Friday, 05/06/05

When you walk into William Whiting's elegant trinity in Center City Philadelphia, you're immediately transported to an ancient world.

One wall of his living room is covered with an expansive mural of the Bay of Naples (before Vesuvius erupted), done up in trompe l'oeil and faux-painted marble. There are details of an Egyptian crypt in his bedroom, and the hanging gardens of Babylon adorn the walls of his third-floor studio.

The detail is so absorbing that it's easy to forget that the three-story home measures a mere 590 square feet. ''It creates an illusion of space that the mind plays along with,'' Whiting, a scenic artist, says of the elaborate effects he's created over the years.

Living large in a small apartment is a challenge for many urbanites, especially students, young professionals and artists who love the culture and convenience of the city but are forced by the high cost of real estate to settle for cramped digs.

Apartments of 350 to 750 square feet account for about 10% to 15% of Philadelphia's apartment stock, according to David Glancey, chairman of the city's Board of Revision of Taxes, and they don't necessarily come cheap. Demand is so high for housing in Center City that ''if you can get a 500-square-foot apartment for $750 to $1,000, you're lucky,'' Glancey says.

Anyone lucky enough to score one of these micropads soon learns that smart design for a small space is as much about fooling the eye as it is about making room for everything that matters. But the rules are often counterintuitive.

Whatever you do, don't assume you should paint the walls white, says Christopher Lowell, who dispenses decorating advice on the Discovery Home Channel and is the author of Christopher Lowell's You Can Do It! Small Spaces: Decorating to Make Every Inch Count (Clarkson Potter, $29.95).

Instead, Lowell urges the use of rich but muted shades that can serve as a backdrop for furnishings. ''The eye goes to what's in the room, not its size,'' he says.

That's the case in Whiting's living room, where the walls — even those including added finishes and other painting — have a dusty-rose base. The darker color ''pushes the boundaries back,'' says Whiting, 54, ''and blurs the sense of how small the room really is.''

Mark Borowski, 28, has made the most of the 14-foot ceilings in his little Rittenhouse, Pa., rental, just blocks away from Hillier Architecture, where he works as an architect.

''I thought it was small, but not so small that it wasn't manageable,'' he says, recalling his first impression of the 380-square-foot apartment (448 if you include the 4-foot-high storage loft overhead).

''The ceilings sold me,'' Borowski says. ''They added a lot of volume to what is a small footprint.''

In the living room, he makes use of that height with 8-foot-tall bookcases and framed photographs stacked up the wall. Pin-striped silk window treatments more than halfway up the windows also accent the room's height while making it feel more manageable. A loft bed with a home office underneath in the bedroom is another use of the vertical space.

Borowski didn't make the typical mistake of buying tiny furniture for his undersize apartment. That would have made it look like ''the land of the Lilliputians,'' small-space guru Lowell says.

Instead, he chose moderate-size pieces, such as a black leather bench that can double as a coffee table, as well as a trim armchair and ottoman. A brushed aluminum bistro table with stools can either perch in the kitchen or be moved to the living room.

''I can do a little cocktail party for four or five, but no sit-down dinners,'' he says. In all, he spent about $5,000, buying many things at Ikea.

Much as he might like to, Borowski can't push out the walls of his 37-square-foot kitchen. But he's not complaining. He likes being able to walk to work and having easy access to the city's nightlife.

''I would have loved to have something bigger and could have found it for less, but not in this area,'' he says.

Finding the right furniture has challenged Whiting, too. He's handled it by constructing some simple pieces himself.

When all the sofas he considered for the living room proved too deep, Whiting decided instead to build a shallow settee out of a trash-picked coffee table. He took it to an upholsterer, who covered the seat cushion in the same fabric as the smaller back cushions Whiting hung from a drapery rod on the wall.

Methods for maximizing the mini

Ideas for making the most of limited space can be applied to homes of any size. Here are tips from small-space experts Dennis Wedlick and Christopher Lowell:

1. Reduce clutter by getting rid of items you no longer have a connection to, rather than taking up valuable storage.

2. A space revealed in stages is more satisfying, so find ways to create ''layers.'' Built-in shelves can add depth and definition to a room that lacks interesting architectural details.

3. Whenever possible, borrow light and space (or a view of it). If you're a homeowner, create something outside you like looking at, such as a garden, and install a window to gaze upon it. If you're a renter, position a mirror cater corner to a window to reflect the view beyond.

4. Don't rely on furniture to provide all the visual interest in a room. Consider window treatments, textures, and other details to draw the eye to what's in the room, rather than its size.

5. Choose furniture that's versatile both in function and use of space, including drop-leaf tables, daybeds that can double as sofas, and beds with storage underneath or in the headboard or footboard.

6. Select a pair of club chairs over a loveseat, a potential space hog. (Two people won't sit on it unless they really like each other.)

7. Group seating in the center of a room to save wall space for storage units and shelving.

8. Good lighting makes a small space more flexible and livable. Instead of hanging one ceiling fixture in the middle of a room, use different lighting sources throughout. It's about creating options.

— Knight Ridder News Service