life in a tiny apartment.

Tip #73: Embrace your crazy corners.

It’s possible that I should be the last person on the planet to recommend such a thing. Truth be told, there are a few corners in this apartment that could use significantly more attention. That weird alcove next to the bed? It’d look awesome with a built in bookcase made from reclaimed wood. The loft in general? A coat of paint could be transformative.

But the relative impermanence of our stay here, coupled with the more important limitations of renting our space and living on a restricted budget means that some projects don’t happen, and won’t happen.

Still. It can be worth the effort to work with the oddities of your small space, rather than against them. In our loft, the ceilings are less than 5 feet tall. {On the day that we ever move to a larger space, I will do somersaults on the bed, just because I can}. The short ceilings make hanging things on the wall difficult. But then—and this is largely related to Tip #22: Hold on to What You Love—sometimes you just have to hang something because you want to and not because it looks perfect in the place you have.

For our wedding last summer, one of my cousins framed for us a signed lithograph by Stow Wengenroth. It’s about the most special thing we own and even though it’s in a kind of funny spot, we went with it. In an effort to make the space work, I added a hanging basket {another v. special wedding gift} and hung the litho in line with the stairs to make for a cohesive look. It might not win “nook of the year,”and it’s near impossible to photograph it well, but it’s a sweet little corner in an apartment that doesn’t have many of them.

Do you guys also suffer from strange corners? What have you done to make them work for you?

Tiny Apartment Survival Tips 1- 72, here.