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Almost everyone has one. A dining room used only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, sitting vacant the rest of the year. A study with a desk so cluttered with papers, books and files there is no room to work. An awkward storage space that remains untouched.

Sometimes rooms are underused or overused. But in an economy in which fewer people are able to move to bigger spaces, New York-based home consultant Gale Steves has found a solution.

When Steves was editor-in-chief of Home Magazine in the 1990s, she noticed a trend of people living in homes with rooms that were too big or too small to be useful and people labeling rooms they thought they should have but never used, such as a dining room. That's when Steves created the principle of Right-Sizing, a concept of people making better use of the space they have.

"I'm asking people to review what they have, how they use it, and how they actually use the room," Steves said. "And in that process you'll actually clear out some clutter, get rid of things or store things you're not currently using."

Steves outlines the idea of Right-Sizing in her new book, "Right-Sizing Your Home," and will discuss how to put Right-Sizing into practice at the High Point Furniture Market on April 20.

She interviewed nearly 300 families for the book and discovered most of them, whether they lived in a house or apartment, had rooms and furniture they never used.

"All of a sudden, it just came to me that this is the perfect time to talk to people about making changes within their home because I think that most of us are not going to be moving as frequently as we once did," Steves said.

Steves works out of her home with Open House Productions, a home decorating and remodeling consulting company she formed in 2001. She put the principles of Right-Sizing to use herself when she realized she was doing most of her work in her dining room.

"I took over my mother's china cabinet, and now it's a storage place for all my papers," Steves said.

Now, Steves uses her dining room daily, even if it isn't for dining. With Right-Sizing, she hopes to teach people how to be more flexible with how they use their homes, ignoring traditional labels such as "dining room" or "living room," and convert their rooms into spaces they will actually use.

"What I really want people to do is live better in the house they have," Steves said.

Steves kept the tone of her book "very reassuring, friendly and a little humorous" to let people know that it's OK to make changes in their homes and play with the space they have. She suggests rearranging furniture, renaming rooms and making better use of storage space, anything to use space in a more economical way.

One Right-Sizing tip Steves recently practiced was the simple act of moving her mother's china out of her cluttered kitchen and into a storage space.

"I'm a good example of someone who goes along and doesn't really think about their possessions, and all of a sudden you find them trapping you," Steves said.

Steves said Right-Sizing is possible anywhere. Her book features images from Triad furniture stores, such as Bassett Furniture and Baker Furniture, that demonstrate the principles of Right-Sizing.

At the furniture market, Steves will speak about the importance of being comfortable at home, especially in the current economic climate.

"There are things happening in the American economy that have changed our lives, and more people are at home whether they want to be or not," Steves said.

Steve says she's been interested in decorating for as long as she can remember. One of her earliest decorating experiences happened when her parents were away on vacation. Steves decided she hated the flowered wallpaper in their house, and repainted the walls a Creamsicle orange color.

"My mother walks in the door and with a super sense that something is wrong, she comes marching right up the stairs and says, 'Oh my God! What have you done?" Steves said. "I could smell the steam coming out of her ears."

To this day, Steves still loves bright orange walls. In her book, she emphasizes that people should be comfortable with what they want and reinvent their homes to reflect those tastes.

When she speaks at the furniture market, she hopes people will walk away inspired to use their homes to their fullest potential and redecorate to best reflect their lifestyle.

"It'll help you with Right-Sizing, whether you like orange walls or not," Steves said.

Contact Alexa Milan at 373-7120 or alexandra.milan@news-record.com