A walk-in closet has always been on my “must have” list. But with the apartment sizes I’ve been living it, it hasn’t always been a possibility. Since I still haven’t dropped it from my wish list. I’ve been actually toying around with the idea of incorporating a walk in wardrobe in my dream home. I’ve even come across a few reasonable walk in solutions.

1. The Locker Room Walk In Wardrobe Ideas

This is a super compact wardrobe on wheels comes from the Hosun Ching, it incorporates a closet, shelving units for jewelry and even has mirrors. But it also compacts into pretty much a locker when closed. Grab a stool and you feel like you’re in your own walk in wardrobe fairy-tale. This goes on my list of wardrobe essentials for women this year.

Image via Flodea

2. The IMA Walk in Closet

One of the simplest and modern walk in wardrobe ideas I’ve seen, if you have a little bit of extra space this is definitely the winner, I would never guess that behind these beautiful wooden doors a walk in wardrobe the size of a room can be hidden.

Image via Modresdes

3. Master Bathroom and Closet

This is a great walk in wardrobe idea; you can use the extra space you have in the master bathroom and turn it into a walk in wardrobe. This is also one of the most convenient locations for a closet, this way you’re never left running back to the closet to grab an item of clothing you forgot.

Image via DIYnetwork

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Small Apartment Decorating Ideas

Make Small Room Bigger

I remember when I first moved in to my small apartment, one of the big questions was which are the best colors for small rooms. Walls have a big presence in the space and thus are a crucial component in the decoration’s concept and have a big influence on your mood. While reading a lot of the articles regarding the subject and talking to people, I’ve noticed that there is a live discussion, let’s say there are two approaches to the subject. One gives you restrictive rules how to color small rooms and the other claims there are no rules. Usually, the ones to claim there are no rules are professional designers that have a lot of experience in the field and thus are fearless playing with the entire color spectrum.

OK, rules or no rules, color can emphasize certain features – and minimize others. In a small room, the main effect we want to achieve is making it feel bigger. Knowing how colors play with our eyes can make a big difference. So let’s see the guiding lines, considerations and tips that can help us in order to achieve the best result for your needs in your small space.

1. Color effect

The first thing you need to decide is your color theme. You need to set your mind on a main tone you want to give the room. For this you need to take in consideration the color effect. There are two groups in the color pallet which create two different effects. The first group is the warm colors such as red, orange and yellow, and the second group is the light bright and cool ones such as white, blue, green and purple. Both groups have two main qualities to consider. The first quality is the feeling they give and the second one is the way they fool our eyes in perceiving the size of the space by making it seem bigger or smaller. The bright colors reflect the light and thus create an illusion of a larger space. The warm ones make the walls appear closer and thus create the illusion of a smaller room.

To sum it up, the warm colors create a cozy feeling and a smaller space and the cool ones create an airy feeling and a bigger space, so having a small room we will want to use the bright colors. So what about the cozy feeling? If you are concern about this so no worry, a small room is already cozy due to its size. With the right furniture and decoration elements you can have a lovely cozy space. But of course if you are fixed on a yellow room then go for it! There are no “rules” . When I was a teenager, I did that in my room painting it in yellow. The cool thing was that during the day time, when I was looking at the room from another spot of the house, it looked like I left the light on – It was sunny! But I must admit that after one year I just couldn’t stand it and cooled it down painting back to something more settled. I love white and other bright cool colors, it’s clean and clear and emphasizes what’s inside the room and I like this concept.

Image via Iroonie

Talking about great designers that are taking the liberty to play with colors, check out this space, a great example of a color scheme, work of architect Scott Weston:

Image via Scott Weston Architecture Design

2. Room form

It is amazing how much impact a color have to alter perceptions of a room’s size. At this point you can also use it to play on your favor if your room is rectangular (tending to narrow) using the color to balance the distance between the walls. As we saw in the first point, just like warm colors make the wall appear closer, dark ones have the same effect. You can paint one or both of the short walls of the rectangular room with a darker shade of the same color scheme you have chosen. This will bring back proportions to the narrow feeling.

3. Room height

The same thing here. If your ceiling is low, you can paint it just a shade lighter than the walls. It will be as if you “pushed” up your ceiling making it look more distant. It is nice how you can “move” the surfaces of your room with no effort like a super hero . The same way if your ceiling is too high, yes you got it, paint it just a shade darker to make it appear closer.

4. Focal wall

Another great idea that concerns not only a small space, is to highlight the room’s focal point. Every room has a special side, a wall with a fireplace or a wall with bookcases etc… Play up the best feature of the room! You can paint the focal wall with a deep rich color and the rest of the walls a lighter, coordinating color as we mentioned before, to allow the focal wall to stand out. Another way to create a focal point is using wallpaper.

Image via Bed Rooms Design

5. Furniture

If you want to create the impression of a bigger room, the advice is to have your furniture in the same color scheme because this way they blend in the space.

Image via Must know How

Like in the first image in this post, a great idea when you have it all white is to use one dominant color like a red or whatever you like in one of your furniture.

6. Experiment

OK, so now you are facing the moment in which you are about to decide your color scheme and buy it. You look in the color pallet and you find your combination. If it’s not white then it’s hard to judge from a small swatch how it will appear on your wall. You might love the color you see on the pallet, but when it comes to a big surface, the result might appear overwhelming, especially in a small space. If you are not sure, there many paint companies that offer samples, so try it out and experiment!

Choosing the best colors for small rooms is a confusing and time consuming moment. I know that for me it was very helpful looking at magazines, reading eBooks and talking to people. I hope this was helpful for you; it sums up the main basic concepts. I will be glad to hear your opinion or learn more from your experience.

Related articles:

Colors for small rooms

Make small room look bigger

Small studio apartment ideas

I have a very small apartment (140 square feet) that I’m very glad to come back to every day because it is cozy. The welcoming feeling strikes as I open the entrance door. There is nothing better to refresh my energy after a long day out. But! There’s always one thing that is threatening this little paradise of mine. The clutter! The gap between a clean cozy place and a messy one is very small; it is in direct relation to how small your space is. The smaller it is – the faster it will transform into a stressing labyrinth. If you don’t take control of your space, your space will take control of you. There is nothing worse and energy-draining than living in a messy home. If you don’t organize your place to avoid this fast and lasting deterioration then it will become a perfect receipt for a dysfunctional life. But don’t worry, living small is an art that can easily be learned. From my experience, I listed up some organizing tips for small spaces that will keep your little paradise going.

1. Think Storage

Increase your storage. If you have for example a bed or an ottoman that doesn’t provide storage, a living room table without drawers, dining chairs that don’t fold – then it’s time to think twice. Double-duty furniture, multi-functional furniture or smart furniture are big role players in our little space.

Designer Ana Chillida brings us her ACHAIR-ESTUDIO RECREO-Brand for handmade product, a beautiful interpretation for furniture containing storage space.

ACHAIR by Ana Chillida. Image via Behance NETWORK

2. Have a place for everything

Maybe the most fundamental tip for a small space:

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Isabella Mary Beeton, The Book of Household Management, 1861

You have to organize everything from the beginning into shelving units and storage spaces in well defined zones in order to save yourself from those dangerous moments in which a new pile of stuff is starting to grow fast in the middle of your apartment. The secret is not to allow it to start because once new stuff added to the new pile – YOU become weaker, while IT becomes bigger and eventually uncontrollable! Just as at these people I heard of that need to clear the way every time they have to go to the bathroom and back…

K Workstation by Miso Soup Design

p.s. – It is always good to have an empty storage place for those special occasions when the door bell is ringing, your living room is a mess and you don’t know where to throw the stuff that’s lying around

p.p.s. – And if you haven’t made a list yet, of all the things you need and don’t,  then it’s time to do one. A guide line that helps me in these difficult moments is a simple question: Have I been using it in the last year or two? If not then it’s time to say goodbye…

3. Go vertical!

The designer Danny Kuo cleverly claims that in order to save space, “the most efficient way to build is vertically. Building vertically saves space as it uses minimal ground square meters.” Danny Kuo‘s way to transform this concept into a form is in his smart staircase shelving unit.

Staircase Shelving Unit by Danny Kuo

Vertical floor-to-ceiling elements also make the room appear taller. (Check out more about this concept on How to make a small room look bigger).

4. Go digital

The living small concept is a green concept; You use less energy for heating and cooling the space, you purchase less because you have never enough storage places etc… So why not use less paper and go digital? You can have it all on your PC, on a digital storage device or even online. It reduces the storage space drastically and if it’s online you can also access it from anywhere.

5. Go to the corner

We, small space dwellers, need to use every square foot of our space. I’ve noticed that usually corners are being left out with no treatment. There are lots of great corner shelves out there for all uses (bath rooms, kitchen, living rooms…). So if you need more storage space you can use one of them.

The Corner Tree by Abhinav Dapke

6. Behind the veil

As mentioned before, the road from a cozy space to a dysfunctional one is short. Having too much stuff in a small space makes the place feel cluttered and messy. Try to keep things behind curtains, behind closed doors and inside the drawers.

Hope these organizing tips for small spaces helped you. I will love to hear what worked best for you and any new idea!

Check out how this guy put it all together:

You can also check out these related articles:

Space saving furniture

Storage for small spaces

Has it ever happened to you finding yourself walking around the room from side to side with some object in your hands, let’s say a hair cutting machine, not knowing where to shove it? The worst case is when you have only some poor square footage to cross with no clue… I don’t know in which situation you are in, I have only 140 square feet to deal with, so I went to check for some space saving solutions in order to bill myself out of this terror. You must be aware to the fact that not resolving this problem brings you to the start point of the clutter horror zone in which you start to grow piles of stuff everywhere. If you don’t take control of your space, your space will take control of you. I will touch this subject in another article, but for now, small space dweller, you must know there are some really cool solutions increasing your precious space.

In order to overcome this problem, the first thing you have to do is a check list.

1. Check list

Before you run to buy or do something, make a check list. In order to create more space, you will first of all, have to think of all the things you really need and all the rest you can do without. I know it’s a tough one, when I did it, I asked one of my friends to help me out. It made it much easier, fast and fun.

I started to list all the things I didn’t want any more in my life. Oh boy, the first one was the TV. Yes, I was already sick of the brainwash besides the fact that it took me much space. I believe it’s important to stay tuned to what is going on, but still, in my case I needed everything to be compact! So here is the second advice for space saving solutions:

2. Get rid of your TV and have it all on your PC!

The internet killed the TV stars! Not really. The clever ones in our days are connected to the internet. Again, I don’t know how much space you have but in my case, a TV set with a satellite decoder, DVD and all the cables just didn’t fit into my place without taking much of the space. If you still want to have TV programs you can get one of those services that connect directly to your PC. You save space and money! And if you are worried for those special occasions where you want to have your film marathon night, you can get a projector connected to your PC. There is nothing more cool to impress your new date or friends, then to screen a movie on one of your small but big enough walls.

3. Squeeze your footage

It is time to think how to convert all the space you have into a storage place. Pictures are worth more than a thousand words, check out this idea to open your mind…

Image via Apartment Therapy

4. Pop up furniture

The next video I popped in one day, brings a cool solution for space saving. It is the POP UP project created by Austrian designers Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner. It is something that made me think in a new way. You know that feeling of something tickling your brain…:

(Check out the full article for more amazing pop-up furniture on Dwell magazine).

Pop-up books and pop up greeting cards became the inspiration for furniture. It really gives a good positive response to the disturbing pop ups online advertising… So let’s see how Japanese industrial design student Shin Yamashita from the Kyoto Institute of Technology figured it out with his Land peel.

As described in an article on designboom, the Land Peel “is a flat three piece mat set from which a table, seat or rest can be made simply by lifting the panels. When done using, the furniture can be discreetly tucked away.” (Read the full article with more pics of Land Peel on designboom). There are much more pop up space saving solutions out there that might fit your place.

5. Decorative space saving furniture

Decoration is needed in every space, big or small. Another great space saving solution I ran into is furniture that can be a decorative item and functional furniture too. There are lots of ideas out there but check this cool Picture table by Ivydesign:

Image via Momoy

6. Inside the box

Living in a small space makes you think out of the box however, on the other hand it is very useful to start thinking in boxes. Searching for storage boxes for my small space I found this precious item designed by architect Sigurd Larsen called The Shrine.

As described in the article on the architect’s site regarding this beautiful and magical box: “The Shrine is a hub of drawers and doors accessible only with keys. Private items can safely be locked away in small spaces. For the very most personal items a secret room can be reached behind one of the drawers.” (Read more here). You can also watch the video describing how small apartments inspired the architect in his work:

7. Room dividers with built-in storage

In my small apartment, I didn’t want to have walls to separate space functions because they reduce the vision and thus create a smaller space. In order to keep the flow but in the same time have more storage, you can use a room divider with built-in storage such as bookshelves. In this fantastic item, the FlexiTube Modular Shelving created by Doris Kisskalt and in any other item of this kind, you can close some of the shelve units by a decorative plate in order to achieve a more private zone.

Image via Bonluxat

Space saving solutions are infinite. I find it exiting to discover great new ideas for small spaces. Our journey will continue and I will be happy to hear the ideas that worked for you!

Related articles:

Storage for small spaces

Space saving furniture

I try not to purchase stuff I don’t need, that’s a good point of living in a small space, but sometimes, the stuff you really need, you have no idea where to store. Solutions for this problem, how to achieve more storage for small spaces, I started to review in this article. But there will be more to come…

In My little room design experience, I posted the remarkable winning project designed by Jordan Parnass Digital Architecture (JPDA). In this project we have smart storage idea using staircase. Another great example for the same concept is this stairs-library. It is beautiful how the lines of the stairs are being transformed into the library lines:

Image via Design Concept Ideas

The next inspiring idea is how to achieve more storage for small spaces in a sitting unit. On techeblog.com I found this interesting Side Chair designed by Alexander Kneller, which comes with an option for an open lower area for storage.

Same concept for storage in a sitting unit from another angle, Ofo chair by Solovyov Design:

“Here’s a very interesting idea that could mess with one’s mind” describes the author in a Freshome article. This is a mind blowing storage piece designed by Bjørn Jørund Blikstad. Imeüble shelving system appears to be at the first glance a picture on the wall…

On Yanko Design, the author gives a perfect description of the piece:

“Confused? It’s really quite simple and wonderful. As you look at the shelves, they appear to be flat, sideways, weird in some way or another to your eyes. In reality, they’re simple plastic, shaped in a way that instills an image that’s much stronger than its actual simple function. Thus its relationship to how spoken/written words work – while the word itself is quite simple, what it represents can be quite complicated.” (Read the full article here)

There are so many exiting ideas about storage for small spaces and I will come back to review this category soon. For some more inspiring examples check my last post Space saving furniture.

Living in a small apartment means you can’t really have that pool table you have always dreamed of, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have all the things you need and moreover, you can come out really cool with these smart out of the box furniture we’re about to see. As we saw in how to make small room look bigger, space saving furniture is one of the great solutions in order to have more square feet at your service.

Image via Itchy

There are lots of space saving furniture solutions available for you to be inspired of in the market, furniture which have more than one purpose. A living room turned into bed room and to dining room (check Small living room ideas), the ideas are unlimited. You can find foldout couch, sofa beds, beds with drawers for storage, a chair that could be turned into a table, chest that can be used as a coffee table, chest of drawers, drawers as stairs, stairs as cupboards etc.

The first item that has a lot of variations is definitely the staircase. It is there, and it is in your fantasy how you can turn it to something else. I will dedicate an item for staircases because there are a lot of great inspiring examples out there.

Bookcase staircase by Levitate Architects

Now I’m just going to roll some great ideas for you to be inspired by… enjoy…

Cube style. Image via Apartment Therapy

Tetris. Image via Tech Digest

Guarda Inside-Out Chair by Zanic Design. Image via Inhabitat

Space saving furniture is mind blowing! Some of them I will explore with more detail in my next posts so stay tuned…

When I had my first apartment I was so delighted, having only 145 square feet (the main living space without the washroom and the kitchen) just couldn’t get me down. I became a small space design hunter digging every site, blog and video in this big space of the net. My little space design trip departed.

Small space design became so fascinating that I just fell in love with the little space concept, the living small people, the small but smart furniture and all the wonderful ideas and thinking for making a small space a great place to live in.

OK, I started my space trip having to resolve my 145 square feet. I thought it was small, well it is actually very small, but after this hilarious 1 min video for a successful life in a small apartment, I knew I was lucky…:

Simplicity and functionality, there’s no space for more. When you need to have all your life goods in one little room, you need to simplify. It reminds me of the great Hans Hofmann who said:

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak”

A small room design brings out what’s important, that is why the small space is actually a way of living… mmm, it makes me think now of all the things I have and all the things I will have to say goodbye to…

Back to cruising the web, I stumbled across this inspiring 320sf space:

Image via Marie Claire Maison

Lovely crystal clear white, I love it! And look how the red accents make the blood float in your veins…

This next amazing small space experience I ran into is the  AIA Small Projects Award  winning 2010 for the East Village Studio renovation. Designed by Jordan Parnass Digital Architecture (JPDA). This space graces us with a brilliant example for a design concept using one strong element to distinguish the space orientation. Look how this lovely wooden volume is giving strength and center to its surroundings.

Notice the smart storage interpreted in the stair case as drawers, notice the slightly reflective material on the wall unit working as mirrors to make the narrow space look larger. These are important elements we definitely need in a small space. We’ll check this in another post…

The contrast of the white walls brings out the warmth of the woodwork. This thing about wanting to get back into the warmth of the womb in the small room design experience brought me to this amazing video I ran into yesterday called “Embryo” by this cool guy Vladec Zankovsky in his blog Illuzia. I know it has nothing to do with apartments and this post, but it’s dealing with our small room called planet and I just had to share it with you so take a ride…

Well, I’m glad to start my little room design experience with you people. I know we have allot to share and I will love to hear about spaces that changed your life.

Choosing the right colors for small rooms is a very important moment. It is for any room, but especially for small ones because we want to achieve a bigger appearance. Color can emphasize certain features – and minimize others, so lets see how we can use it best.

As we saw in my post showing ideas how to make a small room look bigger, if you have no experience with the effects of the various color options, the strongest suggestion, where you can’t get it wrong, is to use light and bright ones, especially the cool ones as blue, green and purple, because they reflect any natural light and thus fools the eye into seeing a larger space. Tameka Norris, in her article about the best paint colors for small rooms, add to this concept: “Generally, warm colors get the opposite results that cool colors get. That is, they make a room feel smaller because they appear as though they are coming toward you. However, they also make a space feel cozy, which means it’s sometimes worth the sacrifice to pick a warm color, especially if you love it.”

Another safe advice is brought on About.com in an article regarding how to make a small room look bigger. Their suggestion is to coordinate wall and furniture colors: “Contrasting colors tend to break up a space. Pieces of furniture are less interrupting and tend to blend with the space if they’re colored to match the wall color.”

On Must know How, in an article titled 3 interior color rules for small rooms, they give the same advice which is to keep it simple. “Don’t mix up colors… If you have a carpet in the room, try to blend the colors nicely. Avoid any complicated wallpaper that will draw attention to the small room.”

As we mentioned before, color can emphasize certain features – and minimize others. In an interesting article on Sherwin Williams, one of the author’s advices is how you can use color in a long and narrow room in order to enlarge it. The idea is to use a slightly darker color on the shorter walls and a lighter color on the longer walls. The effect achieved is that the darker wall appears closer and the lighter ones appear with more distance from one another so this way the narrow vision is enlarged.

To sum it up, choosing colors for small rooms can be simple using bright and cool ones. All the advices here work well but you can always experiment your fantasies because that’s what life is all about and having a small space it won’t cost you much… This post is just a starter, I will come back soon to the subject exploring it more profoundly that’s for sure – so stay tuned!

Today I want to check some more small living room ideas. As we saw in my previous articles, designing small spaces forces you to think out of the box. The next example, work of Japanese designer Yusuke Suzuki, is not dealing with small spaces but it is so brilliant, lovely and out of the box that I had to share it here. I found it on Homedit in a nice article talking about kids and books.

Work of Yusuke Suzuki

In this case the artist imagined a bad that can be also used as a playground in form of a book. This brings me to the next example, a beautiful and genius project by the Matroshka Furniture which passion is giving the customer furniture that goes beyond the ordinary.

Project of Matroshka Furniture

The designers of this project imagined a small space containing an office and a living room that can also be used as a dining room and a bed room, all in only 15 square meters. A modular system that you can arrange by your current need of the space.

Another great idea, I found in this interesting post on Small Notebook called “How to Achieve Uncluttered Without Going Bare, Cold, or Minimal”. Here we get to see a small apartment in Venice Italy, described by the author as “a great lesson for achieving the balance of creating a peaceful, uncluttered space but not going so far as to make it feel cold or stark.”

Image via Small Notebook

Besides the good advices keeping the horizontal spaces clear, notice the design of the book shelves. Not only it is floor-to-ceiling which creates a taller vision of the space (a concept we have analyzed in my post Make small room look bigger), it is also including the door frame. This design achieves a clean look of the entire room even though the wall itself is very dense with books. This operation of including the door frame in the book shelf as it was a big shelf in it, is freeing the eye and creating a peaceful atmosphere.

Small living room ideas are endless because less space you got more effort you spend on planning, and thus greater results.

I was searching for small apartment decorating ideas after checking some design options in my last post. Every apartment needs to be decorated but it seems like there are some important decorating tips that help in a small space.

The first element for decorating a small space is the mirror. Not only it doubles the space creating a profounder vision, it also reflects the light around it and it can reflect the outdoors if put in the right spot.

Decorative Wall Mirror-Sensu by Porada

In order to make a small room look bigger, you can use a large decorative mirror on the wall or you can attach one on the cabinets fronts. A beautiful idea using mirrors is to place a big decorative one right next to the dinning room table. Another good trick using a mirror, just like with curtains, is to use a long skinny one floor-to-ceilling. Besides giving a more profound look of the space, it also makes it look taller. If a large mirror costs too much for your possibilities at the moment, you can use some small ones put together. They cost less and they create an interesting original wall decoration.

Image via Hitdecors

Another small apartment decorating idea is the curtain, or better say, the way you use it in order to make your place look bigger. “…raise your drapes all the way up to the bottom of the crown” indicates the AB home interiors blog. Just as we saw with the floor-to-ceilling bookcase and the tall and skinny mirrors, the long elements give the impression of a taller space.

Image via AB home interiors blog

I found this great article in Savvysugar. One beautiful idea they give is “Buy a small amount of silk shantung remnants and line pillows and curtain panels with inexpensive burlap.” Like this you save money and get a gorgeous result from the contrast between high and low fabric texture. It doesn’t make your place look any bigger but I just loved the idea so much that I had to share it here in my little blog…

Image via Savvysugar

Small apartment decorating ideas never end… I will come back soon with some more.