Let's talk about multi-functional furniture

I was musing with my boyfriend on our recent road trip about how I think I may have been an anthropologist in my past life, because I am always fascinated by seeing how other people live. Cultural norms, especially those that are major departures from my own cultural norms, I find captivating, but even subtler nuances about living arrangements intrigue me. I actually took an anthropology elective course in college, and marveled at curiosities like the tribe who sees it as perfectly normal and acceptable for a woman to have sex with all the men in the village - that's just smart procreation - but that she would be stoned to death if she dared to enjoy a meal with any man other than her husband. Furthermore, I love traveling, and partly because I like experiencing other cultures and cities and ways of living. Arcosanti, an experimental community in Arizona, was one such place we road-tripped to and stayed overnight in hopes of experiencing a little bit of this very different way of living. We've stayed in capsule hotels in Tokyo and traditional Japanese rooms in Miyajima, a fascinating experience that is also great for the shock value among friends. Uluru, and Australia in general, gave us a different world view, touring Taliesen West taught us how a visionary architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, envisioned future homes, and even spending 16 days straight on a cruise ship provided some insight into different ways of living - when you have vast amounts of free time and all your basic needs are provided for you, what is it that you actually want to spend your time doing?

We've had the fortune or misfortune, depending on our moods when we discuss it, of having moved literally across the country three times in the last four years, each time adapting quickly to a somewhat different way of living. We started in the 1400 sq ft house I owned in suburban Mesa, Arizona, moving to a relatively spacious 1400 sq ft apartment in downtown Stamford, CT, a short train ride away from Manhattan. Living in a downtown area meant we could walk to food and stores, and even the theater and work. I barely drove my car more than once a month, mostly to get groceries which weren't walkable unless we went to Target or Walgreens for food. But the apartment life had its drawbacks - slow maintenance departments, a "heated" pool that was frigid because the guy forgot to turn the heater on and later refused to acknowledge the heater was broken, parking in a shared garage and having to take an elevator every time the dog had to pee. One year later, we moved to Panama City Beach, Florida, where we bought a stunning new-construction 1800 sq ft house in a private beach community, which meant we had private beach access within walking distance. It was much more like suburban life, except the people were either quite southern (read: hick) or tourists or both. But, the beach didn't disappoint! I loved running to and along the beach and taking swims in the warm, clear, Gulf water. We were really happy to stay there, but when my plant closed, we shipped off to San Diego, California. Here, we doubled-down on the downtown feel, kind of, buying a (very expensive) condo that is the tiniest place we've lived yet, just barely over 1000 sq ft. It has only one parking spot in the shared garage, although street parking is usually available somewhere nearby.

Due to COVID-19, which really closed things down basically right when we moved here, we haven't been able to fully enjoy the benefits of our proximity to downtown shops, restaurants and entertainment, although I have taken full advantage of the beautiful landscape of Balboa Park which is right across the street. The condo is also much more of a fixer-upper than I would have liked, especially having been spoiled a bit by a nice apartment and then a new-construction house, and having already fixed up my Mesa house years ago.

All that to say, I think a lot about what I want in my future home and how I can make my current living situation optimal or as close to utopia-like as possible. I like shared spaces because that means I don't have to maintain them, places like gyms and pools, but I don't like them because other people are in there and we are reliant on the maintenance happening. Being on the bottom floor in my condo also means I hear my neighbors above me - why are they stomping around like that? The HOA is a completely separate discussion. So I think I'm a house person, I like the attached garage being right there, having my own space, my own yard, and not being disturbed by neighbors.

But, in the meantime, I have a very expensive, tiny, outdated condo that I'm probably going to stay in for at least a few years. When we left Florida, we knew we had too much stuff, so we basically left all of our furniture behind and sold the house furnished, in order to buy new stuff in California to suit our tinier space. And so brings me to the topic I want to discuss today: furniture for tiny spaces, or multifunctional furniture, which make the most of small living spaces. Now, I fully realize that my version of small is still big to some, we have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms, a smallish kitchen, a decent-sized dining room area and a decent-sized family room area, and a nice little porch overlooking the park. The master bedroom is actually probably the most generously sized space. Anyways, the space is still much smaller than what we've become accustomed to, and adapting to the smaller space (and trying to fit the things we did keep in this space) has provided both a challenge and an opportunity to try new things.

My Recliner Sofa

Having left my beloved albeit awkward Ikea couch from my college days in Florida (I can't believe I kept it so long, but then again, I loved that thing), one of the first major purchases we pursued was a new couch or sofa to relax on. One of the reasons I loved my Ikea couch was because it was so "loungey" - I love having my feet up, or rather, I absolutely despise having my feet on the ground, and the Ikea couch was truthfully not much different than a mattress with a cushion to prop people up on in the very back. Getting on and off the couch took some effort, but once there, my feet were up and I was good. So I decided to look for something with similar functionality, but less awkwardness - I needed recliner seats! Due to COVID (damn you COVID!!), furniture stores were closed, so I couldn't go into stores to try out all the sofas, so I ended up just going on gut instinct after narrowing my search down to a few reasonably priced recliner sofas. When it delivered, we realized we may have outdown ourselves a bit - that is to say, the sofa takes up nearly the ENTIRE room, much bigger somehow than I had imagined it. And because there's only two of us living here, it is probably overkill for us - we could probably do away with at least one or two sections and still have sitting room, not the to mention the valuable real estate it would free up in the condo. But, knowing we'll have guests at some point (hopefully, someday, if we could all be safe from COVID), we left all the sections in place, at least for now.

There are a few really nice features of the sofa, though, that have surprised me in their usefulness, even though I knew about them when I purchased it. For one, the reclining functionality is REALLY great: it is way easier to get up out of the sofa and get back into position, because the damn thing does all the work for you with the hold of a button.

The second feature which I didn't realize was important when I bought was the large, flat arms of the end units. I use the arms to prop up my laptop or tablet, especially when I'm getting settled in or getting up, and I use it to put dinner plates on. It's not stable enough that I would trust it with an open drink container, but otherwise almost serves as a table or sidetray sometimes, and I use it relentlessly! Another nice feature I was happy to get was the USB chargers embedded in the recliner seats, and the three-prong plugs available in the center console. In an old condo like this, there aren't many convenient plugs anyways, and our lives are quite absorbed by our handheld devices that are always begging for more charge. Just today, and part of my inspiration for writing this post, I was settling down to read the book on my tablet when I realized it was completely out of juice. I still wanted to read, but didn't have a plug nearby. No problem, I quickly realized, I just needed to relocate one of the many USB cords I had laying around and plug it into the arm of my chair, and away I went into my book. This level of convenience, not having to find an actual plug, is really satisfying.

Finally, the way I have it positioned, and I should mention it's an L-shaped couch, is such that two of the three recliner seats are squarely in front of the TV for optimal viewing - these are our "primary" seats when we're at home - and the last recliner seat is on the opposite end, and faces out to that beautiful view of the park. I really like sitting in this seat when I'm doing anything other than watching TV. It's like this is my weekend seat. I sit here as I'm eating breakfast in the mornings, and when I'm reading, writing and working on my small business or my personal finances. The view, with San Diego's frequently clear, sunny days, makes me feel very at peace and inspired, and I often look up as I take mental breaks from whatever task I'm doing and feel rejuvenated. Even though, in my "primary" seat facing the TV, I could turn my head and look out to see the same view, it's just not the same as having it squarely in front of me.

Finally, the center console has two cupholders, which is super convenient if you happen to be sitting next to the console. We've swapped it around a couple times, flipping between having it in between our two primary seats, and having it next to my boyfriend only, the latter has turned out to be my preference so I can snuggle with my love, and I use a small side table to hold my drinks instead of the console. What's more, my family apparently hated my Ikea couch and although they haven't yet visited due to COVID, (damn you again, COVID), they are very happy to hear I have a "grown up" and "normal" couch for them to sit in more comfortably when they do.

All in all, I wasn't sure I'd ever like a couch more than my Ikea couch, but I think I did well here and even surprised myself with some of the conveniences - I think I would miss them now if I went back. Perhaps the one and only downfall (other than how much space the thing takes up), is that there are times I want to actually nap in the sofa, and it doesn't recline so much that I can get super comfortable for a nap.

My Adjustable (Sleep Number) Bed

That brings me to my next favorite furniture purchase. I don't usually name drop brands unless they provide meaning and context, and I am always a little nervous what people will think when I tell them I bought a Sleep Number bed. On the one hand, it seems like its made for old people, and I am, as you should know, still 27, regardless of what year it is these days, and certainly not an old person. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if I'm a sucker, or if people will think I'm a sucker, for paying so much for "just a bed". But I'm here to tell you, it is not just a bed, and I really like it. I would definitely buy it again if I had the choice to make the decision with what I know now. The following is why.

They say mattresses are supposed to be replaced every 8 years ago. Well, I bought my last mattress only about 4 or 5 years ago, and it was very much ready to be replaced (so I just left it in Florida - sorry new owners). It had grown lumpy and soft in places. I'm not sure if this is due to my being overweight, or the fact that we couldn't flip it over because it had the cushion top, or what the reason was, but it was not giving me the value I expected. A Sleep Number bed is in some ways a very fancy air mattress, that is to say that it is not a traditional mattress at all. The adjustability of it comes from the fact that it can inflate and deflate to make it more or less firm depending on the settings. This makes me think that in 5 or 8 years, assuming the electronics continue to function properly, the mattress won't get lumpy or weird, because it's not a the kind of mattress that can do that.

I went almost all-in with the Sleep Number bed and got the adjustable base. This means that with the use of the app on our phones or with the quirky little remote control, we can put one or both of our heads up, pretty much as far as we'd want to sit up, and/or raise our feet pretty significantly, and every option in between. I love this feature, as I sometimes want to tempt myself into a nap, so I can prop myself up to read and not have to get up in order to go to bed. In addition, there is a sleep timer option, so you can actually set it to flatten after a certain period of time of your choosing. So I will often read in bed with a sleep timer on, and then if I fall asleep reading, it will lower me down to maintain my comfort throughout the night.

There are some other really nice features of the bed. When the commercials talk about adjusting to keep you asleep, I am definitely a believer! When I roll over, the bed often adjusts and makes it super comfy for me. I also like the fact that my boyfriend and I can maintain different firmness levels, because we do have different preferences and he has, until now, catered to my needs because of my scoliosis, but now he can be more comfortable without my having to sacrifice. Although it does make for a funny situation when we try to meet in the middle, where it feels like there's a giant divot going from my side to his, it's not been a problem. There is also an option to have an under-bed light turn on to help you see at night when you get up. I had this feature turned on for a while and decided I didn't really need it, but I could see how it could be useful, especially if you're one who puts on slippers when you get up, or something like that. Finally, I have to share a littler buyer's remorse - I didn't spend the extra money for the upgraded feature that warms the feet to help you go to sleep, and I do now wish I did. I had reasoned, at the time, that I have heating pads I could use if I ever wanted to try this, and I didn't think it was worth the money (actually, I wasn't sure if any of it was worth the money). Having now had the bed for about a year, I think it was worth the cost, and wish I had spent the little extra for this foot-warming feature, as my feet do get strangely cold at night and the heating pad is a little inconvenient to set up around my feet. #FirstWorldProblems, am I right?

Expandable Dining Table

Ok, so as you may have understood by now, we don't really eat at a dining table, we eat primarily on the couch. Wanting to take advantage of our beautiful view and weather, I did purchase a small outdoor dining set for the porch, but we rarely eat there and it's usually more of a pain than anything else. That being said, having a table is useful from time to time, but I didn't want to buy something that would go unused most of the time and hog up so much space while being unused (or covered in clutter). After seeing probably a million and a half advertisements for one of those expandable dining tables, I took the plunge and bought one off Amazon. I really like it. I like that it can be shortened to be mostly out of the way, and I've used it in the second bedroom as my work from home office, having bought a nice office chair to go with it. But when I had a big Lego kit to build, I knew I couldn't manage on the couch, so we pulled the table out to the dining area and extended it almost to its full length (I can't believe it can go  even further!!). I continued to keep a portion of the table available for me to work on my work from home days, but then also had two large work spaces for my boyfriend and I to build our Lego kits. I'm undecided yet as to whether I'll buy actual dining chairs to go with it, but if we need to make due, we have the chairs from the outdoor dining set and our two office chairs we could put around it. Honestly, though, if we have guests who want to eat at our place (which is already a slim chance given our crappy little kitchen and the amazing restaurants all around us), I feel like it would be more likely we'd eat outside anyways.

Modular Dressers

In our Florida house, I successfully did away with dressers for myself, although my boyfriend opted to keep his. I did this with four aspects: a really nice-sized walk-in closet that was all my own (my boyfriend generously agreed to take the second smaller but still quite substantial walk in closet), a large shelving unit I put in my closet, and those funky fabric cube bins that are like, all the rage, or whatever, and finally, plastic wall hooks. It may not work for everyone, but this was right up my alley. I loved having many of my pants just laid out flat on the shelves, while my underwear and socks were in the cube bins. My bras, being as big as they are, got to hang on wall hooks where I could easily discern and sort them. I also used smaller wall hooks for necklaces, and put the side of my shelving unit to work as a place to hang my growing collection of Zenni eye glasses. I had an office tray to keep my FitBit accessories in on a shelf, and a small (more traditional) jewelry box for other jewelry. It was the most organized I have ever been and sustained! The sheer size of the walk-in closet meant I could easily designate an area for work clothes, and even sub-sections like pants, sport coats, tanks, short-sleeves and long sleeves, an area for casual clothes (again with similar sub-sections), an area for formal attire, and an area for the less-frequently-used warm weather clothes. But I digress… that was then, this is now.

Now, our master bedroom is generously sized, but the only walk-in closet (at least I think it's a walk-in) is beyond tiny, and we share it. There is a regular closet in the second bedroom, but having no garage and no other large storage space, that closet primarily houses winter coats, formalwear and costumes, and then lots of storage of other things. So, the most logical option is to return to using dressers in our large master bedroom. But, because we have so many clothes, and I like the organization of separate drawers, I was very picky with which dressers we'd get, knowing we needed a lot of storage space. I finally settled on a modular set from Ikea that had both black and white faces. This was a nice feature, because we used the different color faces to break up the monotony of so many drawers. So we now each have three large drawers on the bottom, six half-width drawers on the top, and then smaller units to the side with three half-width drawers. It is a lot of storage space, but not overwhelming because of the modular aspect of it, I think. They also have a soft close, which is a really nice feature that I wish all drawers came with forever and always, please and thank you.

Very Flat TV

I thought I'd throw this in there, because although it doesn't add much to my life and the convenience of it in a very tangible way, I think it probably bears mentioning because of what it doesn't do that would make my life harder. We bought a TV that is so thin and flat, the people at the store said it might break on the way home if we laid it down flat in the car. It didn't, thankfully and likely thanks to great packaging by the manufacturer, and now it takes up so little space on the TV stand even though it's HUGE. This means, we can put other devices on the same TV stand as well as decorations, and while I try not to make it too cluttered, the lack of space the TV takes up means there is more space to do so. Furthermore, if we ever get around to hanging it on the wall, which we have been planning to (ahem, hint, hint…) it will be nice and light and won't protrude or threaten to fall.

Air Mattress with Headboard

Ok, so this is one surprising purchase we actually made after our first move to Connecticut. Everything went wrong with our move to Connecticut, which certainly didn't help make the case for us to stay there longer than we had to. I had thought myself a very clever planner, often taking pride in my planning profession as it applies to real life, that we would pack up our things in Arizona with the movers the day before we moved, so we only needed the one night in a hotel before heading east, and then planning to have my new mattress from Purple delivered the day we arrived so we could set that up, and sleep on that until the movers arrived with our furniture a couple weeks later. Then I would use that Purple bed as the guest bed in our new apartment, having gotten rid of my previous guest beds which were quite old. Well, the bed got delayed, along with our flights and our luggage which had the bedding and other necessities, including my clothes for work. Because of the flight debacle, we ended up having to drive through the night (there were no hotels where we landed) to complete the trip to Stamford, and were so exhausted that we basically just checked in with the apartment and collapsed on the floor for a nap. When it was apparent that the bed wasn't arriving, we decided to check in to a hotel and see if it came the next day. When it then said it would arrive several days later, we went out to the store and bought the fanciest darn-tootin' air mattress there was. It has an air-inflated headboard, and sits very high off the ground. If you cover it with enough linens, you might not realize it’s not a real bed, at least until you side down on it. Even sleeping in it though was quite comfy, and not just because we were completely exhausted. We brought the air mattress with us when we moved to Florida and slept on that for several weeks until our things arrived there, and had no complaints. We actually set it up in the main living area for a while, joking that we were "camping" because we had this giant space and no furniture in it. We repeated the act when we moved to the condo, but this time it was because the furniture wasn't coming from the movers, we were going to buy all new stuff. All that to say, it is comfortable enough that we can sleep on it for weeks if needed, and yet is still collapsible so it can be out of the way when not in use. Since we only have the two rooms here, the second bedroom serves a lot of functions, as mentioned earlier as serving as my office, as well as storage, but I know we can move things around sufficiently to make it a makeshift guest bedroom when we have guests. This flexibility is really empowering and useful when somewhat forced into a small living space.  

Collapsible Wagon

In the apartment, one of the funny little aspects of apartment was living was that the concierge kept large carts we could borrow to bring up groceries so we didn’t have to make a million trips up and down from the garage. The condo, similarly, has an elevator coming from the garage and I have spotted two carts on the opposite end of the garage which a presume people put there for general use, but I've never confirmed. We decided to buy a collapsible wagon which is the most convenient way we've found to bring up groceries. Basically, we leave the wagon, folded up, in the corner of our little spot in the garage (we could put it into our small storage space with a lock for safer keeping, but I figure we have bigger problems if our neighbors are going to steal a crappy little wagon), and then when we need it, we just grab it, pop it open and load up. The really nice thing about having our own cart rather than a shared cart is that we don't have to return it right away, so sometimes it sits in the guest room for a couple days while we unload it (we obviously unload the cold stuff right away). This is also helpful since the counter space is, well, practically non-existent in our tiny kitchen, so it serves as a mobile platform to house things until we can properly find a home for them. Then, by the time we're ready to go shopping again, the wagon has been emptied and made its way back down to the garage, either on the day of our next shopping trip or before, carrying our recyclables and trash bags for us to dispose of. In supply chain, this is a called a backhaul, and I think it's dandy. We also could use our collapsible wagon, should we be so inspired, to carry a picnic over to the park, but that's not really our thing, so who knows if we'll ever do that.

Storage Ottoman

While storage ottomans are the epitome and probably cliché example of space-saving solutions, I have to mention ours here because I really like it. Rather than a coffee table, we have a larger storage ottoman in the middle of our family room, and it serves as a foot rest for the seats without recliners, as well as a surface much like a table, and has the obvious added bonus of keeping many things we don't want to see out of the way but easily within reach. I bought this originally for our apartment in Connecticut, because we had a lot of boots to put on there during the winter and I wanted a place by the door to sit to put on and take off said boots, but it has served as a coffee table / foot rest since then. 

Massage Headrest

This is one of the stranger things that I own, but it is AWESOME! If you've ever gone for a full massage, you'll recall that the massage tables have a horseshoe-shaped headrest for you to put your face down on, and still be able to breathe without having to turn your head to the side. This is really important to get all the right angles and allow full relaxation, etc. My boyfriend is great at giving massages, but who has room for a full massage table? Even the foldable ones that mobile massage therapists have are quite bulky. I found an attachment that goes under your mattress that functions the same as the headrest, so it basically transforms my normal bed into a massage table, and takes up almost no room at all. It's been a game-changer for me - probably to my boyfriend's chagrin. 

Learning to live in a smaller, urban area has been a challenge and has taught me what I do and don't like about it versus the comfort and familiarity of suburban sprawl. Nevertheless, it has forced me to think about furnishings in multi-functional ways, and so I think, even when we move back to a bigger space (hopefully a house is next) again, I will put some of these elements into place to allow better use of the space.