Making Room: Finding Space in Unexpected Places

This was a wonderful pictorial book with all kinds of useful ideas for small spaces. The photos were colorful and clear, the text explaining them was informative and brief enough to keep interest and keep the pages turning.

For about 5 years, my adult and single son has complained about the inefficiency of his kitchen. Since he is an excellent cook, the kitchen is a hub in his historic but small home. When I sent him this book, he found immediate adaptability to his situation and the thinking process began. As a package design specialist, he decided to draw up plans and "repackage" his kitchen. One space saver that really caught his eye was the concept of building drawers in the steps up to the second floor.

It took me about five minutes of looking quickly through this book to realize that I needed to take the book home and to carry it around the house looking at things in an entirely different way than I'd ever seen it before. I've been wondering about storage space for some time. This book points out that there is room for about twice as much as I have if I would just look at some of the areas of the house in a different way. Just some of the ideas: Stairs: Make the treads to flip-up lids to access the box underneath, or insert drawers underneath. Page 17 Dorway: The space over the door can be converted to a small bookshelf of antique display area. Page 56 Under/Over Kitchen Cabinets: Build a drawer into the toe-kick area under the cabinets for storage of thin things like serving dishes, or all kinds of things can be put into the space above the cabinets. This is a great idea book of how you can probably double your storage area.

In "Making Room: Finding Space In Unexpected Places", author Wendy Jordan draws upon her more than twenty years of experience in the remodeling industry to help apartment dwellers and homeowners to create new areas of `liveability' within their existing residence without the necessity of major remodeling. Profusely illustrated throughout, "Making Room" features more than one hundred creative, do-it-yourself ways to make the living space within a home bigger and better without adding on or tearing down walls. More than forty case studies illustrate dozens of ideas highlighting transformation that are `small in scale but big in impact'. From converting the toe-kick under kitchen cabinets into perfect storage areas for serving dishes; to the use of hooks, shelves, and slim cabinetry to enhance the usefulness of a closet, to building a draw into a stair and thereby creating a jumbo-size storage area for bulky items, "Making Room" offers a highly recommended wealth of practical ideas and recommendations for interior design and remodeling that are easy to do and enduringly useful.

Brought this book to Friday lunch at our Design-Build company. Passed it around the table and everybody had different favorite great idea's they wanted us all to check out. I like the way the material is organized great idea's, a couple different versions, suggestions for ways to "Make it your own" A permanent addition to our design library. If you are building or remodeling there are good ideas to be had in this book.