Interior design for the weird?
October 4, 2013 12:16 PM Subscribe
I have a small home office which also houses several varieties of exotic animal. How do I maximize my space usage and minimize the bending and lifting?
I currently keep several varieties of snake, as well as a pet bird, in my home office. The room is extremely small (6' x 10') and while everyone fits in there now, I'd like to make efficient use of the space in a way that helps me minimize bending - I have back issues and really prefer everything to be at waist height (I'm 5'8") to face height.
Is there a service or software or blog or person who will help me put together all the Tetris pieces into a coherent whole? Most of the "home design" sites and apps I've tried have involved furniture, which is great, but very few people require their couch to be exactly 48" long and begin at waist-height off the ground (one of the more awkward cages). If it just let me define blocks of particular size, that would be perfect. Or if interior designers have been known to work with such tiny spaces and unusual objects, that'd be nice too... but I'm not up for paying a $1,000 consulting fee to design ONE ROOM.
I currently keep several varieties of snake, as well as a pet bird, in my home office. The room is extremely small (6' x 10') and while everyone fits in there now, I'd like to make efficient use of the space in a way that helps me minimize bending - I have back issues and really prefer everything to be at waist height (I'm 5'8") to face height.
Is there a service or software or blog or person who will help me put together all the Tetris pieces into a coherent whole? Most of the "home design" sites and apps I've tried have involved furniture, which is great, but very few people require their couch to be exactly 48" long and begin at waist-height off the ground (one of the more awkward cages). If it just let me define blocks of particular size, that would be perfect. Or if interior designers have been known to work with such tiny spaces and unusual objects, that'd be nice too... but I'm not up for paying a $1,000 consulting fee to design ONE ROOM.
Response by poster: @BlueHorse
You're right, that might help.
Animals:
- Pacific parrotlet (in this enclosure - and no, she couldn't care less about the snakes, but gets pretty mad about soda cans)
- Eastern indigo snake, currently in the big 48" l x 24" w x 12" h cage, needs to upgrade to a 60", or more ideally, a 96" (similar to the PVCX assembled caging seen here)
- Six rosy boas, 4 in 30" l x 20" w bins, 2 in hatchling enclosures
- Six other colubrids, requiring maximum cage sizes of 36" l x 12" (currently in growing-out bins).
Here's a bad little diagram of my office, with sizes not quite to scale (there is not nearly so much room between the back of my Very Large Office Chair and that 24" shelving, for one thing). The blue rectangles are windows and doors and such - the desk has the window, the opposing wall has a closet door and the access door.
posted by Nyx at 12:55 PM on October 4, 2013
You're right, that might help.
Animals:
- Pacific parrotlet (in this enclosure - and no, she couldn't care less about the snakes, but gets pretty mad about soda cans)
- Eastern indigo snake, currently in the big 48" l x 24" w x 12" h cage, needs to upgrade to a 60", or more ideally, a 96" (similar to the PVCX assembled caging seen here)
- Six rosy boas, 4 in 30" l x 20" w bins, 2 in hatchling enclosures
- Six other colubrids, requiring maximum cage sizes of 36" l x 12" (currently in growing-out bins).
Here's a bad little diagram of my office, with sizes not quite to scale (there is not nearly so much room between the back of my Very Large Office Chair and that 24" shelving, for one thing). The blue rectangles are windows and doors and such - the desk has the window, the opposing wall has a closet door and the access door.
posted by Nyx at 12:55 PM on October 4, 2013
Elfa (or equivalent) might be good for you. You install some hanger track up near the ceiling, hang standards from that, and brackets from the standards. You can reposition everything as needed up/down and left/right. Plus it gets everything up off the floor so it's easier to clean. If you buy Elfa, the nice folks will help you map out your walls on screen as part of the price of buying the stuff.
posted by adamrice at 1:03 PM on October 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by adamrice at 1:03 PM on October 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I would imagine MeFites would be glad to be of use as your interior designer and have plenty of suggestions to implement the design layout.
Although doesn't it weird out your bird to be in the same room as the snakes? I'm housesitting with a grey parrot, and if he's a little shit, I get out the plastic snake! Straightens him right out.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:24 PM on October 4, 2013