Aki-home Love

Leave it to the Japanese to live such a cramped lifestyle in the city that they develop an entire decorating and storage culture around space as a commodity. Well this just happens to be beneficial to little old me because I live in a teeny tiny house. Phenomenal cosmic housing opportunity, itty bitty living space.(Yes, adapted from Aladdin.) Moving on... Aki-home is like the Japanese love child (totally legit, of course) of Ikea's modern design and Bed Bath & Beyond's range of products. It is actually the American version of Nitori, same products with a new American name. So, what? I am really excited to be able to get more Japanese products. (If you haven't already, read about my love affair with Daiso.) Update: I decided to drag the family down to the District at Tustin in order to attend the grand opening early. They were also doing a ceremony @ the Fullerton location, by where we live, but I wanted to go to the bigger store. The cultural benefit (sorry, no pics) was having the Monkey watch a taiko performance. I realize it's unrelated, but so are so many of my ramblings... Anyway, the result of said grand opening was the purchase of a rather useful coffee table that raises, lowers, and stowes away as needed. Yes, its messy, but I do have a great before and after set of pictures to show the difference. I had already started cleaning by the time I took the picture, too. I am a clutterer by nature and am always trying to fight it. So, here are the before and after photos. When the Elf was born, we scrambled to move several pieces of furniture around with the result being a very cramped living room. We also updated the couch to a small sectional after 2 years with a horribly uncomfortable sleeper loveseat from Ikea. All of that plus housing an additional child in the room made not a lot of space. Needless to say, this table is a welcome replacement for one that was really meant for the teeny tiny kitchen and a family of two.