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"Christine Pittel: You weren&amp;#039;t kidding when you said this place was tiny! Nick Olsen: The whole apartment is only 295 square feet \u2014 about the size of a master bedroom in the suburbs. It&amp;#039;s a second-floor walk-up in a funky little building in downtown Brooklyn. My friend Rebecca Phillips, a photographer, lives here with her boyfriend and her dog. And one tiny closet. Unbelievable. And you broke all the rules about studio apartments \u2014 paint it white, disguise the bed.... Forget the rules. People think that if they paint the walls a color it will feel too cramped. And that every piece of furniture has to be pint-size. And we&amp;amp;amp;ve all seen those loft beds with a desk underneath. Who wants to climb a ladder up to bed? So you never even thought about hiding the bed? You mean with one of those little pullout sofas or a Murphy bed? I suppose they&amp;#039;re convenient, but I find them slightly depressing. I&amp;#039;d prefer to be comfortable in a real bed. But you went all out and made it the focal point \u2014 right in front of the window. Didn&amp;#039;t you worry about blocking the light? I didn&amp;#039;t have to worry because the apartment is flooded with light. And that was the logical place for it, because a bed looks best head-on. It&amp;#039;s a plain metal bed that we made into something pretty by adding a foam headboard, slipcovered in a Schumacher floral. And we jacked it up on dorm-room rack risers to get more storage underneath. But you have to pick your moments. It&amp;#039;s a full size, not a queen. She has a love seat instead of a sofa. And then you&amp;#039;ve got to bring in a few overscale elements because those are the bold moves that make the room, like that huge photo over the love seat, the big lamps by the bed, floor-to-ceiling curtains. Not to mention a Louis XV\u2013style chair upholstered in a Mexican serape. That must be a first. You need to combine classic and modern, high and low, in decorating. All the colors in the room came out of that serape \u2014 the minty aqua on the walls, the purple felt on the other chair, the emerald green trim on the curtains and the doors. I wanted to paint the doors black, to give the place an edge, because Rebecca has an edge herself. But she refused. So I asked, &amp;quot;What about purple?&amp;quot; I did one coat and she woke up and said she felt like Barney was in the room with her. So instead the doors are white. What prompted the green trim? It gives the illusion of panels on a flat door. My motto is, Don&amp;#039;t be afraid to paint. Rebecca had a chest that was the color of dirty dishwater, and I thought,&amp;quot;This needs to be white.&amp;quot; But what other design could I do on it, to continue the green details? Chevrons. The plaid backsplash in the kitchen was her idea. I taped out the squares and painted them in semigloss paint \u2014 completely wipeable \u2014 but then I got lazy and did the cabinets with grosgrain ribbon and a glue gun, after a couple of margaritas. So smart, and so inexpensive. We had a tight budget, which forces you to be creative. She had one of those ugly yellow polyurethane skating-rink floors, so we covered it with sea grass. I found a remnant at a carpet store. The curtains are made of extremely inexpensive lining material. Then I went to Stanley Pleating and had them make a seven-inch ruffle with a half-inch binding in emerald green. It doesn&amp;#039;t cost a fortune, and it&amp;#039;s completely charming. I keep thinking, &amp;quot;What else can I get ruffled?&amp;quot; The desk at the foot of the bed is another great idea. I&amp;#039;d seen my old boss, Miles Redd, do that a couple of times. You should not be afraid to put furniture in the center of a room. It frees up the walls for extra storage pieces. You could eat breakfast at the desk or do your work, and you&amp;#039;re not staring at a blank wall. You can also eat at the coffee table. I found the base at a thrift shop and had a remnant of marble cut to fit. It&amp;#039;s an inch and a quarter thick, to give it some heft and take it away from the chain-store look. Clearly, you&amp;#039;re a world-class scavenger. The Chelsea flea market in Manhattan is my church. I&amp;#039;m there every Sunday. But there has to be a moment where you spend some money, and lighting is a good place to do it. Those big, beautiful mercury glass lamps by the bed up the style factor. And then there&amp;#039;s one small throw pillow made from a remnant of this insanely expensive silk velvet jaguar fabric by Clarence House. But a little goes such a long way. You can sense the quality. You deserve the splurge, after solving the refrigerator problem in such a clever way. It&amp;#039;s this big, hulking thing in the room. You have to jazz it up, because there&amp;#039;s no getting around it. In my first apartment I wallpapered the refrigerator \u2014 using rubber cement because I knew I would have to peel it off when I moved. Here, Rebecca had all these great Polaroids, and I mounted them in a grid with doublesided foam tape. I covered the whole thing. You make a lot of sacrifices living in a small space, but style does not have to be one of them. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/tips/a1640/nick-olsen-interview-0711/>