Whether you’re a privately renting tenant, a student sharing housing with others or living with your parents, smaller spaces don’t have to mean minimal furniture or sacrificing possessions just to have some breathing room.
You may be thinking that if there’s a way to save space, surely it will just create cluster. With the tips we’ve gathered, this isn’t the case so there’s no need to fear the dreaded thought of living in a space that feels cramped.
“Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall”
A mirrored wall or wardrobe is a great feature to make a room look and feel bigger right from the off. If you get mirrored wardrobe doors you’ve hit two birds with one stone, having floor to ceiling storage to use behind closed doors. Sliding doors are also a great feature, on all forms of wardrobes and cupboards, to ensure the space around you doesn’t feel cramped when opening them.
Take a Look Inside
If you’re short on cupboard space, utilise that space well and hang bulky items, such as saucepans, on hooks along the wall instead. You can then divide the inside of your cupboards with vertical shelves, allowing for easy access to items such as baking trays, chopping boards, lap trays, place mats, basically anything that is thin and sturdy.
Bright and Airy
When painting a small room, use light colours to make the room feel more spacious, bright and airy. You can also bring the outdoors in, having small plants dotted around the room on smaller shelves or tables can give the room a fresh outdoorsy feel. If you’re not so sure as to what extent you can decorate your new home, make sure to ask your landlord prior to moving in.
Divide and Multiply
If you’re in a studio apartment or have an open plan living area but are wanting separate rooms, room dividers or drapes hung from ceiling to floor are a great way to achieve this without the big costs of inserting a stud wall.
Multi-Purpose
Furniture that has more than one purpose is excellent for saving space. Rather than having a separate coffee table and bookshelf making the room a tight squeeze, a coffee table that has shelving underneath allows for more space around the room whilst still having your items on display. Beds with built in storage beneath allow for storing bedding and towels, rather than taking up valuable space in your wardrobe.
Higher and Higher
If your ceilings are high enough, you can take the idea of a bunk bed one step further and create a mezzanine. A mezzanine essentially gives you a second floor so can have numerous uses, whether it be a sleeping area, an office, or a miniature library and secluded reading space. This also gives you more living space below deck.
Collect the Clutter
Storage baskets are a great way to keep the clutter in one location whilst giving the room a rustic look. Alternatively an ottoman is a very popular piece of furniture, allowing you to tidy away the clutter or store bulky blankets whilst providing an extra seating space. Utilising furniture for more than just one purpose is both great for practicality and also helps to reduce your rent costs considering you’re replacing the need for two items of furniture for just the one.
Take a Seat
If you’re going for the rustic look with storage baskets you can keep in line with the theme and have bench style seating in the kitchen rather than chairs, which will allow for storage in the bench. If it’s more seating space you are after all around the home, corner sofas give extra seating space whilst reducing the amount of floor space taken up.
Don’t Have Your Room Looking Like a Bird’s Nest
Nesting tables are an excellent piece of furniture, offering the table space when required, such as having friends or family over, but they neatly stack away underneath each other to save space when not in use.
Look UP!
If you look at a city skyline they have maximised vertical space by building upwards. This works just the same indoors – utilise the wall space with shelves and hooks all the way up to the ceiling. Have more frequently used items on the lower shelves so they are easy to reach and display items on the higher shelves. If you don’t want a whole wall full of shelves, fixing shelves above doors and windows keeps it minimal but effective.
Why Stop There?
This may not be everybody’s cup of tea but there is such a thing as ceiling storage, which can be hidden away with a lightweight blanket, enabling you to store stuff away and give your ceiling a splash of colour. It also doesn’t just have to be lights that hang from the ceiling, take a look at ceiling shelving for the items you’d like on display, such as plants.
Keeping You on Your Toes
Provided the flooring isn’t concrete, you may find ample storage options beneath your feet. Get creative adding in lift up floorboards or a “trap door” for easy access.
The key to living in small properties is experimenting and finding out what works best for you. Move things around and try different layouts. Rather than instantly replacing the furniture you already have for new space-saving furniture, try adapting your furniture to create more storage within it.
Finally, be nosey. Take a look in all the nooks and crannies of your room(s), you never know what unused space you may be able to create into storage space.
At Aspire to Move, we advertise a mass variety of properties, both big and small.
