File this under your “Funny But Possibly True”. I came across this picture on Facebook and couldn’t help but think of the hundreds of fabrics we offer for custom pieces and the thousands of colors they all come in!

When you have various shades of a standard color you can’t just call them all the same thing (or maybe Blue #1, Blue #2, etc.). Pantone has made an entire business of standardizing colors, classifying and naming them. Like this year’s Color of the Year: Tangerine Tango.

Take, for examples, Ultrasuede from Knoll Textiles. There are about four different “blues” but they each have very different names.

When it comes to color, the name hardly matters when it comes to choosing one. What should matter is how that color will play off the others in your scheme or space. Will it be an accent color that you’ll use sparingly or will it play a large role such as a wall paint color or the on the fabric for a large piece of furniture like a sofa or sectional? While color names can be fun, sometimes a blue couch is just a blue couch (though saying your sofa was done in ‘Midnight’ Ultrasuede does sound pretty cool).

Just one more choice to think about when designing your custom furniture from Vastu! We just received these new wood stain samples direct from Steven himself out in LA.

The colors/stains include (clockwise from top left):

• Whitewash
• Whitewash Antique
• Dove Antique
• Driftwood Antique
• Charcoal
• Driftwood Grey
• Dove
• Powder White

Vastu co-owner Eric says “these new wood stains are a great option for when wood is a big part of the piece we’re creating. Like if a sofa has full wood trim or a chair has a highly visible wood base. I probably wouldn’t choose these stains for, say, a bed where the legs are recessed and hidden under it.”

For example, the Dupont’s cradle base:

Dupont Sofa's Cradle Base

And the best part is that these stains are still neutral enough to work with most color schemes while still making a statement (if that’s what you’re looking for). Stop by the store soon to check ‘em out!

In the middle of his 400-square-foot studio, in a small space carved out between a bookshelf, sundry chairs and a bed, Jeff Watkinson, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall, balances on a 2 1/2-foot imitation surfboard with a roller underneath it, lurching back and forth across the floor.

“This is a very strong workout; it just mimics surfing,” he says.

His objective is not so much to demonstrate his athleticism as it is his knack for saving space via multifunctional furniture. Having moved into his Kalorama studio 18 months ago, the 32-year-old who works in investment sales has employed a number of tricks to create room for activities like exercise. He stores his clothes in his TV console, he converted his bookshelf into a bar, and he has a gateleg table that, unfolded, seats seven or eight.

Watkinson’s apartment represents one of the most fundamental ideas in small-space living: multifunctional decor. Considering the minimal square footage of a studio, furnishing one requires an inordinate amount of thought.

“Rarely would we design a studio where a piece of furniture only serves one function,” says Jason Claire, the co-owner of furniture and design store Vastu (1829 14th St. NW; 202-234-8344), which has been fashioning Washington interiors, teensy and grand, for almost a decade.

Mounted bookshelves and glass-top desks are some of Claire’s go-to tricks. “The more molding you can see, and the more you can trace the actual shape of the room, the more open it’s going to feel,” he says. “So if that means hanging stuff on the walls to get it off the floor or using thinner legs on tables, that’s better.”

Brooke Traeger’s multipurpose object of choice is the ottoman. As president of the Washington chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, she recommends transforming this accessory (which primarily serves as a footstool) into a small coffee table by placing a large, similarly shaped tray on top. Ottomans can also be used as chairs and are often hollow, with space for storage inside. Relegating unsightly belongings to hidden spaces such as these is a golden rule of studio living.

Jamie Little, 30, lives a five-minute walk away from Watkinson and his faux surfboard. As if designed by Traeger, her studio (which employs tips from her architect father and interior designer mother) features an ottoman with a tray as a coffee table. Resembling the type of space generally seen in catalogs, her 425-square-foot Kalorama/Dupont Circle studio took design inspiration from blogs such as Apartmenttherapy.com.

Little, an elementary educator, divided her long and rectangular apartment into rooms without walls. She created an entryway using the back of her couch, which runs perpendicular to the studio’s door and forms a boundary that defines where the apartment’s next section — the “living room” — begins. The sitting area is then distinguished from a bedroom area by a square, backless bookshelf.

“Open-back shelving is great because you can put it in front of your windows and display books and knickknacks,” Traeger says.

Which brings Little to her least-favorite aspect of the apartment. “Light has been my biggest challenge,” she says. “I was house hunting in the winter, and it was dark. I didn’t know what was out these windows, and I face walls.”

Her open-back shelving allows what little light comes through the one window in the main room to reach as much of the apartment as possible. Several full-length mirrors on opposite walls reflect the light, opening up the space. A wall lamp, directed toward the ceiling above her bed, changes the room’s feel. “This kicks up a lot of light, so it’s a sun-filled room during the day,” she says.

But not all illumination — sunshine or otherwise — is equal. “We usually think of light in multilevels, so there’s natural light; there’s overhead light; there’s table and floor lighting; and then if you’re entertaining, there’s candlelight,” Claire says. “By mixing those different levels, it’s usually the most pleasing, complementary light. We usually try to mix at least three of those to provide a warm, inviting space.”

One of the only areas fully divided from the rest of Little’s apartment is her kitchen, large enough for no more than two people at once. To save counter space, she mounted various things, including her microwave and a dish rack, on the walls. This includes a spice rack, a magnetic knife strip and her pans, which she hung via hooks.

“I was looking for a pot rack forever and I couldn’t find anything that made sense. I finally just threw two hooks up there and that made a huge difference for storage,” she says.

White dishes and clear cups are other sure bets for the kitchen because of their versatility.

“In a small space, you usually don’t have much cabinetry, and [neutral dishware] kind of goes with anything,” says Kathryn Bechen, author of “Small Space Organizing” ($13, Revell). Bechen recommends saving pops of color for small-detail items such as napkins and placemats. Avoiding large pieces with patterns or bright colors keeps rooms from getting too busy in appearance.

Allie Mann, a project designer at Case Design (4701 Sangamore Road, Bethesda; 301-229-4600) recommends muted, neutral paint colors, “particularly if the walls or lack thereof do not offer a lot of definition.”

Mark Tiner's 325 square foot condo

When Mark Tiner came to Vastu in 2007 for help decorating the 325-square-foot studio co-op he had just purchased in Logan Circle for $200,000, he wanted to base the space’s color palette on a shade of green in a pair of his Pumas.

“We just introduced a splash of color and carried that color through the whole space. Then, we riffed on that, so we did pillows and various textures and patterns that kind of had a little bit of that color,” Claire says.

Tiner’s piece de resistance is his “sofa,” which is only a sofa by day. At night, he takes off the thick layer of throw pillows that line the back and removes the green slipcover, revealing a full-size mattress resting on a sofa frame. Space was so tight when he moved in that he got rid of his queen-size mattress to save the six or so inches in either direction.

“I don’t need a ton of square footage to make me happy,” says Tiner, 43, a lobbyist for a defense company. “What makes me happy is the vibrancy of the neighborhood, interesting people — and that’s more important to me than how big a place is.”

Multifunctional Must-Haves

Trunk
“Trunks work great as coffee tables and do double duty, storing things like extra blankets, photo albums and memorabilia,” says “Small Space Organizing” author Kathryn Bechen. Try one of Abaca Imports’ (1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria; 703-684-2901) vintage Chinese trunks ($275-$750).

Ottoman
Brooke Traeger, designer and president of the Washington chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, endorses the ottoman as not only a storage unit, but also as a coffee table substitute or an extra seating option. Target’s set of four ottomans can be stored away themselves — inside a bench ($170).

Strategic Shelving
A standard bookcase “just takes up a chunk of the floor space versus something that’s hanging on the wall and [lets you] still see the molding underneath,” says Jason Claire, co-owner of Vastu. He’s partial to the Escriba shelving system ($1,730 per panel).

Mounted Kitchen Accessories
Kalorama/Dupont studio dweller Jamie Little uses a hanging dish rack ($25, Ikea.com) to save counter-top space. “Everything is built into the walls, especially in the kitchen,” Little says.

Paint Pointers

Allie Mann, a project designer at Case Design, recommends using muted, neutral paint colors in small spaces. She particularly loves Sherwin-Williams’ flat sheen shades of colonnade gray (SW 7641), latte (SW 6108) and believable buff (SW 6120) (price per gallon varies). “They’re popular colors pertinent to 2012, but they have a range of flexibility,” Mann says.

Check out this cool video from one of our favorite wallpaper vendors:

Mark Veltman for the New York Times

The New York Times had an article last week titled “Relax. There’s Plenty of Room” by Steven Kurutz. Apartment Therapy highlighted it and posed the question “Is Bigger Furniture Better?”

When it comes to interior design, the short answer is “no”. However, this doesn’t mean that smaller is a more suitable choice when choosing furniture for your space either. You need to find the happy medium and go with pieces that are in the right scale for your home and lifestyle.

In the New York Times article, the writer refers to Restoration Hardware and many other mass-market chain retailers that sell behemoth pieces of furniture. Some say this trend of giant furniture was to keep up with suburbanites and their McMansion ‘great rooms’. Others hint that it’s American’s ever-expanding waistlines that dictate the increasing size of sofas.

Local designer, and friend to Vastu, Annie Elliott generally advises clients against giant furniture saying “It doesn’t look right, it’s sloppy and probably too big for whatever room they’re putting it in.”

Even when median home sizes are dropping, chain retailers continue to push the idea of large and oversized furniture. As Vastu co-owner Eric Kole puts it, “Homes have been getting smaller the last couple of years. And there’s a big difference between a suburban home in Dallas and a townhome in DC. You don’t put the same size furniture in both spaces.”

Designing 325 Square Feet Has To Be Strategic

That point is something Vastu has always prided itself on. If you want a sofa that’s 163″ long, tufted and in leather (much like one found at Restoration Hardware) we can do that. Will we tell you to buy it? Not necessarily. “Vastu can size things up and down when it comes to upholstered furniture, but only if it makes sense in regards to the scale of the room” says Eric.

Um, wow...

And that’s what you should take away from the New York Times article. While mass-market furniture retailers sell huge sofas, sectionals and chairs (or a chair and a half), you don’t always need to bend to their whims when it comes to furnishing your space. Dont’ let catalog companies dictate your style. Instead, find the local retailer that will work with you and your home to choose the pieces that will fit (Give us a call if you have any questions).

This Sectional Fits Just Right

To read the full New York Times article, click here or visit Vastu’s Design Portfolio to see how we make furniture fit our clients’ spaces.

We’re quickly approaching Christmas and I understand that some gifts can get forgotten until the last minute. Trust me, last minute shopping is no fun.

But Vastu is here to help! If you’re finishing up your shopping in MidCity in the next couple of days then why not stop by and get some great gifts for the home?

1. Bulb Incalmo Vase
2. Hot ‘N Cold Glasses
3. Monja Decanter and Tumbler
4. Record Bowl
5. Log Bowl
6. Tube Top Vase

And don’t forget to check out our 14th Street neighbors for more great gift ideas:

• Home Rule
• Pulp
• Muleh
• Som Records
• Miss Pixie’s Furnishings and Whatnot

For 2012 it turned out to be Tangerine Tango!

From a press release Pantone sent out on the 8th:

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Pantone predicts you’ll see Tangerine Tango from the fashion runways to cosmetic products and even to your home.

Energize interior spaces with Tangerine Tango patterned home accessories. Pillows, bedspreads and tabletop accessories in this high-impact hue add spice to any room. Or incorporate Tangerine Tango appliances and personal electronics for an unexpected pop of color. Looking for an inexpensive way to perk up your home? Paint a wall in Tangerine Tango for a dynamic burst of energy in the kitchen, entryway or hallway.

So what do you think? Should we all go out and buy Tangerine Tango-colored products for our spaces in 2012?

In the spirit of the Herman Miller Holiday Sale, which is going on now and ends December 11th, and the dropping temperatures that indicate the imminent change in seasons, I rounded up some wonderful products that come in white finishes, fabrics and leathers.

1. Eames Soft Pad Side Chair – A cousin of the Aluminum Group Chairs, this simple yet classic design comes with or without arms and has three frame/base finishes.

2. Setu Chair – Designed by Studio 7.5, this chair is beautiful to look at and comfortable to sit in due to its suspension material and lightweight frame.

3. Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman – A classic known the world over, this lounge chair and ottoman declares luxury. Even more so with its new white ash shell and premium MCL leather in ‘Pearl’.

4. Nelson Swag Leg Chair – Retro and modern at the same time, this chair designed by George Nelson looks right at home in both contemporary and traditional spaces.

5. Noguchi Table – Designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, this table achieves the perfect balance between form and function, art and furniture.

Image by flickr user tvol

A recent Curbed article written with data from Realtor.com shows that Washington, DC has the smallest median home size in the country.

At 1,000 square feet, DC falls below the national median square footage of 1,761. We’re also home to the smallest median lot size (2,375 square feet) and the second-highest median list price at $432,500. First was Hawaii at $575,000. The typical home in the District has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths while the rest of the top 10 have 3 bedrooms.

So what do you do when you live in 1,000 square feet or less? For starters, make good use of the space you do have. Try to buy furniture pieces that have multiple uses. A bed with drawers underneath gives you both a place to sleep and extra storage. Or a strong side table that doubles as extra seating is definitely handy in smaller spaces.

Don’t forget about your walls either! Through the use of window treatments, wall paint and mirrors you can make any space feel taller and bigger.

And if you’re a Washingtonian that lives in a home way below the 1,000 sq ft median and you find it hard to find furniture that even begins to fit in your space, think custom. By buying personalized furniture (like our sofas, sectionals and beds by Steven Anthony) you can have a unique, one-of-a-kind piece that’s made-to-order to fit you, your lifestyle, your home and your budget. The alternative is going to a big-box furniture store, shopping from a standard catalog and hoping they have the sizes you need.

This 325 sq. foot studio has a custom bed that doubles as a sofa!

So while we may have the smallest median home sizes in the nation, it doesn’t mean we have to live in smaller, cramped spaces. For more tips on how to make your small space more livable, stop by our showroom to speak with a designer or contact us here!

Like on the new ABC show Suburgatory, the new folks in town (the Altmans) own a Cyclone Dining Table and Eames Wire Chairs (George Altman, played by Jeremy Sisto, is an architect as was Charles Eames).

Now while we’re not saying you have to come out and immediately buy what you see on these popular TV shows, this can be a fun and entertaining way to see these great pieces in different settings. Stay tuned as we keep an eye out for more TV appearances of Vastu products and fabrics!