Empty Apartment? Interior Design for Small Spaces

Achieving attractive interior design for small spaces is a difficult task for most apartment dwellers. A design scheme that looks eye-catching in a home with more space might make an apartment feel cramped; other design schemes fail to effectively make small spaces functional. Learn how to effectively decorate the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom in a small apartment.

The Importance of Function

More than interior decorating in homes, interior design in small spaces needs to stress function foremost. Function-focused design needs to make the most of every inch, from the floors to the ceiling. Some examples of interior design that make organization simple include:

• Vertical shelving units (tall and not wide) with a foot stool for easy reaching
• Over-the-door cabinet organizers
• Cabinet lazy susans, for easy access
• Drawer organizers
• Stackable, collapsible storage boxes that can be stored away when not in use
• Couches, chairs and beds with enough space underneath to keep storage boxes

Downsize

One of the best ways to have attractive, functional interior design for small spaces is to think smaller. The largest part of any room is furniture, so start by downsizing your furniture. Think loveseat instead of couch, sleek dressers with a wall mirror hung above for wall decoration instead of ornate vanity tables, etc.

Focal Points

When working on interior design for small spaces, the key is not to go overboard but instead to find a few central focal points. You can accomplish this with an attractive central piece of furniture or furnishing like a bed and mattress, a shower curtain, dining table or entertainment center. Or you can make your wall decoration or floors the focal point; hang just one or two photos or paintings on the wall or find a rug for the floors (carpet, wood or linoleum) that matches your decor.

Do It Yourself

You can’t always find the perfect tall vertical shelving unit or a table that fits snugly and attractively into your plan to decorate the living room, so if you can, make it yourself. Purchase pre-cut wood from a housewares store and put furniture together yourself. If making furniture from scratch is too daunting, you can redesign existing furniture. Stack short shelving units on top of each other or decorate an existing small table by stapling a bold fabric around the tabletop and covering it with a sheet of glass to prevent damage from spills. You can make pillows or throws out of fabric to continue a similar pattern throughout a room. DIY wall decoration includes framing your home photos with an artistic touch. Turn a photo of personal significance into a work of art by working with image editing programming. Just changing it from color to black and white can make a difference. You can also make DIY wall decoration by framing swatches of fabric. If you’ve used the same fabric on your DIY table and pillows, you can extend the pattern to the walls this way and make a bold and pleasant statement in small spaces that’s not too overpowering.

Interior design for small spaces should stress function and focal points without cramming the rooms with too many or too large furnishings. DIY touches can complete the design without a lot of effort or cost.