Liberate your Arlington, VA condo with Outside-the-Box Interior Design
A homeowner out in the suburbs, or a farmer with a cute farmhouse in the hills, has a lot of options when it comes to remodeling. You can bash a wall out and put up an addition. You can raise the roof, finish the basement, add or cover windows. You can change your roof shingles and siding, you can put up a deck, you can landscape. All of these changes will transform the mood and the practical potential of your living space.
In Northern Virginia, however, a lot of us live in condominiums. Arlington County hosts some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the entire country, and the region’s popularity might account for its being voted by October 2008’s Business Week as the ‘Safest City to Weather a Recession’. However, at the current population density of Virginia’s smallest county, many of its citizens don’t have the luxury of a whole lot of extra space, and are proud to secure themselves a simple high-rise condominium. Neighborhoods like Rosslyn, Crystal City, Ballston, Courthouse, and Clarendon all contain a significant population dwelling in condos. There are a lot of perks to urban condo living; convenience, liberation from driving, utility efficiency, groundskeeping – but if there is something about your space that you don’t find satisfying, it is a whole lot harder to change it when you are confined to a small, box-shaped indoor area.
Fortunately, both architects and interior designers have expended years of creativity and expertise to address that very problem: how to make the most out of small spaces? The clever little cubicles spread throughout the IKEA showrooms provide an example of the public’s need for small space solutions. Owning a condo, while it isn’t the same as owning a single-family home complete with deck, driveway, and backyard, should still empower the homeowner to make the changes necessary to make a condo into a dream home.
The first step to creative condo remodeling is to clear your mind about what is actually there (square living room, narrow hallway, two boxy bedrooms), and sit down and think about what you want. Big, luxurious bathroom? Earthy hunting cabin? Airy, upscale balcony with a view and a cocktail bar? Good! No matter how ridiculous you think it might seem given the spatial reality of your Northern Virginia condo, it is very important to know what you want.
Next, you need to consider your long-term plans. Is this condo going to be your home, or is it more like a way station, an investment you made in the (hopefully improving) DC real estate market? If you intend your condo for resale in the near future, your design goals will be different than they would be for your long-term home. When condos are sold, they need to be staged in a certain way to make them appeal to the widest possible audience. Decorating a home for staging requires creating an ambience that is as impersonal as possible, so that potential buyers see themselves living there, not you. If you would like to come up with a design scheme that maximizes both your enjoyment of the space and its resale value, jot down both what you would like and what you think would create the widest possible appeal, and see if you can come up with a happy medium.
Finally, you need to come up with a design plan. There are two levels of remodeling that you can undertake in the process of transforming your space. The first is architectural. It may seem like a condo’s layout just is the way it is, but in most buildings you can actually alter the interior plan of the condo, changing the position of walls, doors, and sometimes even windows! If you want that great big bathroom, for example, you can take out part of the bedroom or walk-in closet adjacent and donate that square footage to the cause.
However, due to the limited area, every choice you make will inevitably involve sacrificing something else. This is where interior design comes in. With interior design, you can use clever techniques to create the feeling of what you want, without dramatically altering the floor plan.
Color, for example, can be used to contour a space, making it feel larger or smaller as the case may be. Put light colors in places you want to look bigger, and dark colors in places you want to stand out. If you want more light, consider lighting and mirrors, as an alternative to windows. If you want a hunting lodge, make a faux fireplace out of brick veneer with a little inset gas fire (these come in all sizes), mount a sturdy shelf over it, throw a bearskin on the floor, a gun on the shelf, and mount your favorite buck overtop. If you want a chic, upscale look, consider hip color combinations: gray, pale blue, bright orange, and chrome accessories, and maximize whatever balcony you do have.
Living in Northern Virginia is exciting and fulfilling, but living in a condo can bring about its own unique challenges. Be proactive in creating an interior that you really love. Blue Door Painters is here to help.