Tiny Space, Big Ideas

John Bellows vowed he wouldn't see red ink when he set out to furnish his one-bedroom home at La Costa Apartments in Naples, Fla.

The interior-design professional was determined to furnish his new digs within a modest budget, something he doesn't usually have to do when he's composing decors for the clients of Holland Salley Inc. Interiors.

"My route was going to be the resale shops and discount outlets," he said. Ironically, red is the color he used as his starting point. "My home in Westlake was done mostly in blues and camels," he said. "I wanted something completely different.

"I saw a cranberry red fabric with a large, tropical leaf pattern on a cream background that was irresistible," said Bellows. "Then I hunted for a comfortable sleep sofa on which to use it. I needed that for the times my son visits. I found it, covered in plaid, at Nearly New, a not-for-profit consignment shop on whose board I used to serve."

Bellows explained how he took advantage of the six cherry, Chippendale-style dining chairs he got at the same place.

"I really didn't need six chairs in the dining room, but since two of the chairs had arms, I had those covered with an insect print and used them in the living room. They can be pulled into the dining room when necessary, since the insect fabric coordinates with the cranberry-and-cream, small-leaf design fabric I used for the remaining four chairs."

The chandelier, found in a home improvement center, lights up the Williamsburg-style dining room. Bellows said he was going for a tropical/eclectic/West Indies mood in his home. That's why there's an ornately framed beach print over the sofa, and a West Indies chest serving as an end table next to one of the "insect" chairs.

"The little chest serves as a container as well as a table," he said. "Storage was a prime concern." That's why he invested in a split bamboo entertainment center that not only houses audio-visual equipment but works as a bar, a bookshelf and a display area for family photos.

He found the right area rug, a needlepoint with a red center, at a local carpet shop. "I topped it with a glass-top coffee table from Nearly New that fits the space well and lets me enjoy the rug pattern."

Bellows chose a palm-leaf floor lamp and candle holder to reprise the sofa fabric's leaf pattern and plunked a Holland Salley lamp with a red watermelon shade on an old Biedermeier marble-top plant stand. "Putting the watermelon lamp on the plant stand brought light to a narrow, hard-to-light corner," he said.

Although the whole apartment was freshly painted white when he arrived, Bellows had the living room and dining room walls painted a mellow yellow, which he calls Russian Summer Palace Yellow. To unify the two rooms, Bellows himself added a cranberry and yellow border of ribboned acanthus leaves.

"I wanted some elegance for the dining room, a little touch of Williamsburg, so I shopped for a chandelier with an Old World look. I found it at Lowe's," he confided.

The graceful fixture illuminates a glass-top consignment-shop table and a portrait of Bellows' mother that is actually a black-and-white photo transformed by a local artist friend. "The small console table underneath the portrait is just the right size for the space and makes another display area for a Lalique compote and a chinoiserie box," he said.

Because the floor plan is small, the Irvington,Va. native decided against blocking off his kitchen.

"I have a miniature shopping cart that I keep filled with fruit and I do a similar arrangement in a large tray that I keep on the pass-through counter," he said. "They prevent a direct view into the kitchen from the dining room, but without creating a closed-off feeling." He did do some blocking off, however.

"The front entry provides a direct view to the bathroom. I decided to close off that door and use only the access from the bedroom. I put a miniature highboy in front of the door with a favorite painting of an area near my old Virginia home above it, and a fruit-framed mirror that I got at Dockside Imports on the side. If you don't know the bathroom door is there, you don't notice that the door is there."

Art and furniture disguise the hall entry to the bath. The design pro's ingenuity is impressive in the bedroom and bath.

The Asian look continues in the bedroom via a four-panel screen behind the bed. "I didn't want the heaviness of a headboard, so I decided on a screen," said Bellows. "This one has colorful fans on the front, but I preferred the black script on the back. And, to tell the truth, I put it up upside down, to hide a stubborn stain."

Bellows shares his abode with a regal tabby, Ms. Sylvia Goldstein-Bellows. "She's a marvelous cat," said Bellows. "And," he laughed, "like almost everything else around here, she's a resale. I adopted her from the Humane Society."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)