Reimagining a European Micro Apartment
This project was all about taking some impossible parameters and turning it around. The challenge: fitting a full-sized kitchen, bathroom, and queen bed into a livable 170 sqft apartment unit.
I came across this video by Never Too Small, about a 170sqft micro apartment in Amsterdam. Built in an old, 10 unit apartment, the tiny room was redone to accommodate a healthy option of luxury materials and a queen sized bed. The result was good looking, if not impractical for most people with practically zero walking space, and a kitchenette that would be rivalled by a camping burner and military MREs. For this specific client, it may be perfect: someone who only goes home to sleep and shower. Someone who uses the apartment a lot like a hotel room. But I think everyone that lived in a small condo began to feel its size during the dog days of the pandemic. So I challenged myself to design a multi-function space that someone could call home. Something that the average bozo like me could use and live in, with space for my hockey pads, electric guitar, and the rest of the hobbies we picked up but never mastered while locked down.
Voici la Micro-Maison.
There are a few key considerations in this design. Primarily, keeping the queen sized bed and the exact dimensions as the inspiration. It makes this project challenging and the space more comfortable. Another consideration was to have as much storage space as possible. I find the tightness of small spaces can be marginally alleviated with smart storage solutions. The last consideration was functionality and luxury. I assumed all costs were covered and we could engineer and play in order to get the best looking space possible with the most amount of function.
I wanted the entrance to feel welcoming while being functional. So in the foyer, a warm Givoni black marble pendant light, keeping with the warm and luxurious theme. there's two areas to the left: a wardrobe style closet and coat hooks. The closet is 12 inches deep and 7 feet high, allowing for pretty much anything short of sofa to be stored. I measured my goalie pads and they would fit snuggly, so take that. Aged brass and iron handles help maintain the heritage aesthetic of the place while staying modern. Matching the handles, brass classic style coat hooks relieve space from the closet dedicated to bulky coats and keep them at an arms reach for a quick sortie.
The floor is a cherry hardwood throughout. The main door and bathroom door are both oak, painted white.
On the right side of the foyer behind a door is a small (1m x 1.5m) but very functional bathroom. Surrounded in black smoky marble with brass accents, the bathroom feels warm and cozy. With contrasting walls and ceiling as well as the smoked glass shower door, it also feels bigger than it is. Inside, there is a full sized toilet, a 12 inch marble vanity with tall mirror, and shower. The bathroom vanity has enough space for several spare rolls of toilet paper, a single person's toiletries, and a hairdryer or two if you have two heads that require hairdryers at the same time (the outlet is on the wall beside the toilet, not pictured). Both on the wall and attached to the vanity mirror is a Figaro polished nickel sconce.
The shower head is a brassy toned rain style head, and it all funnels down to a drain underneath the teak slatted floor. The marble underneath is slanted slightly to flow water to the drain. The slatted wood makes it easy to grip with wet feet as well as looks really nice to me. The shower measures about 1m by .75m and can accommodate a 6’8” giant or someone who’s actually a reasonable height.
In the middle of the room is the bedroom area. It's in between 2 slatted wood walls, allowing for room separation as well as some light to pass through (as well as fits a visual theme). The bed is queen sized, with ample storage underneath for clothes, sheets, or other under-the-bed type knick-knacks. A tufted lavender-grey velvet sideboard is mounted on the wall, so a late night roll-into-the-wall-during-a-nightmare is more pleasant. It also makes it much more tolerable to sit on that side of the bed back against the wall, when watching Stargate SG-1 on the 50 inch TV. Above is a set of cabinets for more storage, enclosed with the same doors as the wardrobe, preventing things from falling onto unsuspecting sleepers, as well as an open shelf for décor or books if you read like a weirdo.
The TV and a flat media console, for vertical standing media devices like a Playstation, is mounted on the wall opposite the bed. Inside the console, there’s a four outlet panel to power everything that can fit inside and more. Underneath the tufted board is a 10cm ledge with a lip that fits a large phone flat or a book or tablet angled, acting as a night table. It’s slightly below the surface of the bed and the lip is angled and rounded so it doesn’t jut up into the sleeper at night, even when the bed depresses, slightly. The light switch and outlet are right beside the ledge, allowing for easy access. Underneath is a set of custom dimmable LED bi-color bar-lights that are controllable via the light panel by the outlet.
The kitchenette from the source inspiration has been upgraded to a full kitchen/work area, at 2m x 2.5m. The cabinets feature the same brass handles from throughout the unit. Ash wood cabinet doors painted white keep the kitchen from sucking in all the light before it reaches the bedroom. Instead, the glossy backsplash and white tones reflect and amplify the light, expanding the space. There is a marble countertop with enough space for food prep as well as an island for additional food prep and eating. It also doubles as a work area.
Another Givoni black marble pendant light as well as the custom bar-lights illuminate the area in addition to the windows. The flooring is a bleached oak chevron parquette to match the white cabinetry and marble, making the kitchen feel light and airy.
The kitchen has plenty of total storage spots. One of the lower drawers is a hidden mini-fridge/freezer, totaling 3.3 cubic feet. A 3 burner induction stovetop, 2 cubic foot convection oven, and 1.1 cubic foot microwave round out the integrated appliances. A brass faucet and marble sink caps the cooking area.
The bench/mini-daybed and stools allow for multiple guests to sit and eat, all with the same velvety smooth tufted fabric. It also has deep drawers underneath for even more of that sweet storage, increasing the total kitchen storage space, if used as an extension of the pantry. Or not. I’m not stopping anyone from using that to store all their unused Cine-Still that they bought during their foray into analog. The stools of the kitchen are made using the same ash wood and tufted leather as the daybed and inverted bent metal legs as the marble island. The stools push perfectly into the stool, so the kitchen is completely clear when prepping your Pizza Pockets (if you’re me).
Check out all the renders of the space in the gallery below!