Small Room

Q: We have a tiny living room, and I don't have a clue about decorating it. There's a large window alcove that takes up almost one whole wall. I've always heard that the sofa should face the window, but there's really no room. What do I do?A: That's a good way to begin a furniture arrangement when you don't have a fireplace as a natural focal point, but the first rule about decorating is, there are no fixed-in-amber rules.ZTC Each room is different; each requires a custom solution.As to yours, the solution might come straight from New York interior designer T. Keller Donovan, who faced much the same quandary in the small sitting room we show here.

I've come across a floral wallpaper that I'd like to use in my traditionally styled, 15-by-18-foot living room, which includes four tall windows and a fireplace. The wallpaper comes with fabrics in the same colors and pattern. Large-scale, repeating images of roses, leaves and birds are set against a cream background. Would it look all right to accompany the wallpaper with coordinated draperies and upholstery? Or is that too much of one pattern and one color scheme? The do-your-own-thing school of interior design would simply tell you to take whatever approach you personally prefer.

TO PRESIDENT CLINTON, it was just "an innocent bureaucratic snafu." To FBI director Louis J. Freeh, it was a lot more than that -- an "egregious invasion of privacy." To any American concerned about abuse of power at the White House or the FBI's toadying to the Clinton entourage or shameful governmental carelessness about the most basic of citizens' rights, the latest scandal to befall this administration should ring alarm bells.We refer to the transfer of 408 individual files -- a pile of boxes large enough to fill a small room -- from the Federal Bureau Investigation to the Office of Personnel Security at the White House in December 1993.

Brian Ralph spends about 30 hours a week alone in a small room with a monkey and a time machine. He is neither a zookeeper nor a mad scientist. He's a comics artist. The monkey with the time machine is a character in Crum Bums, Ralph's forthcoming graphic novel. The small room is his studio in the Charles Village rowhouse he shares with his wife and their 2-year-old son. Ralph is also an illustrator, but writing and drawing comics are his passions. "Comics give me a chance to elaborate further on a character's life," he said.

Q: I would like to convert a very small spare room (10-by-9 feet) into a comfortable guest room. Is it necessary to have white walls and light-colored furniture to make such a space look larger?A: Don't worry too much about making a small guest room appear bigger than it is. Unless a visitor spends a lot of time in the room, it will feel most comfortable if designed in a cozy manner. Nest-like spaces usually offer the best sleeping environments for short-term guests, particularly those who have trouble falling asleep in unfamiliar surroundings.

Even if you are only in the initial stage of furnishing a room, it's not too soon to go shopping for so-called "accent pieces." But before setting out, be sure you know what you're looking for.Let's be clear about the definition of accent furnishings. First of all, they must not be confused with accessories or with frivolous, incidental items. An accent piece, in general, ought to serve a useful purpose, particularly in a small room. In spacious settings, however, where all essential functions have already been provided for, something that's more beautiful than practical can certainly qualify as an accent piece.

Q: Our Victorian town house has a small empty space that I want to convert into an elegant powder room. Do you have some suggestions for the general treatment of such a setting?A: I can offer plenty of suggestions, but you'll first need to decide how authentic you want the room to look. Assuming you'd like the conversion to be consistent with the style of the rest of the house, you should start scouring the salvage yards and antique shops for plumbing and lighting fixtures as well as tiles and other suitable materials.

Q: Please give me some advice about top treatments for windows. I'm considering such an addition for a pair of windows along one wall in my small dining room, which is furnished with 18th-century-style mahogany pieces. Specifically, I need to know it's all right to use a top treatment with window coverings other than draperies.A: Yes, it's quite all right, though the effect will look best if the entire window treatment is kept simple. Its color and texture should also blend with the nearby wall, whether painted or papered.

Most exercise rooms, it seems to me, are either boringly formularized in design or else are left-over spaces that have received little or no design attention. Either way, that's a shame. For if a home's occupants are serious about working out, an exercise room can be one of the most frequently used parts of the house.L So how can such a space be given a lively and original look?In a small room -- and almost all in-house exercise areas are small -- be sure that the colors are light and the textures relatively soft and easily cleaned.

Q: I want to install something other than all-white fixtures in a powder room being planned for our new home. But I wonder whether colorful fixtures will rule out the use of wallpaper and decorative tiles, since the small room might appear too busy with more than a couple of colors or patterns. What's your advice?A: First, it's important not to plan a powder room, even if it has a bathtub, as though it were the same sort of space as a bathroom. Because powder rooms are generally small in size and limited in amenities, their design cannot afford to be boring.

Michael Saruski isn't the sort of interior designer who automatically rejects anything less than a $5,000 sofa or a $3,000 area rug. "The public thinks they have to spend a lot of money," he says. "But it's [taste] and how you put it together that makes a room." The Miami designer charges by the hour for his services, so it doesn't hurt his bottom line if the client prefers a rug from Target or a sofa from Pottery Barn. He came in at a little more than $1,000. A small extra bedroom in a couple's home, which had been used for storage, needed to be converted into a bedroom for an adult stepson.

Ostensibly it's a home office. But when real estate agent Eva Higgins decorated the small room in her Mount Vernon townhouse, she painted the walls pink. The baseboards are faux-finished to look like green malachite. The children in the nostalgic photos are her brother and herself. She thinks of it as her escape room. "No one else can come in, and no one can use my computer," she says. With a husband, two sons and exchange students living in the same house, "I needed a little femininity," she adds to explain the color scheme.

There aren't many restaurant choices in Glenelg, but that's not the reason you would choose M.D.'s Country Pub. The tasty and extensive food selections make this an easy selection for a relaxed meal. Owner Michael Duffy established M.D.'s in 1990 and oversees the daily operation. Duffy says the restaurant's motto, "Fine Dining in a Casual Atmosphere," aptly describes the restaurant. At the end of a small strip mall, M.D.'s large oak entry door sets the stage for the pub's interior. The restaurant opens into a bar that incorporates several televisions, Keno and video games.

NEW YORK -- Interior designer Christopher Coleman has made it big here by thinking small. The 36-year-old Lutherville native has taken minuscule rooms in some of the country's best-known decorator showhouses, turned them into whimsical showpieces and received national attention for his designs.His inventive solutions in his own small (375 square feet) studio apartment earned him a spread in last November's House Beautiful and the magazine's nomination as one of 14 "future hall of famers" in the decorating world.

Baltimore is very likely to get a new federal courthouse, replacing the 22-year-old one that has been labeled by judges, lawyers and even criminals as one of the worst public buildings in the city.The new building, to be located at an undecided downtown location, would probably be put on the federal judiciary's five-year plan for new courthouse projects, said J. Frederick Motz, the chief judge in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Construction of the building wouldn't be complete until about 2010, however.

The Rev. Nettie Finney rose to the pulpit yesterday at her church on 813 Sharp St. She praised Jesus, she preached, she danced. She has done this every Sunday for more than 60 years.Finney preached here when the surrounding neighborhood was poor and integrated, she preached when the city tried to condemn the houses 25 years ago, and she preaches now that the black residents -- including some of her congregation -- have moved away and Otterbein has turned white and wealthy. She sees no reason to retire.

Brian Ralph spends about 30 hours a week alone in a small room with a monkey and a time machine. He is neither a zookeeper nor a mad scientist. He's a comics artist. The monkey with the time machine is a character in Crum Bums, Ralph's forthcoming graphic novel. The small room is his studio in the Charles Village rowhouse he shares with his wife and their 2-year-old son. Ralph is also an illustrator, but writing and drawing comics are his passions. "Comics give me a chance to elaborate further on a character's life," he said.

Q: We moved into my husband's apartment in the city, and I rented out my big suburban house after we were married last fall. Since he works in town and my children are all grown, it seems logical, but I'm really missing all that space, especially a real dining room.All we have now is a "bulge" at one end of the kitchen. Any help you can offer on how to make it more attractive would be appreciated. I guess what I really mean is "more formal."A: Attitude is always more important than floor space when it comes to creating a mood in any room.

Imagine a private seminar with you and, oh, 20 or 30 designers who are dying to reveal their trade secrets.One of them, Michael Tedrick, confides that he lives in just 400 square feet. "Rolling carts are a blessing for small apartments," he advises. "Televisions and VCRs and sound equipment are best kept out of sight from day to day. They tend to take over the room and become too much of a focus."Stephen Brady urges you to look for beauty in unexpected places. He learned this the day he peeled storm-damaged wallpaper from his living room walls and fell in love with the mottled green and white tones underneath.

MOSCOW -- Zhenya Slivkina is 8 years old and just under 4 feet tall, but she has already learned how to soar over the stifling confines of childhood in Russia.She, her parents and two dogs live in one small rectangle of a room in a communal apartment in Moscow. Never mind. Zhenya's imagination has turned the postage-stamp-sized room into a vast Olympic stage where she performs gymnastic floor routines to adoring audiences.Her parents are struggling to stay afloat in the rising fury of Russia's economic hurricane, and their budget allows them a miserly $10 a day to run the household.