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Examples of Strong Functional Spaces

So let's, look at a few, um, spaces that really combined form and function here, um, so we're going to go out to our pinterest board and take a look at okay? Um, so we're just gonna go through a few of these for these pins, which you're fun to just say some different ideas of how we could make things functional, so something as simple as a walk in shower. Although there is a little bit of change of height here, we talked to step over eso this isn't like an a d a m, you know, for someone who's in a wheelchair obviously wouldn't work for that, but just as you age, a walk in shower is going to be much easier for children it's easier to ah function for people but it's really beautiful at the same time, too, and this trend of using subway tile is so pretty, and I think the space is really clean and simple and wonderful. There's a nurse stall gia about all of the materials and that little ah, honey, come tile on the floor, but when you look at its simplest form from function there's, a lot o...

f functional things happening here, even something like those hooks that air on the wall can really increase the function in a space right or a small table, and how do you bring all of these pieces together? Is the question we're going to be asking all week to make something really function for you? This is interesting this is one of the showers that doesn't have a door on it some people like that and some people don't like that, but from a function standpoint it's really easy to use right on dh there simple very nice it is I have that tile on the floor and the time on the wall in various lives I can see just what would fit your style that we've talked about yes way have a walk in shower in our master and the other functional piece of that is there is no door to clean right is important when your maintenance and cleaning thinking about that that's right? We're going to talk in the very last segment of this three days about maintenance and how we maintain these spaces and that is important and especially when you have kids and you have little fingerprints all over everything but it's so nice not to have to clean that glass, right? I have a client right now that I'm dealing with a builder who I've worked with before and it's for their own home and they said we do not want any glass in our shower well, whatever we have to do to design it to not have glass that's what we want s o that's yeah, great observation also interesting about that spice, you know, a designer what what you'll be took, matt, which is really interesting to a lot of people, is that you will then curate how this storage is working. So I mean that's, obviously really small bathroom, and you've decided where the things will hang to look, bess and I guess I'm thinking you probably got the caddy for all the shampoos and stuff tucked around that wall so that you don't see it when you volcanism. This was actually not one of my designs, but it's, just a space that we love that but I think that's exactly what you would do. So when thinking about a space like this everyone's gonna use the space differently. So I actually we ask so many questions that the design process with a client we literally asked them how they like tio, you know, how do you get out of the shower? What do you use the talent that a robe like, what all needs to be there at arm's length and what's going to make that really function for you? And yes, so around it's great that you can keep everything around the other side of that wall, right? Most the time for my projects, we would build in the shelf into the wall if that's double but there's a multitude of things you can purchase to me that you can hang in the shower to hold all of the toiletries and things you're going tohave in that space but all the way down to those little details that's really what we're talking about a ce faras function driven designed had how to make it work for you because it's frustrating say if all the toiletries air on the floor and you have to bend over to get him or they knocked them over or whatever so what what makes sense and makes think puts things at arm's length really for you yeah a cz you know I'm a cool overnighters we just established last very much and I can't bear cluster of any kind I have to have a minimal space and the bathroom's a big challenge because you have to have things out inaccessible but I don't want them out I don't want them scene right? So I love the fact that they're all hidden around that corner theo and I even I'm not is not I'm more of a classicist but still I'm the same why visual clutter for inmate does not make me happy in fact my husband and daughter are always like oh my gosh just relaxed that come in the house and the first thing I do is clear everything off the counters that everybody's put onto the kitchen counter because I want things to be p pretty and tidy so that I can really relax and don't feel like I have another job to do when I get home right so so deep no matter what your style I guess, but particularly if you have a really clean, simple aesthetic that's going to be one or actually do never on my own so it doesn't really matter that this stuff is left out, but it annoys me so I have tio try try to teenage girls with long yeah, the amount of like the number of products that you will have sneaked behind that wall, I would have, like eight bottles of better I'm going to say plus the bath wash stuff. So so we just really need this transfer generated we're all that junk is gonna go right sets you well and you think about that when you think about the cabinetry too and there were going to get into all of that stuff this week to but even, you know again accommodating and we have gone to such a detail for clients that we put outlets inside of drawers so all of the hair dryers and things can stay plugged in and then you could just open the door and use it and put it back in, you know, even thinking about how big and how tall the toiletries are and how you need to store them so there's it seems simple and it seems kind of silly but it's actually not and there's so much detail that goes into each one of these um, spaces and even within a space a lot of, um a lot of different variation of what can happen between the shower, the cabinet and all of those spaces I love this that's a great image now pets is a big thing that's coming up already people are saying they've got cats, they've got dogs, they've got fish, they've got birds so I know this is something they say anyone about fine now so what are some of the biggest problems? What are like even in there and what we deal with when it comes to pits? Well there's an interesting one here from the chat room which I don't think it's about pet soo's news is saying I need serious help containing all the toys they're taking over now my dog has toys my dogs have toe on they're everywhere s o I know it's not just a child problem it's it's a dog problemas well, this just seems to be clutter and they you know they have their bed out on me you know and then right and then they like going to sleep on the furniture it'll all the stuff, whatever your rules are, how do you address that with your clients like you do well, we just we still need to have a dog yourself yes, I have two dogs harley and izzy so harley's fifteen and elderly and like soleil around all day and izzy is just not quite two she's one and a half and she liked it like some other people said she loves to chew everything up uh particularly shoes if you leave them out so there's a lot that goes into making sure that you know both and they're completely different in their needs so making sure that you know they have all the things that they need and everything functions for them. This is so clever to me so this is what you have to think ahead to do something like this so you know, this goes all the way back to the planning stages of remodel or building or, you know, I mean, some of these things can be retrofit into a project too, but a lot of times people want to think about the function piece at the end of a project or when they get into the house and start using it and a lot of times that's too late. So you really need to think about it early on in the process or even when you're buying a house or looking at the property you're going to rent and think knowing you're gonna love after for those of you actually who are moving a lot um you're going to love after this course you're gonna have a whole list of criteria that you can take with you to any project and check it off and say does it accommodate this? Do we have this convince work here but I think this is so fun with the dog food in the drawer like, you know, a really tricky one that people do struggle with and I'm thinking of a clean bathroom and other places kitty litter have you ever done any amazing solutions? Don't do it in a drawer e I don't know I need a dry I would love to hear I mean I don't have cats and actually I don't but to my knowledge which is shocking I don't have any clients I don't think or haven't had any that have cats and you would think after all these fifteen years I would have and I have lots of friends that kitty litter box is a big challenge that maybe interviewing someone tomorrow who has a very modern, very clean aesthetic and a cat and has actually integrated the cat into the modern clean us I think secret tomorrow I'm pretty sure you will want to be there from that I'm not gonna give in oh good, I can't wait to hear that because I'm sure chances are that I'm gonna have a cat uh clients sometimes saying if I haven't had one in all these loving this because noodles is saying I could never figure out where to put the dog water we don't have any corners accepted to tuck dishes away into you have that problem with you got two dogs dio they kind of owned the house so the dog bowls and stuff just hanging out wherever they want him I think my issue more is in the fact you you leave your pets for a ten hours a day so right having places for them to hang out and be comfortable yeah talking about my dogs like children lots of most people dio think about their dogs like their children actually and they're an important part I mean, any meeting I mean they are what we call our for babies I mean, there are other people there there are other members of the family right? And so we want them to be comfortable like I have interesting we're talking about aging people, but I have an aging pit and she's actually has cancer and so we're dealing with you know, her being sick and so if you have a lot to deal with it's like having a sick person in the house so I think with the dogs and the total is that's a wholenother story, I think we should talk about ways you know when they go for the same food way had a teenager last night cole in a complete father's not outing into somebody else's who'd gone. I'm very, very tired after big day and had thought that the dog treat women with jerky wait, you know, first section and we've already that I'm just saying story just came in. Okay, we'll work on that one. Sally, I love this space. This is I think this is not my design. It's another designer. I think it's a katie river designed his a great designer in new york city. It might be an amanda this but design but two fabulous designers either way, it's beautiful, and but what there's a lot of great things happening in this space. For one thing, I love to use a day bid. It's really functional and lots of spices because it can work is the sofa can work is the bed in my daughter's nursery. When she was a little girl, I had a day bed, which was great, which I put in lots of nurseries these days for moms or dads who are in with the infinite nine and the middle of the night or a nanny, or who have whomever is going to be in there, it's a great place to sleep. But then it was the perfect toddler bed for ellison when she outgrew her crib and could move right into the twin bid and she's finally outgrown that at age eight but really functional there's a lot of other great things happening in this space you just with the built in so you can see in this tiny little room how many different activities could happen just in this space there's open floor space if it's for a young child they could play there, it could be a library could be a guest room. This could be a lot of different things there's great window treatments for light control so lots of different things happening here, and I think this is we're going to talk about small space design and one of the segments this week two, but I think this is a great example of how to really use pieces that can have different purposes in one space. Although it's very, very small in the window, doesn't look very large, there is a lot of natural light coming into that room there that makes a big difference in your choice of colors, obviously on where you put and keeping the room line in another great trick back to the color the color of course we taught, but it goes along with function if you're gonna have a lot of things happening in a small space like this painting on everything the same color including the bookcases and the wall just wrapping the room in that pale color makes it look really cohesive and allows youto have different functions and things happening in that space um all at the same time, I love this drawers or great lots of good storage there. Now this is another room that's more like the one I showed a little bit ago that's a really beautiful room, so I think it's just great to know when you now start looking at spaces, maybe you'll look at them differently and magazines and think, you know, does this have lighting that we might need are their surfaces by the all of the seating that we could use to sit something on which there are, you know, so traffic flow so there's more to a pretty space than just a pretty space um and you could really start to get farther into that now that we've started to point things out, so I think it'll be like it's been in the other three courses now that maybe you were doing some things that you took for granted in your own house. Or maybe there were things that weren't functioning for you that you were working around every day and you forget that it's it's kind of just a pain, and it would not be that hard to make a few changes and really make a space start functioning for you as well and be pretty at the same time got a few more of these? Oh, this is a great one for a kitchen. So another, um, concept of multi purpose that I think is great. So this is, um, it's in the kitchen. I don't know if it's a big or a small space, but it would be great for a small space so there's additional counter storage that pulls out when you need it right? And then it can tuck away. So really, really clever idea. And I like to think of these kinds of ideas in all sorts of spaces that I was planning something almost like this just about a week ago with a client in an office space. And so they wanted storage on one wall built ins and on the other all they wanted it to service their desk or desk for both of their children. So we're making him kind of like little cubbyholes, but they thought they wouldn't have enough surface space when they were working she's a realtor and she wanted to lay papers down and and put, you know, collate contracts and things. And so I said, well, what if we make a big shelf that goes all the way across the drawers and it can pull out and legs like this worked great for that, and then you could have, like, a whole work table on top of your desk space so there's all kinds of ideas that you can think of when you're planning your building something if you're reminding a kitchen or in office, this might be a great solution when we get to that home office piece for people that have additional work stations and work tops but that aren't out all of the time and they kentucky away like the fact that's a slightly different height as well because there after I mean that looks like just in the example is using pastry in bread making whatever and that is something you have to lean for so that's a it's a great solution, she doesn't go ahead well, we just had a comment in earlier from noodles talking about height and furniture, which is pretty interesting when we're talking about functional space, she say my husband ira tall, five foot eight and six foot two and most furniture is designed for people much shorter and it misses about posture, but I mean, obviously when your custom designing something you'll look att the actual people we asked all of those kinds of questions when we're designing a space and we want to know exactly how tall people are as faras the kitchen who's cooking and maybe you you know, the wife of a couple is is not very tall, but maybe she's not the main cook maybe the husband's, the cook and he's in the kitchen all the time so we need to accommodate all of those things so we have a very detailed questionnaire that we use and we ask all of these questions like do you cook who cooks what how you know do you entertain how many people are hanging out in the kitchen isn't that always the space where everyone thinks that on dh how to really make it function for you and I was even thinking on this space it might be a great table for a great space for kids to eat tio I don't know what's happening on the other side for the traffic flow but this little piece could pull out and you could easily have a child said that this space twofer for dining not in a tall bar stool but I love to think of you all these kinds of different things including different counter heights to make a space more functional for you so really really great pullout table many solutions for capt boxes I don't know how much teach that we want to go in any other that a really great sound great well here's one that I thought was really interesting color wizards said they have a bath in which they don't use the tub so they they used the cat box as the top because it drains you khun plug it shut they have a shower curtain that highest in time mess and it contains the dust andi gives the cats their prophecy that said there about stopping everything is upstairs that's where they use it, but since these air their fairy kids, they thought, well, let's consider them too happy that's their bathroom. I mean, I guess if you have something, you little at a time like that stuff, no, absolutely but it's really interesting on and then, you know, magdalena is saying they don't really have any place for dog beds, so they end up lying on their sofas at night, but it's about color was, you know, was saying that hiding all this mess with something that is a big challenge for them, and I mean, it really is something you don't want out on display really don't know, right? We'll keep it, we'll keep working towards that solution for the creative kitty litter. Okay, about we'll come up with when we really like this week, we're going to get into lots of spices over the next few days that air for a specific task or, you know, hobby, but I think this is just a fun first look at something that would like a craft room or craft space, but also just thinking about the thing is that there's so many products out there now from container stores and, you know, organizing space is, I bet you would love that because everything has a place that's clutter that I love because it's all organized and it's colorful, and you're using it as a feature it's inspiring it's creative it makes you want to dig in and actually use it, and I agree, I love that everything has a place to, um and and so it's fun to start thinking about how you can modify your space tow actually work for your specific needs and, you know, this could be for kids. It might be for an artist workshop, it could be, um, wrapping paper, it could be all sorts of things we're going to see lots of different creative spaces like this over the next few days, they're going to hopefully give you some really exciting ideas, but just just wet your appetite a little bit and start thinking about how you can be very specific about how you use things. So for example, if you if you do paint or have a certain activity and you find yourself constantly putting all that stuff away and it's a big job and you like, have to close it all up and you haul it all up to the attic or out to the garage and you're getting getting it in and aban in and out, why? Why is that? And so were you even going to get into some conversation not that I'm trying to get you to get rid of your dining room for a craft room necessarily cause I love dining space but just saying you know, starting to consider how you really use your home and if you're making yourself do a lot of extra work to get to something that you're using on a regular basis and you have entire rooms in your house that you rarely go in that's really it's really were starting to think about um if you should be using some of these things for different functions calloway's sorry says the cat box goes in the tub the tub itself is not the cat box but yeah, I mean still if you put it in the top one well I think that might could work and not do what I do like kind of do like the idea that the cats have their own bathroom I mean, if the cats are like your furry kids and you don't have other kids and nobody needs that space walk again can't step out okay um so here is the great let's get this one to come up so I love this and I've used things like this I haven't used this exact piece of furniture, but I've used to more traditional pieces like this but this is a coffee table that changes height to be a dining table eso it swivels open and I think the top turns I think the bottom based turns upon its in and the top goes onto it where it becomes a taller piece I've used and when it's when it's a dining table it's the tabletop folds open to seat eight people so this the concept behind this is really this idea of an innovative or intelligent design for changeable living space is obvious lots of other pieces of furniture like this that are adaptable one of the coffee tables I loved these has a hydraulic lift and he just pull a little lever and it raises up to be a dining height table and it lowers to be a coffee table. I also love to use consul tables that air drop leaf, and so they're really narrow and well tucked behind the sofa or behind against a wall and then when you need them for entertaining for holidays or other things, then you pull it out and it opens up and it's a full sized dining table so there's all kinds of pieces of furniture that you can use like that that really will adapts to your needs. So you're not having to rinse a table or make everybody sit with their food in their lab at a holiday, but you literally have a piece of furniture that functions for you on a regular basis is one thing and then turns into something else that's so stylish and that would go so well with my barcelona furniture it really really would it's just so smart tohave these pieces of furniture that will do more than one thing that will do double duty found it online it's very inexpensive so you'll have that purchase from fatima I'm going now I've learned from toby good but just the idea just opening your mind a little bit to the fact that if you are going to like lisa said she got rid of all of her furniture to buy gromit furniture so now she's in this loft and she needs it to do double duty this might be a perfect option for her to be ableto have dining and have a living space combined um and then when she needs the dining table it'll just open up so something like that is going to be really important to getting the most out of a space like yours and this is just the beginning we're going to say great ideas all week um just another space similar to the one with the day bid but I love this because look how many things were happening here there is a day but it could be used as a sleeping space and lounging space there's a desk in the corner with this little curved piece there's bookshelves there's all kinds of lighting happening here we've gotta swing arm lamp we've got a desk lamp there's natural lighting so a lot of things happening these air going this kind of arrangement and this kind of concept is going to be key for those people who are living in small spaces that have to make one or two rooms really work for them in a lot of ways this may not be, you know, totally comfortable for your bed, but even a blanket or something like this that works for lounging or for tv watching depending on the height that you build, it could be perfect for dining also, so if you built it a comfortable seat height for dining, which is nineteen inches off the ground, you could easily pull a table up to this and it could suddenly become a dining space for you as well. So I can think of a multitude of things that could happen in this space already and then there's built in storage in the base of the cabinet, so lots of thought going into something is small and all we're saying is even one tiny corner of the room and we could see a lot of function happening here already, right? Yes, that just made me think another multi functional piece they now they make box springs that have drawers built in so it's not miss meant to replace a for six drawer dresser incapacity and doesn't take it makes dead dead space into usable space that's great so and then there's so many people that are clever because they are living with these challenges all the time and they're designing products though sally, did you ever design in your product design any multipurpose pieces? I know you pretty much always do multipurpose especially I've done a lot of beds with storage built in or even you know some people want the murphy bid for the spare rooms and they can study and some of those murphy beds have the disk on the other side you know the shelves around so when it folds up its a desk a minute so several of those murphy beds actually with the shelves on the museum we just didn't want recently for a guest house that actually the house we saw earlier that I said their children are grown and I have grandchildren so the pool house we converted to a guest house and like a play space for the the the teenage grandkids and it has a murphy bed outside and it's really it's fun to have, you know, lots of different things that can happen in that space see I left those too a few more fun ones here to look at so kind of like the dog bowls I love this so if you don't want to put dog both balls in the tokic of your house, you could also put a step or a stool in the bottom of the uh, cabinet. So this is great for kids. It's a great way to be ableto have furniture. That is the height. You want it to be long term, and I think you could easily, because that's, just on drawer glides, you could easily retrofit that later to just be a drawer for storage. So when you no longer needed it for kids, you could easily just put a drawer in that space. What's it, you know, just make a new front for it. So just the idea of even thinking about things that we take for granted, like the tokic at the bottom of a cabinet that's, just wasted space. Most of the time, it can really be turned into something functional for you, this's a the show house that I designed the last year that some people, you know, we sent people over the edge with the stripes on the ceiling when I showing those this time, what we're looking at here is the idea of thinking about combining two things in a bedroom, like the function of putting a desk beside a bit on one side, as opposed to putting two bedside tables. So this way, you could have a work space in the bedroom, you could use a laptop there, there's all sorts of things that you could do, but just thinking about, and it doesn't take that much more space to put a desk as opposed to putting just a table, but so are a chest or something beside the bit. So a great way to combine those activities there. What what was I entertaining you with? No, you know, I was just thinking how different the room looks when you can't see the strikes, you think it's funny, and I had it actually in your photo that you were so the last course, we had a fight of this room, but much more from afar, right? And you'll be talking to us about how to photograph the room, to do with the stories, so we're actually gonna have a whole sea talk about howto graff. Your last photograph of that room was from afar and saw the striped ceiling was so prominent I had never noticed there's a disk beside the bed well and wake talked about how show houses for designers are like the runway for fashion designer, so we use that as a chance to do something really hokey and crazy, but the at the, you know, underneath it all there's a lot of function that was really happening in the space, so the ceiling might have been crazy, and that was sort of that wow factor, but there's a lot of things in this room that really work and that's one of them on the layered lighting is also something that's really functional in this space. I love this one. I'm gonna use this idea in my own house. I'm actually going to bring the laundry room into the master closet at my house, but I like this idea that you can now get great, even full size washers and dryers, that air stackable and their front load, that air really, really functional. And so I love this entire cabinet, the storage, the think, um, I would even if I was doing this for a client, even put a rod probably over the sink so you could hang close to drip dry right there. Toby in australia that's the norm. So we always had them stacking, and we usually have a rod over the basin. So you can, and often there's, not even a basin. You know, some some because it's and it's, very european a j, you know, european. I mean, a lot of it is very trendy, I think, in the eighties and nineties, tohave dry wash combined into one everyone, but that that didn't really take off, I think, but this sort of hidden space that I such a really great solution? I really like you think this is great, and this is one of the keys that we can really use americans we got into these huge laundry rooms, I mean, our laundry rooms would be the size of our bedroom, and we had all this space and all these shelves and all these things for organization, which is wonderful, but this is one of the first places that you could really minimize if you're in that sort of concept of shrinking, you're the scale of your home, and and you don't necessarily need all of that. Of course, we're going to talk about curbing clutter so you might have to get rid of some of the things that you were storing in that enormous laundry room, but just for the laundry itself, it can really all happen in a small space like this. We have questions about appliances accepted, but never going to talk about this, like drunk is one thing that seems to be irritating. A lot of people is about outlets on cord control and and every thing I know, we're going to talk about that because that seems to be driving a lot of people mad. Is it mainly in their home offices are essentially no thumb across the sink and appliances, I mean the getting back to pet, somebody was saying that they have a electric water fountain for their dog that has to go on the floor. So the cords run across the floor outlets because no one in your kitchen, you never have low outlets or very, very rarely on you never really have outlets in the bathroom at all. You got, you know, I have an electric toothbrush, so I'm always having to deal with the cord running across the counter, which, frankly, irritates me, wear things. We have, like a billion and to hear things and an electric toothbrush. Thomas yeah, yeah, okay, well, don't let me forget to address that, too. When we get to some of these other places are we might have some time. In a few moments, we can address it to oops. I love this when I was going to show you that's also a dog space aiming, so look at this, how fun this is. So this is just a side table in the living room that was made into the dog bed. Is that sochi and clever graham? So just another idea for pants and small spices, which I think is really fun there's just so many ways to create functional things, and I designed lots of custom pieces of furniture and it's not as expensive as you think. I loved to use local artisans to do this, but there's a lot of companies that will customize things for you to mean this, you could almost do just by taking a door that even looks like you could just remove a door it's upholstered on the inside, which is really fun. But if you take just one thing away from this whole course and I always have, you know, one or two things that I say, you're like the underlying elements for takeaways for each course. I think this one is just to start rethinking how you're using things, because a lot of times we just take things at face value. And we're not even opening up our minds to the possibility of what we can do so by the end of this course we're gonna have people doing crazy things we're gonna have to write me back in again okay, well they don't have so much fun that you actually worked yourself back out of being functional but right idea isn't that fun? S o I love just you know starting this whole first session just starting to get you too think a little differently than we have thought before about some of our spaces for sarai who's from your neck of the woods she's in bentonville are you saying first of all, toby hope you're feeling better but her chuck design challenges all revolve around her two dogs incorporating their beds and create into furniture so hopefully that works isn't that fun? That would be a great solution for that. Another thing I think you could do is I love to use skirted tables and even rectangular and we've seen some of those and some of my work we'll build a frame and skirt a table in an entry hall it's great for if you don't, you know to save money if you can't afford a wonderful wooden piece of furniture or something really you know, to make a statement you can easily use fabric and so I think it would be really a fun solution to create a table form that just had fabrica on it and you could lift the top up even with my dog when she's in her crate izzy when she's in her crate at night we put a little cover over it so it would even function the same way because if you lifted the top up when she's in there you could just lower it back down at night and that would be kind of fun so again just the idea of starting to train ourselves to think a little bit more creatively about the things that we already have maybe just one more here um and then again just one more look at the space and we're going to see many things like this but just starting to think also even in zones in your house so there's a there's a tv viewing zone here their storage there's like a table for kids craft zone there's different lighting in each space and we'll get into all the details of all of these things but just this is really important particularly for someone like you lisa who has a big open space and you're going to have to create your own zones and division and definition of space because there's not any for you there's no walls for you so you could do that with rugs you could do that with furniture you could do that with lighting and all sorts of things so combining the idea of an activity zone with the different elements in a space like a lighting, storage function really increases the function of all of those space. It actually, and storage. And every one of these, you can have storage ottomans, you can have. We'll look at some pieces of furniture like that later, that opened up in store things inside of them. So there's, just almost not a really any barriers when you get creative about making a space functional.