Decorating your Studio Apartment

 

 

Have you ever heard the saying: “All good things come in small packages”? I bet you have.  When it comes to living spaces though, the general perception is that bigger is better.

 

 

However, most of us at one point or another have been confronted with the challenge of living in a tiny house. Perharps you have just finished school and are on a tight budget, or you are in between jobs and you cannot afford the luxury of a big home or maybe, you are on a short job assignment away from your home town. Whatever your specific case, your small studio apartment need not confine you and cramp your style.  With a little planning and creativity, it’s possible to furnish and decorate your small single room apartment to provide all the functionality, comfort and beauty that you require. Let us look at some tips on how to do this.

 

Define Activity Zones: It’s best to create separate zones for cooking/dining, sleeping, working and lounging. It’s fairly natural to place your bed in one corner, your desk in another and a couch against another wall. You can make each section more defined with area rugs and different yet complementary colour schemes.

Create Physical Barriers: Physically demarcating the various activity zones helps define these spaces further. Use beaded curtains or airy drapes that can be pinned back. Transparent or translucent materials are preferable for demarcation as they create a sense of spaciousness by allowing light through.

Use Space Saving Furniture: Multi functional furniture like a sofabed performs more than one function but occupy little space. Foldable chairs and nested stools are also excellent for saving space as they are retracted when in use and folded or stacked together when not in use.

 

Use Unarmed Furniture: To conserve space, choose armless chairs and sofas.  You will be surprised how much space that arm that so often gets into your way occupies.

 

Utilise Vertical Space: Some studio apartments have high celings thus providing a lot of vertical space and wall space. A loft bed is a creative way of utilising this space and freeing up floor room. The space underneath the bed can serve as a working station or provide more room for storage.

 

Get Creative with Storage: Dealing with clutter is always a challenge when you have a studio apartment. Clutter is not only unsightly but also makes the room appear even smaller. Finding little things in a muddIed can be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. To declutter and make the most of space, you can:

• Use furniture that doubles as storage – Make use of wooden benches that simultaneously provide seating and hidden storage. A bunker bed will also provide ample, confined space for storage.

 

• Stash away rarely used clothes in a bag – Put your clothes in a bag and roll the bag to force air out. You can then store your compressed clothes bags in your bunker bed

 

• Use solid stacked boxesfor storage – Add a touch of décor by using the top of the box as platform for a painting or porait.

 

• Install shelves on walls – If your apartment has a high ceiling, utilise the high walls by mounting storage shelves and cabinets. Such a shelf can also serve as a TV stand.
  

  Tansu storage chest

 

Use mirrors to add light – Mirrors add light and also create an illusion of more space. You can cover a full wall with one giant mirror or hang a few small mirrors here and there. You can also set a mirror on a table and use it to hold candles or a flower vase.

Stretch the horizon with art – A large landscape painting can create an illusion of depth, pulling the viewer beyond the small walls of your apartment. You can achieve this effect with a small vertical painting placed in a kitchen alcove or a large horizontal piece placed above a sofa.

Paint with Light colours – Painting your walls with light colours will make the most of light and make your studio apartment appear larger than it actually is. You can add style and brightness by painting one wall a different colour

 

Posted by Pambo Maridadi @ Crown Paints Kenya Ltd  Email: info@crownpaints.co.ke