Living Small

Three years ago, Frank Fruzyna moved into his small Chicago apartment and had to use his abundant creativity to overcome some space challenges. First and foremost was the lack of light and view due to the apartment's position between two apartment buildings. Vellum on a few of the windows obscures the undesirable views while still allowing the light to pass through.

The bathroom doubles as the slop sink and paintbrush cleaning and storage area. The living room has given way to his art studio. As the floor gets covered in paint whenever he works, Fruzyna developed a clever system. He covered the floor in cardboard and masked it off around the edges. When he's ready to clean up the paint, he just lets it dry and then paints over the mess with a cardboard color, eggshell finish house paint. The more coats he applies, the more durable the cardboard floor becomes.