Interior design expert Bergen Flom reveals how she transforms small apartments into deeply personal spaces — and the Yamazaki Home products she considers essential.
There is a certain kind of apartment that stops you in your tracks. Every object seems chosen. Every corner has a reason. You walk in and immediately understand the person who lives there.
That's the kind of home Bergen Flom (@berg_ilicious) creates. An interior design expert who has called both New York City and San Francisco home, Bergen has spent years refining the art of living beautifully in tight quarters. Her philosophy isn't about minimalism or maximalism—it's about intention. And it starts, she'll tell you, with getting the bones right.
The Foundation Comes First
Before the vintage finds, the travel souvenirs, the layered textiles: Bergen always starts with function. "It's about building a strong, functional base first," she says. "If your storage works and looks good, it creates a sense of harmony. Then you can layer personality on top."
In a small apartment, disorganization isn't just an aesthetic problem, it's a physical one. Clutter in a 600-square-foot space doesn't stay in one corner. It spreads. It crowds. It makes a home feel like something you're managing rather than living in.
This is why Bergen keeps coming back to Yamazaki Home. The brand's Japanese design roots, simplicity, longevity, intentionality over trend, give each piece a quality that small-space dwellers know to look for: it has to work hard, and it has to look like it belongs.
"Functional pieces don't have to be ugly. That's something I really believe, and it's why I love Yamazaki Home. Their pieces blend into the home so seamlessly."
The Products That Go With Her Everywhere
After moving between coasts and making the deliberate decision to sell nearly all of her furniture rather than ship it, Bergen has identified the pieces that are truly non-negotiable. The ones that earn their place in any space, any layout, any city.
Under-Sink Storage: It's unglamorous, but it's transformative. "It completely changes how functional your home feels," Bergen says. In a small bathroom or kitchen, the cabinet under the sink is almost always wasted space, a dark void where things get lost. A well-designed organizer like Yamazaki Home's two-tier under-sink shelf turns it into one of the most efficient storage zones in your home.
The Slim Steel Storage Cart: Bergen's current obsession and easy to see why. "My Brooklyn kitchen has this awkward gap, and it fits perfectly. It's so satisfying! I use it for oils, spices, and pantry items, and it completely maximizes that space." The slim profile slides into the forgotten inches beside a refrigerator or between counters, turning dead space into one of the most-used spots in the kitchen.
What Two of America's Most Expensive Cities Teach You About Keeping Things
Living in San Francisco and then New York gives you an unusually clear-eyed relationship with your belongings. When you're paying that much per square foot, every object has to justify its presence.
"In smaller spaces, everything becomes a bit of a puzzle," Bergen says. "You have to use every square inch intentionally, which I actually love. It feels like a more sustainable and thoughtful way to live."
When she moved back to New York from the West Coast, she made a radical but clarifying decision: she sold almost everything. The furniture she'd loved, the pieces she'd carefully chosen. Gone.
What she kept? Every single one of her mugs. Including the soft butter-yellow one from Norway, bought during a trip that felt deeply personal, since Bergen and Flom are both towns there. "It reminds me of that experience and feeling connected to my ancestors. It's really special to me."
The lesson isn't that furniture doesn't matter. It's that in a small home, what you keep should earn its place through meaning, function, or ideally both. Great storage is what makes that possible.
The Entryway: Where a Home Either Works or Doesn't
Bergen is emphatic on this one. The entryway is the hinge point of a small apartment. Get it right and everything flows. Get it wrong and the disorder radiates outward.
"Entryways have to be functional first. They should be beautiful, but they need to work. You need a clear place for keys, bags, shoes, and coats. A good entryway quietly teaches people where things go."
In a small space, there is no spare room to absorb chaos. A bag dropped in the wrong place, shoes left near the door, keys with no home ... these aren't minor inconveniences. They're the difference between a space that feels calm and one that never quite does.
Collected, Not Decorated
Here's the thing Bergen wants small-space dwellers to hear: you don't have to strip your home bare to make it feel good. The goal isn't minimalism. It's curation.
"You don't have to be minimal just because your space is small. Some of the most beautiful small spaces feel eclectic and layered. The difference is intention. If everything has meaning, it won't feel like clutter. It will feel curated."
A well-organized home, where there's a place for everything and those places are well-designed, gives you the freedom to bring in the things you love. The vintage ceramic. The stack of art books. The mugs from somewhere that mattered, like from Bergen and Flom.
Function doesn't constrain a home's personality. It creates the conditions for it.
Build Your Foundation
The best small apartments don't happen by accident. They're built — starting with storage that's smart enough to disappear into the background and beautiful enough to belong.
These are the Yamazaki Home pieces Bergen trusts to do exactly that:
