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Whether you live in a huge house or a compact apartment, your home is your castle, your sanctuary, and the space where you should feel most free to be yourself. As such, your home should reflect your signature decorative style and taste. Depending on what kind of apartment you live in, you may wonder how to make the most of your interior design choices. Do you have a contemporary apartment? One bed? Two bed? With the following apartment decorating tips and tricks, you can make a big impact even when decorating a small space.
Our 5 Favorite Apartment Decorating Ideas
1. Start by Decluttering
First things first: before bringing anything else in, see what you can remove from your apartment. With the ease of ordering items online and having the packages delivered to your door, it’s not hard to accumulate piles of unnecessary or little-used stuff. This might be an annoyance in a larger house, but in an apartment, it can become downright distracting. In fact, research has shown that being surrounded by clutter can significantly raise stress levels. Decluttering doesn’t just make your apartment look better; science says it will make you feel better, as well.
2. Lighten up the Color Palette
If your landlord is OK with you painting the walls, this is an excellent way to start adding some personal pizazz to your apartment. Remember that while dark colors absorb light and make rooms feel smaller, light colors will make a small space feel bigger. This doesn’t mean you’re relegated to stark white; choose walls in off-white tones or light blues and greens. If you must have some bold colors in your space, choose small accent walls or throw in some variation with furniture in striking colors. To really lighten the room, add more light fixtures or switch to brighter bulbs. Combined with the lighter colors, it’ll light up the room and make it feel that much more spacious.
3. Choose Multipurpose Furniture
Living in an apartment sometimes requires you to get creative with the way you use your square footage. This makes multipurpose furniture pieces not just a nice decorative touch — but also highly useful. A comfortable foldout sofa bed lets you turn your living room into a spare bedroom in a snap. Items like a coffee table with storage inside or a hanging shelf system with a pull-out desk are good for daily use as well as stashing items away. Also, consider using room dividers that can be used to separate areas and create privacy but that also adds a nice decorative touch. Another benefit of multipurpose furniture is that when you decide to live elsewhere, it enables you to move quickly and easily without having to deal with as many furniture items.
4. Shop for Floating Furniture
Speaking of furniture: if you have lots of bulky furniture in a small apartment, it will quickly overwhelm the space. It also makes small space entertaining more difficult, as having the space overloaded with furniture will make it difficult for people to move around. Go light on your furniture selection and try to opt for floating furniture and wall-mounted shelves and cabinetry. In addition to taking up less space, these choices will make your home feel more open and airy. If floating furniture alone isn’t enough, go bold and try glass top tables in the dining area or living room. Being see-through, you can see more of the room.
5. Take Your Storage to the Top
When it comes to wall-mounted shelving and storage, why settle for a bit here and there? Instead, choose a wall on which you can make a dramatic statement and install a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. This will not only create an inviting place to display your favorite reads; it will also offer a place to store and show off a variety of other items.
Just because an apartment is small doesn’t mean that your decor ideas have to be limited. In fact, by keeping tabs on your clutter and decorating in a thoughtful manner, you make a truly good apartment out of a space that starts out looking and feeling rather average.
