Apartment Therapy: The Doctor Is In

For 15 years, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan lived in a 265-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in New York City. Last winter, with his wife and 1-year-old in tow, he upgraded to a "really huge" two-bedroom. It's 725 square feet.

But a new small-space challenge is just another day at the design office for a guy who has made a living out of helping to transform the homes of clients (and now Web surfers), regardless of the size of their space. Gillingham-Ryan is the founder of Apartment Therapy, one of the first and most well-known design blogs ( http://www.apartmenttherapy.com). He started the company in 2001 as a one-man interior design service and went online in 2004 to share resources with his clients. Today, the site is visited by 1.5 million viewers a month.

This spring, Gillingham-Ryan launched a D.C. Apartment Therapy blog. The postings appear on the New York Apartment Therapy site, but Gillingham-Ryan hopes to give it its own site by the end of the summer. (Other city-centric Apartment Therapy blogs feature Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston.)

He has also written his second book, "Apartment Therapy Presents: Real Homes, Real People, Hundreds of Real Design Solutions" (Chronicle Books, $27.50), which brings together three years of the site's popular House Tours (virtual visits to readers' homes). The homes featured are owned and rented, are located across the country and vary in size (from Gillingham-Ryan's teeny rental to a 2,200-square-foot two-bedroom in Illinois).

We chatted with Gillingham-Ryan by telephone and e-mail from New York about design blogs, the new book, small-space living and what the future holds for Apartment Therapy.

Are you surprised by the proliferation of design blogs?

No. Design in this country is on track to continue to grow. Just like the "gourmet effect" on food in the U.S. in the past 20 years, we're seeing the same things in interiors and design. I believe that in five years, men will not only be talking about getting chairs for the dining room table, but they will be talking about the Philippe Starck chair. America is getting more sophisticated, and concern and care for the home among younger people is very real.

One of the advantages blogs have is that they are free. And it's a community. People aren't going online to read what we write, but to connect with a community of interest.

How does your book differ from other design books?

It differs from a conventional coffee-table book because it has resources, and the owners or renters have achieved the look themselves. Real-people solutions are more powerful than glossy interior-decorator solutions because you can relate to them. We're hoping to do one each year.

What are the most important things to consider when living in a small space?

Clutter. Most clutter is generated the moment you walk through the door with your bag, cellphone, mail, shoes, coats, keys. To handle this, create a landing strip: When you come home, everything gets parked as close to the front door as possible. We take off our shoes outside the door. We have a little closet that we keep clear to hang coats and hang bags. Each of us has a shelf next to the door for our keys and phone. Mail gets sorted immediately, and junk mail gets put in the trash.