The house seems like a dark tunnel? One closet in the entire structure? Boxy little rooms lacking electrical outlets?
Many homeowners face such issues as they try to renovate older residences for contemporary needs. And Baltimore poses particular challenges: aging housing stock, skinny-mini rowhouses, single-family houses with small compartments.
While many homeowners want the conveniences of being in or close to the city, they find that the houses in those locations were built for lifestyles suited to previous generations of workers -- generations with smaller wardrobes, less electricity demands and fewer middle-class comforts.
But it's possible to adapt older city structures without gutting them to suit modern life. Designers, architects and others who specialize in space planning maintain that flexibility and an open mind are essential to making old places work.
Furniture size, lighting, color and turning potential drawbacks into assets are key.
Working creatively with the architectural design of their house helped Leigh and Mike Farrell.
When Leigh Farrell looked at a 1951 cottage in West Towson, all she could think was that the space seemed underscaled for the men in her life: Both her son and husband are about 6 1/2 feet tall. Leslie Tunney, an interior designer and space planner, told her the size was perfect and tinkering would adjust the space to fit the family.
The Farrells wanted both their teenage son and daughter to have privacy, the family wanted a den where anyone could relax, and the couple were thinking ahead to a time when both children would be out of the house.
"We have to be solutions people. Every space in the house has to have function," Tunney said.
Two tiny rooms on the main floor were combined into a master bedroom with greater closet space.
The kitchen was modernized and brightened by putting a farm-style door with eight glass panes where a tiny window was. Tunney "stole" the one-car garage for a den, eliminating a bookcase by the fireplace in the living room and opening the wall for an entryway to the room.
"She had us put a three-panel glass window on the side of house," Leigh Farrell said, bringing natural light to the room. She did not want to change the exterior look by eliminating the garage door, so the door was sealed shut. Roman shades attached inside to the door near the ceiling cover the door's windows from street view or can be opened to let in sunshine.
Tunney hung a favorite flower picture that belonged to Farrell's late mother above the fireplace and pulled the hues from it for color themes to visually unify the house in a bright cottage style. White wallpaper with pinstripes of red and blue are the backdrop for red accents. Visually, they unite the rooms and add height. When the children move out, the couple can close the upstairs and live entirely on the main floor.
"I love our home. It flows nicely," Leigh Farrell said.
Converting old spaces
In buying a 100-year-old Roland Park house, Denise and Mark Knobloch decided to devote half of the four-room third story to their pre-teen daughters -- much the way finished basements are typically the children's purview. They're turning the third story into a library-like homework center, a rec room, a yoga room and a guest room, Denise Knobloch said.
"I like to work with the things that are old and make the space work for us," she said.
Sometimes that means changing the use of old spaces to fit new needs. Automobiles didn't exist when many Baltimore homes were built, so finding a place to park them can be a challenge. Bob Wood Jr., owner of Wood Builders Collaborative in Woodstock, says he is renovating a home on Baltimore Street and converting the tiny backyard into a parking pad.
To compensate for the loss of outdoor living space, he's topping the house with a rooftop deck. City rooftops offer a panorama of Baltimore's architecture, neighborhoods, the Inner Harbor and the working port. They add a seasonal room away from the bustle of the streets.
Furniture that fits
Finding the right furniture can be another challenge in many old Baltimore homes, where front-door clearance can be a narrow 27 inches.
"I have had customers come in who moved their furniture all the way across the country, and it's sitting outside on the sidewalk because they can't get it inside," said Karen Graveline, who opened the store Home on the Harbor in 2003 as a response to too-big furniture.
And though furniture of the same vintage as the house tends to make it through the doorway, Victorian pieces aren't everyone's taste. It comes down to scale, Graveline said.
"Filling your house with a lot of little things is going to make it look little and cluttered. Finding one nice substantial piece is going to help balance things, but it still has to be the right scale," she said.
When John Andersson of Coppermine Terrace Interiors sought furniture for a client in a Bolton Hill rowhouse, he found wardrobes and armoires that came disassembled.
"What do you do when you have a teenaged girl and no closets?" he said. There was no way a large armoire would make it past the hairpin turns in the staircase if it made it through the front door.
Typically thought of as affordable furniture from the Scandinavian company IKEA, assemble-yourself furniture comes in expensive lines, too -- made by companies that find it more cost-effective to ship pieces flat from Europe, Andersson said. People who spot the furniture on a showroom floor wouldn't suspect it comes apart, he said.
He has advised rowhouse owners to play up, not cover up, elements they really can't change in a thin house.
"Your hallways become your spine. Your color palate is for the entire house," he said, because people find they can't live with too many color changes in small spaces.
Use what you have
Color and texture can come directly from the walls. And people need to make every inch count by combining the useful with the ornamental.
That's what Bill Borner and his partner, John Crockett, did when they bought a turn-of-the-century rowhouse by Riverside Park.
The color and theme came from a favorite picture of Yosemite -- a rich southwest palate of sages, tans, browns and auburns on walls and in trim carried through a house that ranges from 13 feet wide in the living room to 9 feet wide in the kitchen.
Track lighting washes the two-story brick wall and illuminates a few decorative items on it.
The men bought a leather sofa with removable muffin feet to ensure it would squeeze through the 30-inch doorway and kept living-room tables small. Particularly functional in the dining area is an expandable table that is 18 inches wide when closed. With two leaves that flip open, it can be used fully extended for formal dinners; with one leaf open, the width suits buffets. Closed, it is slim and decorative beneath a wall mirror. Utensils are stored in its drawers.
For everyday use, a glass-topped metal table comfortably seats two at the edge of the galley kitchen.
Borner painted several of the ceilings -- fluffy clouds on a washed blue, similar to that of the picture, and a gold-rubbed glaze on the master bedroom ceiling -- to draw eyes upward and away from the narrow horizontal spaces.
A few feet and a fence separate the house from the one next door; a century ago, coal deliveries were hauled up the twin paths between the houses. The windows and doors along the sides of the two houses are mirror images -- and quite close.
'"You are in a fishbowl," Borner said. "You want to have the light, but you want the privacy."
Their solution was to put Mission-style vinyl decals on panes to mimic the look of stained glass in the same colors as the interior.
"I did one side, but it looked like vinyl," Borner said. "When you do both sides, it gives it some dimension."
To enhance the privacy of the patio outside while softening the look, they topped the 8-foot fence with flower boxes filled with yews.
That added about 3 feet, and flowering vines in the summer lend color and a garden atmosphere.
An armoire on the second-floor landing serves as the linen closet in a house with a closet shortage, and a covered wicker basket beside it holds dirty laundry.
Because there's so little closet space, the men keep out-of-season clothes in a crawl space in the basement, which acts as cold storage.
"You really live in every inch of your house when you have a small house," Borner said.
andrea.siegel@baltsun.com
City-house solutions
Baltimore is full of older housing stock, plenty of it built a century ago and much of it narrow. But lifestyles have changed since then. Designers repeatedly see many of the same issues. Here are some solutions they suggest:
1. BRICK WALL
Don't cover it up. Light it up. Use track lighting to play up the textures.
-- John Andersson of Coppermine Terrace Interiors
2. COMPACT SPACE
Furniture should be to scale (but not tiny) and useful. A monster-size sofa won't get in many of Baltimore's narrow doorways.
-- Karen Graveline of Home on the Harbor
3. TOO MUCH WHITE OR COLOR CLASH
All-white walls aren't necessarily the answer for small spaces, particularly if you are going to cover them with artwork that breaks up the lines. Pick a color palate you like and can live with, and stick with it, using the flow of color on the walls and floor as a design element.
-- Sherry Shiroky of Accessorize by Design
4. OLD VERSUS NEW
If your home's architecture is traditional but your taste is modern, you can acknowledge the old in your design. Put an antique bowl on a modern table; put a traditional painting over a contemporary sofa.
-- Susan Sunderland of Sunderland Interiors
5. OUTDATED USES
Don't use the living room? Give it up. Garage collecting junk? Steal the space for a mudroom.
-- Leslie Tunney of Leslie Tunney Designs