Studio, Chelsea

Freelance writer and editor Mary Kate Frank pared down her belongings in order to squeeze into a 225-square-foot Chelsea studio. She fixed up the small space with help from interior-design guru Nick Olsen, who helped her form a plan of attack from the very beginning. "He made me a road map of where to go with [the space], which was extraordinarily helpful," she says. The investment paid off, and the result is a bright, cozy apartment that suits the woman living there. "New York is so chaotic and crazy and frenetic," says Frank. "When I come home, I just want to be happy and calm, and that's how I feel in my apartment."

Frank brought in a painter Olsen recommended to put eight-inch-wide vertical stripes in two shades of green on her walls. "The [darker green] is a flat, and the brighter top stripe is a high-gloss," she says. "It looks like gift wrap."

After Frank sourced fabric from Mood (moodfabrics.com) for the patterned pillow in the middle of the 56-inch sofa, a friend sewed the covers. "The picture above the couch is a placeholder for this Schumacher wallpaper that I want to get framed," says Frank. "A friend and I quickly painted that the other night to break up the brick a little bit."

"I don't know what I was thinking [when I bought this dresser] at the ABC outlet (abchome.com) in the Bronx. It's such a grown-up piece of furniture," says Frank. "But the drawers are very deep, so that's helpful."

Frank re-covered the seat of her desk chair after buying a remnant piece at Global Leathers (globalleathers.com). "They sold me that [piece of red leather] for 40 bucks, and from there it was easy, just a lot of tucking and staple-gunning," she says.

The writer is a fan of low-wattage and pink bulbs for her lighting, favoring lamps over overheads. "The pink tones make it like Victorian times in here," she explains. "Most lighting is so unforgiving. I don't want to look like hell in my own apartment."

Frank knew that her limited number of bookcases would fill up fast. But she was hesitant to cover the striped walls with any additional furniture, so she turned to the only other available storage space: her kitchen cabinets. She found alternative places to store her kitchen supplies, like a wooden crate from a thrift shop in the Berkshires. "It holds my glassware since the cabinets are holding my novels."

A framed Larry C. Morris photo from The New York Times archives, selected for the newspaper by Jonathan Adler, serves as a backdrop for Frank's bar area. "It's from a party in the '60s, and when I saw it I thought, How come I'm never invited to parties like this? I have it here as a hopeful little thing."

Instead of crowding her walls with photographs or banishing them to forgotten albums, Frank chose to feature them in a prominent position on her coffee table. "I keep family and friends photos in a bowl and I change them out frequently.

Nick Olsen's original drawing of Frank's apartment is pinned to her bulletin board; she often refers to it as she continues to decorate.

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Sonodesign LTD Chroma-logical Order clock, $62, at modcloth.com

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Alice Supply & Co. ice bucket, $34, at store.alicesupplyco.com

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Crate & Barrel Mimic red cube, $80, at Crate & Barrel, 650 Madison Ave at 59th St (212-308-0011, crateandbarrel.com)