Everything Zen need some ideas

thunderseed

Hello, I am new here!
And I am having a major mind fart and feeling overwhelmed with my house, I would appreciate any comments and ideas!

I'm trying to go with an extreme minimal zen interior in a VERY SMALL difficult space. I will not have any pictures until I find my camera cord so for now I am going to explain everything in detail.

Just so you get the feel for my theme, my wall colours are all shades of light gray, and some walls are beige. I wanted a zen/natural/river stone feel. The trim and accents are white and light beige.
But I also have black leather accents and some black tables, which gives it a more modern feel. For other wood around the house i try to keep it light coloured. I also use green accents here and there. The floors and walls are good, but my STUFF isn't.

I can't get the placement right, and there are just some pieces of furniture I don't want to get rid of, but if there are no ideas on how to make it work, i guess i will have to.

I'm having most difficulty with the main living room.

It is small, the room is longer in length than width, and very narrow.
The room width is approximately only 11 feet, maybe less. It's so small I can't even fit my couch sideways without blocking off all floor space.

In length... well on one wall there is a window and my front door, and I don't want that blocked, so that wall is out of the question, unless the furniture is
remains below 2 feet tall and underneath the window.

And the opposite wall in length is only about 6 feet in length before it is cut off by a mini wall divider. Both ends of the room are occupied, one end by a fireplace, and one end by a closet and walkway into the rest of the house.

At the end of the room is a modern fireplace situated in the direct center of the wall, which only leaves not even 4 foot of wall space beside it on both sides. I've managed to paint up and decorate the fireplace how I like it. Should I leave the walls and floor space empty beside the fireplace? Or could I play around with those 4 foot spaces?

The back wall, the one with the mini divider separates the room into the kitchen. On the opposite end of the room is an ugly open closet, and beside that, a very narrow hallway. I've already taken everything out of that closet so that it gives the feel of more space.
That side of the room serves as a walkway from the front door into the rest of the house, so i should keep it free of objects.

I don't have much room to work with at all. And I cannot afford to make custom box furniture to fit, unless I use my memory foam idea.

Right now I have a huge long white leather couch on the back wall, that is not at all what is considered zen furniture. It's bulky, huge, rounded and not square.

I have to sell lots of my furniture seeing as I don't have any room for it, and because i want to stick with simplistic square boxed furniture with straight lines, but I really want to keep the white leather couch. It's rounded, so it doesn't go with my theme of straight lines. It also probably takes up massive space in there. But a plus is that it is white and sticks with my beige and white accents. Is there any way i can make it fit with everything? It would break my heart to get rid of it. Can I somehow give the couch an illusion that it belongs?

I also have 2 square black leather boxes to be used as storage/tiny end tables. Right now they are in the middle of my floor space in this room, because I don't know how to arrange my furniture!

I have to take out my huge bulky black leather chair that right now is beside the fireplace (find a place for it somewhere else), because it doesn't fit with my theme - and i need more space.

I created my own low to the ground zen bench that is beige with just a couple of throw pillows on it, which is leaning underneath the window right now...
It is adjustable in size seeing as i made it out of memory foam, so I could put it anywhere. It is very low to the ground, unlike the couch sitting opposite to it. I don't know how to make the differences in height work. And it looks ugly having them sitting opposite each other.

I could just buy more memory foam and materials and make all my square comfy (and narrow) low to the ground furniture out of it... It's easy to make stuff with. But I'm also planning on getting a small flat screen tv and im not even sure where that would go.

I like the placement of objects in these pictures here: http://2interior-design.com/zen-style-interior-design/

But I don't know how to do it in such a small space. Those spaces are big! And I really am clueless when it comes to having a mathematical eye.

I noticed in those pictures, that the interior placement is not necessarily against walls, things are in the middle of the floor space and they make a pleasing yet simplistic pattern.

How do I do that with the weird narrow measurements of my living room?

Thanks for any suggestions!

titanoman

I don't know if you can say "fart" here.

thunderseed

sdsester

While your description is extensive and I suppose acccurate it is hard to tell what is going on. I hope you can find your camera to post some pictures.

Meanwhile scaling out a floorplan might be a very Zen thing for you to do. It will help us and you will find many uses for it too. You will of course need a tape measure. Then I use Sweet Home 3D which is free open source software with lots of furniture symbols in the basic program or that you can download for free. Others seem to like SketchUp but I have not used it.

I think with a floorplan you could Feng Shui the place too and move things around "on paper" without breaking your back. You could establish a nice flow from room to room as well? Worth a shot?

You seem kind of wound up. Hope we can find you some inner piece soon. If you cannot find your camera cable, ask at a local hotel. Their lost and found departments are great sources for things like camera cables, phone chargers, computer cords and all left behind by travelers.

sdsester

I am certain you cannot and as I have been reminded a time or two, this is potentially a family site. Please watch your language. Somewhere out there is a four year old that has not heard the word and is running crying as we speak to his Mommy about the bad word he read on the DIY Chatroom forum.

You can however say "fard" here. As in, "She was known to fard in the car and cause accidents!" The site wants to encourage female participation and farding anywhere, without apology, is a chick thing!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fard

hardtimesdesign

Small spaces are tricky. How long is your couch? For the wall that it's against, how much space is there on either side of it? Does the couch have legs, or does it sit very low to the ground/have its legs covered with a skirt? In terms of masking the curves of the couch, I would recommend visual elements elsewhere in the room that will attract attention so the couch is not so prevalent. Art, textures, perhaps even minimal, colored pillows or a throw on the couch itself that draws the eye to them, not the couch, might all be good options. I'm thinking a row of long, low rectangular pillows across the length of the couch, maybe in tan - that would add a solid straight line and a focal point.

If you are going for a sleek, contemporary look in a small space, it's important that the furniture in it appear light (in terms of visual weight) and low profile, with generally vertically oriented decor to draw the eyes upward (think tall, narrow art, tall, narrow vases, etc). Additionally, with a small space, you want the least amount of furniture possible without sacrificing function. What all do you want to do in this room? Entertaining? Watching television? Yoga?

I think at least one additional seat is necessary, preferably with a small, simple side table, depending on where your other side tables are. I might recommend something in this general shape: http://www.homedecorators.com/P/Vinc...per_Chair/300/, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...8/product.html, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...8/product.html, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...5/product.html, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...0/product.html, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...5/product.html, http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden...0/product.html - unless you feel the legs are too high to fall under the 'Zen' category. Honestly, I think making Zen work in a small space could be very difficult if the furniture needs to be as low to the ground as it is in the link you provided for you to feel it's sufficiently Zen. An equally serene, minimalist, sleek Asian inspired space is definitely possible, even if it's not 100% Zen.

Can you take pics with your phone?

Syd

bakenboy

Hey there,

Alright! So you're going with the zen-feel to your home. Sweet!

I've been a martial artist since I was six years old.. and now I'm nineteen! So with 13 years of martial arts and discipline in working with both positive and negative energies both in sport and in life, I'd say that you should work with both positive and negative space.

A lot of the energies in your home can depend on the lighting, so take this into consideration. Lighting even affects the way that you eat! Bright lights, like those in a school's cafeteria, encourage eating a lot because it's bright, good conversation, and even some anxiety.. either good or bad, which makes you feel hungry! Dim lights can make you feel relaxed and at-ease, but aren't good for productivity. This relaxed-feel also makes you less inclined to eat, hence why restaurants go for less lighting.. they want you in and out quickly so that they can seat the next guests.

So look at the areas in which you eat and work the most and evaluate the lighting with this, hopefully helpful, information.

I'd also suggest looking at the wall space that you have, some artwork can be great to set balance to the furniture in your home, a lot of darker woods or metals, brownish or so, would be great with that light-gray wall space, and pop against the white accents.

As far as wall space: the positive space would be that which is filled with items or artwork, the negative space is the walls. Having bare-walls can be quite negative, but having too much artwork could be overly stimulating to the space and just cause a lot of confusion and chaos both in decor and in your home-life.

Furniture: simple works best in zen, which in oriental design, the home has low tables with small cushions as seating, which helps one to feel grounded and at peace, forcing you to sit criss-cross applesauce, which is often how many people sit when meditating.

Hope these tips have been helpful, if you had any specific questions unanswered or wanted more detail, etc. just reply or private message me.