dressing up a small apartment

Our new apartment is very, very small - so it's going to be imperative to blend beauty with functionality. Also, given that it's already pretty much furnished, buying special furniture items for small spaces isn't really an option.

Luckily, we have a tall standard shelf unit, midway between the open kitchen and the living room. I absolutely LOVE the shelf concept in the picture below: a few colourful books, some pretty crockery, a couple of decorative items, and concealed storage. It's practical AND it looks great!

I'm thinking books, DVDs, jars of dry fruit and some pretty glasses on the top shelves. Maybe add a few decorative items in front of the books and DVDs. For the lower space, I doubt I'll be able to get drawers like this where I live, but I can certainly get my hands on some cane baskets with lids or some such. Could use those to store linen methinks.

Am very excited about this unit. The problem of storage has been keeping me up at night...a few more ideas like this one and I may just manage to solve the mystery of where to store our stuff!

UPDATE: You can see how my version of this storage shelf unit turned out here.

Picture source: Better Homes and Gardens