Small downtown condo lives luxuriously large

Originally published August 15, 2014 at 12:13 PM | Page modified August 15, 2014 at 9:15 PM

There are many reasons to downsize.

For interior designer Paula Devon Raso it was a bum knee and a Pekingese with a bad back.

So, in 2003 Raso sold her two-story, 1,000-square-foot town house in the 98 Union building in downtown Seattle and took a 750-square-foot one-bedroom, one-floor unit there.

She gutted it and set about doing what interior designers do, carving out space and storage where none seemed possible, disguising ductwork and throwing light into even the deepest passages.

She painted and primped and made it her own; walls the color of a childs blush in the bathroom, the rest of it old gold. There are cherubs on those walls and hanging from the bathroom chandelier, candles glimmering from tall holders set on the floor, antique silver trays, cups and bowls out and about, antique mirrors, etchings, drapes that puddle. Whitewashed oak floors cede to the kitchens honed limestone, substantial marble counters there adding old-world splendor to that compact space.

Outside, Raso turned the narrow wrap deck into a formal hedge garden, bay trees as green exclamation points. Beyond, in front-row views, lie Puget Sound, Alki Point, the Olympic Mountains, Pike Place Market and much of the city. (She has no need of the Great Wheel. Her view is better.)

When Raso finished, she thought her place was just about perfect, European glamour wrapped in a small gift box.

And then it was 2007. Everything shifted.

Once I got the bed in here, that was something, Raso says. And by in here she means the living room.

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Small downtown condo lives luxuriously large