Your drawers are overflowing, your shoes are scattered across the floor, your stuff is spilling into the lounge, and you don’t really walk around your room so much as skirt around the bed.
This is the reality for many people who don’t know how to make space in a small bedroom or home. I’ve been in bedrooms where there’s nothing but a bed and about a foot’s worth of space on either side, and you can’t even walk there because it is piled up with clothes and shoes.
With such high living and housing costs, living in a small home with a small bedroom is an increasingly viable option, but often it can be hard to figure out how to create space in a small house, especially if you’re sharing the home with others. Here are some ways to help you with utilizing limited living spaces.
Build up
Like a well-planned city, you can maximize storage space in a small home by building up rather than out. Get wall mounted shelves – these are cheap and work in kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and virtually every other space you have – stack boxes and crates, and get tall drawers and cupboards.
By using all of the available wall space, you’ll be giving your home a very textured and colourful look, surrounding yourself with your things which can make the space feel homey and warm.
Chose furniture carefully
Do you really need large couches, desks, beds, and tables? Furniture takes up most of your space in your home, so one of the best small room design ideas is to choose your furniture carefully. You want furniture that serves multiple purposes: You can get couches that roll out into beds, Murphy beds that pull out of the wall, and bed bases, tables, and couches that come with drawers in them.
Another reasonably low-cost storage idea is to raise your bed several inches by using blocks or crates. This allows you to add storage underneath, and frees up space elsewhere.
If you have too much large furniture, buying smaller items can really refresh a space. You can get quality used furniture for very reasonable prices. Get rid of large couches, beds, tables, and chairs and buy smaller ones, or opt to keep just a few large items in your bedroom/room and get rid of everything else.
Create the illusion of space
If you’re quite claustrophobic or like to feel like you’re in a more open space, there are some easy ways to make a small room feel bigger. You can get curtains that go from floor to ceiling in order to make a room feel taller and fuller, you can place mirrors throughout the house in order to give the feeling of more depth to the space, and you can get furniture that’s thin or transparent in order to give the room more dominance over the items in it.
Creating sight lines is another way to make a home feel larger than it is. This means clearing spaces so you can see all the way through the house and out a window or a door, essentially viewing the space like a hallway. You can rearrange furniture, so it doesn’t block your eyes pathway to other rooms or the view outside.
Expand
If you are struggling with a lack of space inside your home, but you have a back or front yard, you could consider expanding. This could mean building onto your property, or if money is an issue, you could purchase a shipping container. Modified shipping containers are becoming increasingly popular for offices, workshops, garages, extra storage space, and even as stand-alone ‘tiny homes’.
Dealing with small spaces can be difficult, and there are many ways to do it. You can build up, create the illusion of space, buy multi purpose furniture, or all three of these things. It really depends on you, your budget, and the time you’re willing to put into making your space look the way you want it to.
Photo Credits
Small house – Steven Pisano on flickr – some rights reserved
Dining Room – pixabay public domain
Container home addition – Wikimedia creative commons
Guest Author Bio
Sofia Lockett
Sofia is a freelance writer from New Zealand, who is also a passionate traveler and foodie. Sofia often focuses her pieces on travel, health and lifestyle. You can read more articles on her Tumblr.
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