It’s often difficult to decorate a room that’s smaller than average because it’s difficult to know where to put anything in the first place. Here are some hacks to decorate your room while maximizing your storage space. The best part about it is that it can be easily done by yourself without burning a hole in your pocket.
Start Off with Your Bed
Beds usually take up the most space in the bedroom. Think vertically when planning out your room layout. Try choosing a Murphy bed if you don’t have one or switch out your normal bed frame with a platform bed instead. You will be able to save money and space by placing commonly used items in rustic baskets in the compartments under your platform bed.
Murphy Desk — Fold Out Your Study Table
Many people own a Murphy bed to maximize storage space. Why limit this to just your beds when you can use the same concept by having other dual-purpose furniture? Create more space by ditching the traditional table, and build a desk that folds out of the wall instead. This way, you’ll be able to fold the table back in when you’re not using it.
Think Higher — Hanging Table
Even with small spaces, having a nightstand is essential for a bedroom for you to leave your spectacles or a book by your side right before you sleep. Play with different levels in your room by hanging a piece of reclaimed wood from the ceiling. Make sure the wood is securely hanged from the ceiling and avoid fragile and heavy items to place on your hanging table. Now, you have yourself a nightstand with the additional floor space to put a basket by your bed!
For the Green Fingers
Caring for plants can be difficult, especially when you don’t have space for it. One easy trick is to add glass floating shelves to a window and place your plants there. This way, each plant will be able to have sufficient sunlight. Be sure to find glass shelves are bolted fixed to the walls to prevent any accidents.
Foldable Drying Rack
Not enough space in the laundry room? Build yourself a fold-out drying rack. Similar to a Murphy’s Desk, you can fold out a drying rack from the wall. The total cost of building this is only about $30, which is a lot less compared to buying it.
Squeeze Out All The Space You Have
Small living rooms can be tough to decorate. Opt for a narrow console table to arrange behind your living room couch. This gives you the room to decorate your living room with ornaments, flowers, photo frames or even act as a small table to temporarily place your coffees.
Get Off the Floor
Keep unnecessary items off the floor. In the bedroom, your laundry basket can take up a lot of floor space and make the room feel messier or smaller. Using an embroidery hoop, hang your laundry bag off your closet door to save up some room space. Alternatively, skip the laundry basket and drop your clothes off directly.
Objects such as toys should always be kept off the floor when children are done playing with them. Stacking them up in cabinets helps keep your room organized and close to the wall, saving you an ample amount of space and more room to walk.
Shelves: The Ultimate Solution
Don’t have much space left in your cabinets? Stay efficient with your food preparations while keeping your counters clean by building small shelves on the walls of your kitchen. You can easily put many bottles of herbs and spices on it. You can get some affordable shelves of your preferred colour from IKEA to start with, and decorate the shelves to your liking.
If your kitchen’s pantry is too tiny, your fruits and vegetables can also be hung up on a produce rack on the wall. Instead of shelves, try getting some wire mesh racks to suit the size of your products.
Divide Your Space for More Room
While your apartment can’t get bigger, it can feel bigger when you divide your space using a DIY wall divider. This is perfect for studio apartments that have few clearly defined spaces. The makeshift wall will give you more surface areas for your furniture to lean again. Take note to ensure there’s enough light coming into your room as dividers may prevent the room from staying bright. You can also consider getting a divider with geometrical holes for light to pass through them.
Repurpose Old Windows
With small apartments, there’s a high chance that you’re on a budget. Repurpose your old windows by building a storage shelf in your bathroom. This is so important as you might want to keep your soaps and essentials in a clean environment. The windows allow you to see the items inside your makeshift storage shelf, incorporating them a part of the design of the bathroom. With enough space in your storage shelf, you can definitely make the bathroom more aesthetically pleasing by placing small plants in them as well.
Use Mirrors for the Illusion of Space
Besides attending to your vanity needs or checking your outfit before you leave the house, mirrors help make your room twice as big due to the illusion of space it provides. If you’re not interested in having full floor-to-ceiling mirrors across the walls, choose an inexpensive full-length mirror. Mirrors will also reflect light, so it will be a good idea to arrange your mirrors close to a light source to keep the rooms well lit.
Organize Your Items
The quick tip for small rooms is to always utilize vertical spaces and keep the place tidy as it is easy for the room to feel cluttered. While many objects can be shelved away or tucked away in a compartment, small objects like stationeries or jewellery may be messy when grouped together. As such, get a jewellery organizer or a desk organizer to compartmentalize your items.
These simple tips will ensure that your room is never too cluttered no matter its size. If you’ve been finding your room a little small lately, why not try some of these tips for a new look?