DEAR MI-LING: I purchased a small one-bedroom modern condo in the city, and am figuring out how to best decorate in a simple way — to avoid clutter and keep it light, fresh and livable.

There are aspects of the space-layout that I don't particularly like and that have stumped me. The wall that separates the "living room” from the "bedroom” actually features a huge window. This means that people standing in the living room look through a large window (98 inches by 47 inches) into my bedroom. Vice versa, standing in my bedroom I look into the living room.

The whole window has a metallic gray frame around it. The reason the builders have included this is because in the bedroom itself there is no natural lighting (no external facing windows). My guess is that they included this internal window in order to open up the space with natural light.

I feel like I am at a nursery in the hospital: It feels very institutional and very odd to me to have people over who can sit in the living room and look into my bedroom.

DEAR MI-LING: I'm decorating a room for a teenage girl almost 15. She wants a bathroom
that matches her bedroom, which is light green with brown accents. The bathroom is small
and doesn't have very much storage space. She wants the bathroom to look a little more grown
up so she doesn't get sick of it through high school.

She wants a Paris theme but doesn't want to go overboard. She likes cherry brown and white
for wood. We need to replace the tile, but it can't cost too much. She also needs a cheap
medicine cabinet to replace the old one and a new shower curtain.

It would be great if you could give me some cheap fix-ups for the tile, shower curtain, medicine
cabinet, storage, towels, painting ideas and decorating pieces.

Shelby

DEAR SHELBY: This is a wonderful mother-and-daughter project that will allow you and
your daughter to spend some quality time doing something special for her.