A few days ago, on our way back home from a scrumptious dinner and an impromptu escape room game at Breakout Escape Rooms, my housemate and I stopped by a furniture store, newly opened near the neighborhood. No purchases were made, of course. We spent around 25 minutes just peeping through the large glass window, sighing with a desire to get an L-shaped sofa, fully aware that our apartment has no place to fit anything larger than a loveseat at most.
While living in an apartment, you soon come to realize how easily you can run out of space. Given the limited amount of carpet area that standard apartments provide these days, all empty spots fill up quickly with items of necessity. And before you know it, poof! There go your dreams of turning your living space into a live Pinterest board.
But there are ways to DIY your way out of a messy, cramped apartment. And no, it doesn’t involve investing in bigger real estate. All you need is a little organization and some of these hacks:
1. Use contrasting and light colors to decorate your apartment
Using contrasting and light shades of colors is a proven technique to make your apartment look more spacious by creating a sense of optical illusion in the perceiver.
Light-painted walls also make the interiors look much brighter. The reflective nature of lighter colors makes the space appear a whole lot open and airy. In contrast, using a dark shade of colors will naturally absorb the maximum of light and hence make your apartment look much smaller and stuffy.
If you are confused about which color to go for, just remember- off-white, pastel blues, or muted greens will never do you wrong. Go ahead and get some swatches from your nearest paint store!
2. Indulge in creative lighting in your apartment
It is a known fact that natural lighting can open up your apartment, making it look much bigger. However, if natural light is not an option for you, you can always go for lighting fixtures to add some creative effect to your apartment.
Choose light fixtures that are not too vintage since they automatically age the atmosphere of your room. Warm lights tend to create a cozy vibe, while cool-toned lights appear too artificial. So, choosing neutral lights is the best way to compensate for the lack of natural lighting in your room.
3. Keep your apartment organized!
An apartment that is always dirty and messy will always look small, no matter how much space you may own. So, keeping your apartment tidy is very important. Get some storage boxes and organizing items, and get sorting! Remember the holy word of Marie Kondo- if it does not spark joy, it is time to let it go.
The same can go for the walls of your apartment. No matter how much appealing it might initially seem to cramp up those walls with several posters, remember that’s only going to make your apartment look smaller. So, don’t cover all your walls with big paintings or posters. Instead, choose one single side as the accent wall and add all your personal touches to it. It creates a nice contrast and gives your place a character without disrupting the openness of its appearance.
Get neutral-colored rugs for your floors with muted patterns. Also, make sure that the rug does not cover your entire floor. Rugs that are too loud or cover the entirety of your flooring tend to have a shrinking effect visually.
4. Create a center of attraction in your apartment.
Having single accent furniture that can act as the focal point of your apartment can help you create the illusion of a bigger apartment
Identifying the point of focus in your rooms is easy. While it is the bed in your bedroom, it is the dinner table in your dining room, and so on. Once you have identified the star of each part of your living space, make it as much embellished as possible. You can do this by pointing or shifting the rest of the furniture in that room to your focal point. Furthermore, keep the decoration of the room so is kept minimal so that the spotlight isn’t shifted on anything else.
5. Make use of mirrors to decorate your apartment
Using mirrors to decorate your apartment can also help to create the illusion of more space. It makes your room appear much larger and open.
If possible, place the mirror directly opposite to your central light source in the room. That way, it can reflect the light and make your space appear even brighter. Go for full-body mirrors for your bedroom and large, ornamental wall mirrors for other spaces. They get the job done pretty neatly.
6. Make use of creative and innovative furniture
Selecting the perfect furniture to embellish your apartment can surely go a long way in making your apartment look spacious. You can easily get your hands on smart-storage furniture that is specially built to optimize smaller spaces. Look for multi-purpose furniture such as sofas and beds with cabinets, foldable dining tables, and disappearing desk beds.
These pieces might cost you more than traditional furniture, but the way they help you make the most out of your limited apartment space makes it completely worth the investment.
7. Reorganize the existing furniture in your room
Your room layout is the ultimate deciding factor of how spacious or crowded your place looks. Look up some tutorials on YouTube and get reorganizing! Though the layouts will differ according to room shapes, here are some of the more general rules: place all your bigger furniture against the walls, use half-partitions instead of full ones to have privacy without shrinking the room, and relocate your bed to spot where it is not in a straight line with your entrance door.
Conclusion
Countries all over the world, especially in East Asia and in the Scandinavian regions, have made immense progress in innovation and design to make the most out of their smaller living spaces. You can look up apartment layouts from these places for more inspiration and get a better visual understanding of the concepts.
Author Bio
Aniya more is one of the brightest content writer at https://breakout.in/. She is a passionate writer who loves to read books and explore different escape rooms. With a great work ethic, she spends most of her time researching and reading. When she is not working, she likes to relax with a cup of coffee and enjoy watching her favorite tv show or walking her dog peanut. You can find her on LinkedIn.
