules.com
Visit Avery site for label information.
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