Inside Inventor Simone Giertz’s Small Los Angeles Home, 58sqm/630sqft

if I could choose, I would probably want to live in Bilbo Baggins’ home. That’s kind of like the pinnacle of, coziness to me. Since I get a lot of my adventure through work when I get home, I just want to like, feel like I'm being held.

I just want a house that spoons me. My name is Simone Giertz. I am an inventor and product designer.

I actually started out my career building shitty robots. That's like what most people would know me for. these days, I try to think a lot about everyday objects and kind of create unique solutions to everyday problems.

I live in Los Angeles, but I'm from Stockholm, Sweden. this house is 630ft². So about 58m².

I live here wit Scraps the dog Futz the cat, and then Tobin, the foster dog. I've lived here for four years. So it's a pretty small house.

It's a one bedroom, one bathroom. But still like a lean machine and very functional. I think of the house like the Lego song, “Everything is Awesome” But it's like “Everything is Custom” I've always been drawn to, like, unconventional homes.

when I was 20, I bought a houseboat and I renovated and lived on this old tugboat in Stockholm. What I like about living small and in like, unconventional spaces is that it's such a design challenge, like it creates very clear parameters for you where it's like, okay, this is the corner that I have to work with. How can I make it the best it can be?

I got this old, electrician's tool that I turned into, like, a sunglass/key station. And then this is an old fire alarm that I made into my little key holder. I don't want to live there, but for some reason, in like my decor, I'm very nostalgic for Sweden.

My mum and I put up this wallpaper together. She is good at wallpaper. Lots of nods to leaves and nature and like leaf patterns and things like that.

here is an old bridal chest that we've had in our family since at least 1733. So this is like been passed down for generations of women. I think that's like one of the things as an immigrant from Sweden where you're like, oh, when I actually bring stuff over from Sweden, that's when it feels like, okay, I live here permanently But also I've been over ten years, so.

I store my hiking gear in here, which I guess is the opposite of, I don't know, putting in linen to get married. I made the first version of this in 2016. We even made these little button coasters Yeah, it's a side table that looks like a thread spool.

It has storage in here. I store yarn in there for knitting. I also just think there's something funny about having bigatures, so like big versions of small objects in a very small house, Exhibit B.

The house was in pretty good shape. The foundation needed a lot of work. There was a lot of, like, millennial gray, the layout was a bit different, but like, the core of it was always really good.

The work I got to do when it was like, the fun stuff, I didn't have to do a lot of the, like, really hard renovation stuff. I made this lamp because I thought it would be really nice to have a light where instead of there being, like, a fabric cover, like the leaves of a plant kind of become the cover. So this is plamp, which is a pot lamp combo.

this is the first version of it. I want to make a second version of it, but I think it's gorgeous to just have this like hanging plant. This grows so fast so that I have to keep on like re hanging it and kind of snaking it up.

This room is just such a gorgeous part of the house, I don't know, it just feels very, medieval hall in a weird way. Except that this is, like, very much not structural, like, they're really decorative, But I appreciate whoever put those in. One of the big differences between Swedish and American architecture is that Americans don't have hallways.

You enter the home and you're, like, in the living room. And I'm like, where do you put your shoes? Where do you put your jackets?

And that was really something that was lacking in this house. So I rebuilt the staircase to the loft to have, shoe storage and also added like two cabinets to it where I can hang jackets and put bags and things like that. I added all of these extra shelves.

I made the drawers. when I moved in, there was more shelf here. And where, the previous owner had a TV, but since I have a projector, I just opened this up and built this little console.

it's a bit of an embarrassing story, but my favorite movie is Frozen, my friend was a muralist for Disney, and she did all the Frozen murals for, like, their rides and things like that. And I asked her to do this for me because I'm, I don't know, don't let it go. this is actually a staircase that leads up to a loft.

I made the stained glass window. This was the first stained glass project I ever made, which was an ambitious start I just can't believe that I made this. it has a window.

And when I moved in here, it was just a set of doors, and they didn't let any light through. But I wanted more light in this room. So I made the stained glass window in honor of a lemon tree that I killed in the coutryard.

You can look there if you promise not to judge me. This is on my to do list. Okay?

I would turn it into a functional space, except that it gets so warm up there. this is something that my ex-boyfriend actually custom built for my house in San Francisco. But then I brought it here, and it kind of magically fit here as well.

So that's where I have, like, hats and scarves and stuff. This is dog gear, dog toys, bike helmet. And then this, I guess, is my home gym.

This is where I get buff. this is one of my proudest creations I love working on jigsaw puzzles, but I don't like how much table space it takes up. So I was thinking, like, can I make a table where I can switch between two tabletops?

I added bench seating as well, for one because it had storage, but it also I could like if we really wanted to probably fit seven people around here. . .

so. There's a Swedish saying, “finns det hjärterum, så finns det stjärterum” which translates to “if there's heart room, there's butt room. ” There was a German painter who watched the video of me making this table, and there's this point where I'm so frustrated with the build that I kind of laid on top of it, and he thought it was a very dramatic pose.

So he made this oil painting. I don't like that I am at this stage in my life where I have oil paintings of myself in my house, but I feel like this is an edge case and an exception. This when I moved in here, there was a bookshelf that kind of went up to here, and I extended the top and kind of made it into a seating area.

So for one, you'd have more kitchen counter area. But also, if you're hanging out and cooking, you can like, do it with other people. Oh, this one's nice.

This is my mechanical fruit bowl. Because I got frustrated that I always had too much or too little fruit for my fruit bowl. So either it, like, was overflowing or it looked really empty.

So I thought, what if you can make a fruit bowl that changes size depending on how much fruit you have in there? So instead of having like three different bowls, you can just have one that changes size. These were the cabinets over here when I moved in, and it's just like old Ikea MDF cabinets.

But I routed these ridges on it because I wanted to give it a little bit more of a farmhouse look. I felt like a really low stake modification to do, because I was just using the stuff I already had and that needed to be switched out. And I mean, I've got another four years out of them.

The hardware's got to go, though, because it looks like nipple piercings, and I cannot. Ugh. it's definitely a little bit of a death match between kitchen appliances.

Like who gets to earn their spot. But these are the winners. Blender, coffee grinder, espresso machine, water boiler and bread maker.

Airfryer, no. You don’t win. So this is like a weird space here that's really narrow next to the fridge.

I looked for a really long time to try to find narrow enough shelves. And then I realized I have the power to make things. They’re sagging from the weight of everything.

But also, who isn't? Please make sure that you get a lot of coverage of this area, especially the ceiling that got torn down and then never put back in place. And, my milk crates.

Believe it or not, this used to be worse. I want to make some sort of shelving system where you can pull it out and then have it come down, because obviously, one of the main issues with on top of fridge accessibility is even if you have cabinets, like you need to get up on a step stool to kind of access to it, and it's really deep. So I'm thinking like something that goes up and down.

I made these custom floor vents because it was just like boring grates. And I was like you know what, let's make a more decorative version of it. Do you like them Tobin?

You’re getting helicopter tail. I was like, whoever is selling this house is really going to care about who it goes to. And I tried to make sure that I like showed them that I would be a good custodian of the house, because I think one of my big fears, if I ever sell this is that somebody would do like a Home Depot flip.

I just want it to stay weird. Welcome to my bedroom. So I got really frustrated that I couldn't fit a coat rack in my bedroom.

And I thought, like, what if you could have coat hangers that fold in half so that they can hang half the distance from the wall and, yeah, this is the Coat Hinger. We also made this grooved rod to make sure that they can't, like, fall askew. But also if they don't have the grooved rod, they do have a tendency to kind of flop over to one side.

I made the first version of this four years ago. And then it was about three years of development to get to this point where it's this simple of a design. This isn't even all of them.

Also, what I like about it is that it comes apart. So if you just want to hang your pants, you can. We also have these S hooks.

So if you just want a hook to, like, hang some stuff on, you can these are available at yetch. store which is my product company. A lot of the things that I've built have been inspired by this house.

Like the coat hinger is because of this house, I think that's something that's really important to me, is having a living space that inspires that creativity. And that, like kind of poses interesting problems in a way. And I think living in a smaller area definitely makes you think a lot about the objects that you have in there.

when I moved in here, the bed was in the middle of this room, and then there was a tall Ikea wardrobe on the right and a tall Ikea wardrobe on the left, and it made the whole room really difficult to get around, like it felt really narrow and crammed. So what I did was built this platform to put the bed on top of, and now I have clothing storage, and here this is on casters, and then back here, I have suitcases and things like that. And now temporarily I have, Tobin's bed.

Scraps sleeps up in the bed with me. And then I added sheets and cozy stuff and towels. I just think it's so cozy to climb up in a bed like you're a little creature crawling up into a treehouse and kind of.

In honor of the tree house comparison, I made this headboard and then I embedded lights in I took plywood, and then I used my CNC to make these pockets that I then inlaid felt in. So this is my desk. I don't do a terrible amount of work here because I'm always down in the workshop.

But if I ever need to sew or, like, record a podcast or something, I'm usually in here just to be out of people's way. This is the latest version of a project that we're petitioning to become a product. I wanted to make a chair that had a staircase for scraps to get up and down to my lap, and that I also had like an extra seat so she could sit next to me.

This is definitely a prototype. don't look at all my seams. Also, I'm still figuring out the size and the positioning of the stairs.

When I'm working she can like have full access to my lap and kind of just chill next to me. This is the everyday calendar. This was the first product that I ever made because I wanted to make sure that I meditated every day, and I wanted, like, a visual representation of the streak that I had.

And I thought, like, instead of just like having little grids that you cross what if you made a really pretty version of it? I made these light switches to match the bed, so I had a bunch of leftover materials. I think the mantra that I've had for myself is I'd rather have weird than boring and ugly than boring.

So it's like, even if I make a custom light switch, that's not like the most beautiful, or at least it's not going to be boring. One of the good things about being a builder is that nothing has to be permanent. Like, I kind of feel the house as a constant like experiment I’ll try out and living with an object, and then I'll see how it works, and then some make it and become permanent fixtures of the house and then some I'm just like, that was fun.

But I can always switch back to like having the boring version of it. And here is my laundry chute, slash escape hatch for only very small people. Maybe the dog.

I could throw the dog in there in a pinch. So this is what I call the plant stripper pole. you can move these around.

So depending on how your plants grow, you can kind of configure it, configure them in different ways. one of the things that I've learned from having this is that I never move them. Like, I really only have them in the same place.

it does a good job of like fitting a bunch of plants in a small space, and I also don't have to put up a million shelves on the wall. this is the bathroom. I love this bathtub purely because of its looks.

I've maybe filled it with water twice since moving in here. Like I'm not a bath person. I shower.

I just don't use it as a bathtub. The bathroom had this floor, and I made these custom cabinets in honor of the floor. I think that's one of the things that's been really fun with designing from this house is I take a lot of design cues from the things that already exist.

And I'm like, how can we celebrate that? this is vinyl wallpaper. So it's basically like giant stickers, which I do not recommend.

they've shrunk over the years, so I've gotten these gaps in them, whatever. Those are the things that it's like an eyesore for me. But other people probably don't care that much.

then here is my dedicated toilet paper shelf for my collection of toilet paper rolls. I like the idea of taking something that you usually hide away and, like, putting it on display and kind of just making a weird, like. Yeah, this is my dedicated toilet paper shelf.

this room is definitely a work in progress. I want to get another sink because this one isn't very pretty. And I'm thinking like some weirder hardware.

But TBD. And then back here is the workshop. This is what I call the butt hole of the house.

Because it's purely there for its function. And I have no aspiration for it to be pretty. this house is the first house that I have that I'm like this is like, I love it, There’s not a straight wall in this entire house, and it's just generations upon generations of people kind of winging it.

And I really like that because I feel like I can kind of do my own thing and not feel guilty about it. It would be nice to have another bedroom and bathroom all of that. But like for now, it's like the perfect space for me.

I just need a place to recover that feels like creative canvas. It feels like a little spa for my brain. Sign up to our newsletter for subscriber only content and exclusive offers.

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