Small Space Design Ideas | Interior Designer Work From Home

Hey guys, welcome back. And today we're gonna cover a subject that a lot of you have asked about, which is how do you work with small spaces? If you are living in a small space now, or maybe a rental that's kind of on the tight side, just type in tiny down below. Okay, so the first thing that you wanna understand about reading your space is you've got to understand visual scale. And one of your biggest components for visual scale is actually your flooring material. So if you're in a situation where all the flooring is kind of the same, that's a good thing. If you're in a situation where things are broken up, now I'm not talking about bathrooms or bedrooms where there might be carpet and then you might have wood flooring in another area or tile. But if you have an area that is wood flooring or a space in your living room where it's all one flooring, make sure you don't break it up with a bunch of rugs. Because what happens is your eye needs to travel along uninterrupted. And the more it does, the larger the space is going to feel. So that's trick number one about scale. The second trick about scale is the actual overall color of your envelope. And when I say envelope, I mean walls, doors, trims, and ceilings, okay? When you're in a small space, you don't have the luxury of doing kind of a colored wall and then maybe a white trim or something like that. It just breaks the space up and the surfaces up too much. So what you wanna do is decide on a color that can go on all the surfaces. So I typically do small spaces in one of two ways. If I do them light, I do them in a warm white. You could look at say Benjamin Moore's Swiss coffee or something along those ranges. And we'll link to that down below because that's a great color for everything. And then you just paint the baseboards, door trim, the doors, the ceilings, the walls, everything with the same paint. And what that does is it blows out any lines that might be breaking up the space. The second way you can play a small space in terms of the color of the envelope, if you have the huevos and you don't mind repainting, because that'll be the trick. If you're in a rental, you're gonna probably have to paint this back. But the trick is to take the whole thing super dark. Now I don't mean black, but I mean kind of a richy charcoal or maybe a super tonal teal or something that's really rich and sensuous. And what that does is that makes the whole space really read contiguous. And that's what you need as well. Because again, doors, windows, window trims, everything goes out that same color. What you do to trick that out is you create one like light fixture or one piece of art that's well lit that is really light or a mirror. A mirror is a great trick too, but we'll talk more about that in a few minutes. That way you have the super dramatic experience and you just go, you know what? Dark makes the space feel small, but so what I'm celebrating small if you do it that way. So remember, scale stories, and that's what we're dealing with here when it's a small space, it's about directing your eye to something that you want them to see, all right? So now we've covered our envelope. It's either a light envelope or it's a dark envelope, right? Then what you have to do is decide on one thing that's going to be a fabulous focal point that people see right when they walk in. I love to do light fixtures. A lot of times, sometimes in apartments, you won't have a ceiling light fixture opportunity in the ceiling. So if it's not something like that, make it a fabulous artwork piece of an amazing mirror, something that draws the eye to that so that the overall space isn't vying for attention with that one fabulous piece. And that way people tend not to notice that the envelope might feel a little bit tighter than say, you know, a normal 2,500 square foot house or a thousand square foot house or something like that. So another trick that has been used for ages for small spaces is the use of mirror. Now, if you're in a rental, there's so many great big leaner mirrors that you can get out there. And some of them are like six feet high. You can lean them against the wall or you can attach them with, you know, Velcro tape and things so that they don't move around. But the great thing about mirror is that if you can get a large one, it really reflects both the light and the space that's in front of it back. And so what you get is you get a trick of the eye to feel like the space feels larger than it is. I have done it where say it's a tight dining room or it's a super small area. I have put mirror throughout the whole wall. Now, again, don't install them if you're in a rental, but what you can do is buy three six foot mirrors and run them all the way across the wall. And that will in effect, basically reflect everything that's going into the room. And so what that does is it gives you this really sort of expansive sensation and you can check your hair often. So another thing that you wanna think about when you're dealing with a small space is what are your upholstery choices? Oftentimes we need to do things like high to beds or beds that convert into sleeping conditions and things like that. And that's all great. The key to your upholstered pieces, there's two keys actually. The key to them would be, you want to make sure that you keep the lines rather simple and you wanna keep the scale right. And what's great now is that, and this didn't used to be the case. You almost had to do custom things, but now you've got vendors out there like CB2, West Elm, I think even, I don't know, Restoration Hardware might even have an apartment collection. Those are places where you can find things that are, like sofas that are only 72 inches long. And that's great because the last thing you want in a tight space is over-scaled upholstery because everything is going to feel wrong if the upholstered items are just way too big for the space. It just doesn't work. So understand that you really need to make sure that you study what you're selecting first. I also like to keep them kind of simple in terms of upholstery options. Like if you've opted for a dark space, I would not necessarily do also a dark big sofa, for instance. I'd probably pick a like linen or something like that that kind of makes it pop in the space, but keep the scale correct. That's the key. So along with tiny spaces comes tiny bedrooms, almost always. So what do you do there? One of my favorite solutions actually is the platform bed. And I love it for two reasons. One, it's less expensive. A, you don't have to buy the box spring to go with it. But B, what's great about them is that because they are traditionally rather low, what it does is it creates a volume of space above the bed so that it makes the room feel more generous in size than it may actually be. There's a couple of them out there that I really love. We'll put some links down below, but if you have one that you like, let me know in the comments because I'm always looking for good new ones like that. On the sides of the beds, you're gonna need to do something kind of lighter weight and lighter scale. You don't have the ability to put in these heavy nightstands with the lamps and all the rest of it. A lot of times you don't even have the space. What you can do is go to someplace like Ikea or something and just get one of those nice thick shelves and you can attach those to the wall and that can end up being the place where you put your phone and maybe a little reading light or whatever it is you need beside the bed. But it's just this lovely little dash of a statement beside the bed. And you put it down low so that you can access it while you're laying in bed. And it again, keeps the whole feeling of what's happening furniture wise low enough so that it creates a volume space in the bedroom. So the last thing and it's crucial is small spaces force you to be organized. You may not love it, but it's a benefit in the long run. Clutter honestly is one of those things that is like a visual roadblock. People visually can't get past it. So you've got to keep things fairly minimal, avoid like the plague, bookshelves, any kind of open display shelving. That is just a clutter nightmare waiting to happen. Now I understand everybody needs storage spaces, but what you wanna do is you wanna go to a vendor that has great baskets or storage containers and things and put your stuff in the baskets and then line those up. So everything always looks clean and neat and organized. It's crucial because anything that looks kind of untidy, anybody out there that has kids knows exactly what I'm talking about when those toys are everywhere, it's a mess, right? And so what you do is you put them in big bins, put them away, you look fabulous. Now, I'm not saying that everything has to go away forever. Choose wisely the pieces that you do put out because they should either be spectacular and singular or make them have some sort of visual story that connects to your life, which is interesting. It could be textural, it could be a color story, but you want it to be a single item that really speaks to you and the space and then leave it. So I'd love it if you'd comment down below and let us know what kind of problems you're finding with your small spaces in particular, and we'd be more than happy to address it. And if you like this video, you know what to do, subscribe, share with a friend and ring the bell.