3 Things to Know When Decorating a Tiny Apartment

By Danielle Wirsansky on May 8, 2018

This article is brought to you by CORT Furniture Rental. We take the hassle out of furnishing your new place so you can do more important things like read this article. Learn more about why furniture rental is the best way to get a great looking apartment.

College living brings about so many freedoms to students and young adults. You can get to be independent, on your own, and responsible for yourself. It sounds great, and it is great for the most part, but there are also some less glamorous aspects of college independence that often get overlooked. These include making your own money and keeping to a budget. And often, these two things lead to…. Tiny apartment living.

Movies and TV shows make it seem like housing is an affordable thing. But housing, especially in college towns, is not that affordable. And when you are a newly independent adult, just starting to make your own money, you cannot afford much. You most likely will not be able to find the spacious living accommodations such as showcased by famed sitcom, “Friends.” Often, your apartment or even your bedroom will be small. You might even be able to categorize it as outright tiny.

One aspect of independent living that most students look forward to when getting their own space is being afforded the ability and choice to decorate and make the space their own. But sometimes this can be tricky when the space you are trying to decorate is tiny. So read on to learn some things to consider when decorating a tiny apartment!

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Storage is Key

An important factor to consider when decorating a tiny apartment is how much storage space you have. Does your room have a closet? How big is said closet? Can it fit everything you need it to? If you cannot fit all of your clothing items in your closet, then you often need bigger pieces of furniture, like dressers, which can be hard to fit or navigate into a tiny space. Is there a way that you can utilize as much of your closet space as possible to avoid storing clothes and the like in large, excess pieces of furniture? Can you stick a shoe rack on the inside of your closet door? Can you add shelving to the shelf above where you hang the clothes so that you can make the most of that space? Can you add a second rack to your closet so that you can hang more items up? You want to make as much use out of your closet as you can so that you do not have items spilling out into your room, which does not have that much space to begin with, and so that you do not have to waste the precious space in your room with bulky furniture.

Another question to consider is whether your apartment has a linen closet, or do you need to find another place to store said items? Many people take for granted that their apartment will have a linen closet or other extra closets in the apartment that they can store their items in, but this is not often the case, especially in tiny apartments. Do not take for granted that you will have storage space and always, always check!

Beauty Vs. Practicality

Another thing to consider when decorating a tiny apartment is what is most important to you—beauty or practicality? When it is a small space, you need to make the most of what is available to you. You probably have a fair number of things to fit into your room in addition to making it aesthetically pleasing, but you might have to decide which is more important to you. Maybe you have always dreamed of having a fancy, metal wrought daybed in your room. But practically, the best way to fit both a bed and a desk in your room is to get one of the bed/desk combos that is like a bunk bed and puts your bed up into the air and elevates it above your desk, so you end up filling one space with two big, bulkier items. There will always be a compromise.

Sometimes you can manage to do both at once—your bed can be elevated enough that you can use the space underneath it for storage. That way, you can still have the bed of your dreams and not use space. You can add shelving around the top of your room, a space that ordinarily would not be able to be used, and display favorite items of yours as decorations instead of storing and hiding them away. Find little ways to make things that are practical beautiful too.

Photo by Tranmautritam from Pexels

K.I.S.S.

When all else fails, it is time to K.I.S.S. which stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid! The best way to keep a tiny space uncluttered and open is to keep everything as simple as you can. Beauty, practicality, push them away to the side and just get what you actually need and must have into your room first and go from there. Do not sweat the small stuff. Just keep it simple.

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