jen chu: i loved the idea ofa room just be a bed room-- literally just aroom of a bed. because it's so small, it can'treally be anything else, and you can't really fit anyother furniture in it, you might as well just make the onefocal piece really pop. i'm jen chu. i am an interior decorator andart director for tv, and this is my 78-square-foot bedroomin brooklyn. i've done art direction forproject runway, for the latest
real world in portland. so i've had the privilege ofworking on a lot of things that are sort of likehousehold names. my bedroom is a 1.5 apartment,as they say. i live in the 0.5 andmy roommate lives in the one full bedroom. my room is just unusuallysmall. this is probably the spacethat i've designed that reflects my style the most.
when it comes to my personalspace, it just makes me want to really pare it down to thethings that i love so i'm not surrounded by too muchextra clutter. i knew from the get-gothat i'd always wanted a canopy bed. and for the longest time, ithought that your bedroom would have to be huge tobe able to pull it off. but then i realized maybe areally small room would be able to accommodate one too.
this bed is actually one multipurpose piece of furniture. it is not just a bed, but italso serves as a seat because i sometimes sit with my legsdangling under the shelf. the bed has trap doorsunderneath, where i keep two giant pieces of luggage. the shelving unit is reallyessential, i think, to the design of the space. it allows me to display a lotof the things that i've
collected throughoutmy travels. one of my favorite things to dois go through really high end art magazines and rip outpages of beautiful work and frame them. i know that it's kind of a cheapway of going about it, but i like that because you canperiodically change things and you don't have to feel soobligated to feature a piece that you might have spenta lot of money on. i was looking for drawer pullsfor something else entirely.
as i was rummaging through allthe bins, i saw these amazing lion drawer pulls. so i put them in a grid and idisplay my earrings on them. i knew from the get-go iwanted a minimal shade. so i bought a super cheap shadefrom home depot and i put text on it. i actually cut all the lettersout of black contact paper, and i took a quote out ofapocalypse now, which is one of my favorite films.
i'm really lucky that i have alittle entry vestibule coming into the room, so ihave a place to store all of my things. it gets dark in the vestibule,and it gets dark in that corner of the bedroom. and i love the fact that i canput one lamp that's right in between two rooms and justpull it back and forth. i think when people come intomy space, usually they say first, oh my god.
it's so small. and then secondly they say, it'sactually bigger than i thought it would be basedon the pictures. i think people are surprisedthat when you're actually in here, it doesn't feelclaustrophobic all all. it has a really warm, net-likefeeling to it. when i was little, i thoughti wanted to live in an rv. so in a weird way, i thinkliving in a tiny space is fulfilling a childhooddream of mine.
it did not look like thiswhen i got here. and i put a lot ofwork into it. but i've been reallyhappy here. they're going to have to drag meout kicking and screaming. i don't want to move, sohopefully i'll be able to stay here for a while. -are you a socialmedia darling? do you like to hang out onfacebook, twitter, pinterest, or even tumblr?
if so, you can check us out atall those places, or, of course, you can just clicksubscribe right here to see what we've got going on.