Discover creative, budget-friendly tips for transforming your rented living space into a cozy and personalized home without breaking lease agreements or upsetting your landlord.
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Is your apartment space at a dire premium? Are you knocking over vacuum cleaners or stubbing your toe and busting your kneecaps off jagged furniture edges every second day? Are the walls closing in on you, suffocating you, as though your dwelling is shrinking with each passing minute? Take a breath, reassess, and remind yourself that your claustrophobia is only your here and now and won’t be your forevermore, especially after reading our article. And, no, we’re not saying call a realtor and start looking for a three-story colonial palace. Rather, you can make immediate changes that maximize your apartment space to its fullest extent, dramatically increasing your productivity, comfort, and—yes—your mood. All you need to do is follow our tips below, and you’ll go from living in a shoebox to a penthouse, all without leaving your rental unit. Assess Your Furniture And Adjust Accordingly Furniture isn’t always at the heart of an apartment’s issues with dwindling space. Clutter could be the primary culprit, and in many cases, it is. However, you’ve got to apply logic to your problem-solving, and logic dictates that furniture—by its nature—takes up the most space. Thus, you must explore potential alternatives exhaustively, even if you’re besotten by your decor. First and foremost, it’s time to consider multifunctional and space-saving furniture. The following options ensure your apartment's decor provides optimal comfort while preventing clutter: A storage ottoman with inner compartments will help declutter and clear space, giving you space to store clothing, linens, and other accessories. When space is limited, having a separate sofa and bed is inefficient and superfluous. Thus, if you’re a studio apartment dweller, you should invest in a sofa bed so you can enjoy a good night’s sleep without waking up feeling cramped and squeezed in—once you fold your bed back into its couch form. Similarly, a Murphy bed that folds against the wall provides additional floor space, so you can do yoga, play video games, or do whatever you please with unabashed freedom of movement. Your coffee table need not only be a welcoming surface for your beloved morning cuppas. Many options on the market have storage shelves underneath for decorative items, books, and magazines. In the same vein, consider a compact work desk with built-in cabinets, drawers, and shelves for your stationery supplies and personal documents. Other useful options to consider: Nesting tables. Modular shelves. Furniture with hidden storage. Lightweight foldable chairs. Step stool with a storage compartment. Once you’ve decided on your new furniture, assess the general flow to ensure it jives seamlessly with space optimization. Vertical Space: Every Apartment Owner’s Secret Weapon Space isn’t simply what’s in front or behind us; it’s also what’s above us. As you aim to leverage your space, don’t limit yourself to stagnant horizontal thinking; it’s time to kick things up a notch with a more vertical perspective. Additions to your apartment, like over-the-door hooks, wall-mounted shelves, and tall cabinetry (e.g., bookshelves), all utilize your up-and-down space to its fullest extent. This way, you aren’t wasting any inch your apartment offers. Are there any stairs in your apartment? If so, maximize this vertical space with step baskets and built-in drawers to store books, shoes, and other potential forms of clutter. Search For Your Hidden Gems Your space is your space. While you can undoubtedly maximize it with creative and strategic thinking, you still must play the cards you’ve been dealt. You can’t magically wave a wand and add an extra 500 square feet to your unit. None of this is to discourage you—if anything, it’s a rallying cry, a call to action. You need to delve into your apartment's labyrinth and assess it from all angles. Common “gold mines” of space are furnace rooms, the area under your bed, linen closets, and so on. You can bolster those “hidden gems” of space with carefully purchased items like under-bed storage bins, closet organizers, and portable utility carts for your furnace room. Turn Your Bathroom Into A Free-Flowing Paradise Your apartment might not be a single-standing ‘house,’ but it’s no less your home, and your home is a castle. If your apartment is your castle, your bathroom is your paradise of solitude—your most private area where you can just…relax and be you. Harnessing a restroom’s unique sense of freedom becomes much harder when grooming, hygiene, and beauty items are strewn all over the place. Purchasing a vertical shelving unit (potentially located behind your toilet) gives you an area to store all these items without them overruling your lone place of sanctuary. Also, door-mounted (or wall-mounted) hooks are a must for your wet towels, lest they pile up on the floor and rob you of precious spaciousness. Adding wall-mounted shelving units to your shower can also prevent your bathroom from being overrun by a sea of shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and face washes. Clearing the clutter in your bathroom is crucial, as it's often one of the first places you visit in the morning and your last pitstop before bed. Ensuring the space is welcoming and free-flowing will ensure each day starts and ends on the right note. Getting Down To Brass Tacks: It’s Time To Declutter This tip might be difficult for sentimental apartment owners yearning for more space, but it’s a salient piece of advice. You have to declutter. Often, people will explore every avenue of maximizing their space before getting to the nitty-gritty of getting rid of the things they don’t need. We grasp that minimizing your possessions isn’t easy. Even if you’re not sentimental, eliminating clutter is daunting, and the very notion of it is conducive to rampant procrastination. You still need to declutter, though. If you can’t do it alone, consider deputizing a friend to help you and creating an action plan together. You can also consider hiring a trash or clutter removal company to further streamline the process—many services cater to these needs. Lastly, we must stress the importance of compartmentalization. Highly cluttered apartments will take time to separate the wheat from the chaff entirely. Break it into smaller chunks and steadily eat away at the mess. The Power Of Perception: Harnessing Lighting To Maximize Apartment Space Space–or at least our perception of it—can be an optical illusion, but the magic can most certainly be palpable and real. Apply this form of delightful sorcery to maximize your apartment space with these lighting tricks: Use table lamps, string lights, and floor lights to foster an expansive and cozy atmosphere. Avoid standard overhead lighting options; they’re harsh and make your space feel smaller. Warm, soft lights lend a sense of spaciousness to your home. LED light strips under furniture and along the baseboard will provide depth, adding to the “illusion” of broader living space. Carefully placing mirrors throughout your apartment will further enhance your sense of spaciousness. With these tips, you’re more than equipped to maximize your apartment, turning your diminutive space into a sprawling fortress of comfort. Also integral to maximizing your apartment space is renting a large enough unit for your needs to begin with—an area we’re more than familiar with at GM Holdings. Contact us today to learn more about our listings throughout Philadelphia, or view them for yourself.
