Small Apartment Decorating Ideas
Just because you live in a teeny, tiny apartment doesn't mean that a few decorating ideas can't make it lovable. If you take some time and invest a little money, you can decorate your small apartment so that it seems both homey and comfortable. Though you are bound by your rental agreement and won't change things like the flooring, cabinets or fixtures, you can make your place seem more spacious and more thought-out with the right furniture and paint. There are a few tricks to making your small apartment look like it belongs in the pages of a design magazine.
Clutter
Your tiny apartment is going to look like a rat's nest if you have your old receipts, makeup and junk mail lying around everywhere. Even a small mess looks huge if your apartment is tight enough. Pick up all of your cloths and put them back in your drawers or closet. Give away, recycle or somehow dispose of everything you don't need. Then, take things a step further. Go through all of the things you own just for decoration like pictures and tchotchkes. Pare everything way back. Unless you live in a dorm, you don't need posters on your walls. You should only keep something if you really enjoy looking at it. Give all the stuff you bought to try to make your place look less empty to charity and put all of the stuff you are hanging on to for sentimental reasons in a box in your parents' basement.
Maximize Furniture Functionality
Make your furniture do double-duty as storage. If you don't have things like a linen closet in your small apartment and you have a ton of stuff that you really do need but no place to put it, then invest in some furniture you can store those items in. For example, did you know that you can buy a sofa that has storage under the seat? That would be a great place to put linens, extra clothes or even things like tools and phone books. You can also get a couple of trunks and use them as coffee or end tables. You can fill them up with all of the papers you can't throw out like your income taxes and your lease.
Maximize Your Space
You can clear floor space in your little apartment by making better use of vertical space. Always choose shelving that goes all the way up to your ceiling. If you live in a studio apartment with high ceilings, you can seriously increase your space by building a loft bed. A loft bed will practically give you another entire room to work with, since you can move your bed, most of your clothing and even some things like books up high and out of your way. You can also make better use of your space by hanging your pots and pans from the ceiling in the kitchen instead of putting them in your cabinets.
Choose a color scheme. Your apartment will look much homier if you paint the walls instead of leaving them white. Do not try to incorporate every color under the sun into your decorating scheme, though. Pick a few colors and try to match your paint to all of your furniture. It will make your apartment look less cluttered.
