Does limits make you more creative?

Some people are probably creative by default. But for me, I get more creative when there is a (harder) problem to solve, so setting up limits seem to boost my creativity.

When it comes to our apartment, we have a limited amount of space (who doesn’t really?). It’s not that it’s really that small, but most of our friends (at least the ones with kids) seem to have fallen for the peer pressure and bought a house in the suburb. And compared to that I guess our apartment is quite smallish. This limit has forced us to really think about what we do with our space, how to make the most of each square meter. Not to brag or anything, but I must say that I think we have come up with some quite clever ways to save space that are still stylish. The most recent example is our bathroom - where we’ve managed to squeeze a lot into the space:

(image by Janne Olander)

We installed the washing machine just a couple of months ago and above it there is a wall-mounted baby changing table (which cannot be seen in the photo). Coming up with this solution was both fun and inspiring. Perhaps because it felt more like a problem to solve, than just a bathroom makeover (light). And when you’ve solved an especially hard problem you feel really good about yourself, get it? :-)

Also we have limited ourselves with our vow to always try to buy second hand or “green”/environmental friendly stuff. This has also made decorating our home much more fun. When you don’t buy anything expensive (second hand stuff seldom is) you can dare to be a little bit more crazy :)

A good example is this apartment, from What we do, that was almost entierly furnished by second hand furniture:

(images What we do)

Do I need to say that I think it’s really cool? Well, probably not… :)

The conclusion is that you don’t always have to go out and spend alot of money to get a stylish home. Some of the nicest apartments I’ve seen probably didn’t cost much money to decorate (only a lot of spare time to visit all the local flea markets). If you don’t think you’re especially creative - try setting up a limit for yourself (could be money, space, that you have to make the thing by yourself etc etc) and then make your best effort under those premises - perhaps you’ll be surprised in finding that the end result is even better than it would have been without the limit.