Many houses and apartments have one room that’s a bit too small to be a proper bedroom, and very often ends up as a kind of oversize cupboard where your belongings get piled up when they won’t fit anywhere else. Understandably, it doesn’t look great, and if you do need to find anything you’ll struggle to locate it within the jumble. In other cases, these small rooms stay half furnished and often abandoned, simply because they lack purpose. However, every space you have is a valuable resource, so if you do have one of these underused small rooms, it’s time to give it a makeover and bring it back into use.
Making your room look stylish
The key to making these rooms look good is to avoid overcrowding them, and to use well-crafted furniture, for example, shop ModLoft at Modern Digs for simple lines in modern designs. You could try using a trick that interior designers employ when they are dressing new build houses and look for slightly smaller furniture. This furniture will trick the eye into seeing a larger space because it has all the expected pieces in it and they don’t look oversized. Don’t try and fit too much into the room or it will look cluttered and be hard to use. Keep decorations minimal and use light colors and bright, coordinating fabrics and soft furnishings to enhance the feeling of space.
Deciding on the room’s purpose
There are some great ideas about for small rooms, so it’s worth having a browse on design sites and looking through some themed photo collections like those you’ll find on Pinterest.
Here are five possibilities:
1. Spare bedroom: You might be thinking that’s a lame idea because if the room were big enough to be a bedroom there wouldn’t be a problem! In a very small room where there’s no space for a standard bed, you can put a sofa bed, or sofa chair that folds down into a single bed. When they are in their couch form they won’t take up much room, and many modern designs look very stylish, to the point you can’t tell they are beds. You will then have a smart guest bedroom for friends and relatives, that you can also use as a comfortable space to relax with a coffee and a magazine or a good book.
2. Dressing room: It might sound like a bit of a luxury, but where’s the harm in adding something luxurious to your life? If you have room to keep all your clothes and shoes, it will help you keep everything much tidier. You could also have all your spare bedding, soft furnishings, coats and so on stored here if you have the room.
3. Reading nook: If you have a lot of books and magazines, instead of them cluttering up your living areas, line your small room with bookshelves and display all your literature together. You may be able to fit in a comfortable reading chair and a side table too, so you can relax in peace to browse your collection or settle down for a good read.
4. Home office: It’s amazing what you can do to make a fully functional office space in a very small area. People have made offices under their stairs and on their landings, so if you have a whole room, albeit tiny, then it’s more than possible to fit in everything you require for the perfect office space. There are many examples of space-saving desks that have clever storage and retractable surfaces that can be folded away when not in use. Choose a chair that will slide into the space under the desk rather than one that won’t fit, which is often an issue with office chairs and desks. It might not matter so much in a bigger room, but will be a problem in your small space.
5. Hobbies room: If you have a hobby, gathering all your projects and resources together in a dedicated space will make working on your pastime much easier, and you will have somewhere where you can be left undisturbed and in peace to pursue your interests. If you are a collector, it could also be an ideal, safe area to display all the items in your collection. Options for display cases are numerous, and there are styles suitable for all kinds of collectibles. If your hobby is keeping fit, you could set up a small home gym. Make sure you choose equipment that will not only fit in the space but that you can still move around and use with ease. It won’t be any fun using your rowing machine if you bash your head on the wall with every backstroke! If you play or write music you could have your own music room, where you can keep your instruments, scores and recording equipment, or if you like home crafts then this is an ideal space to keep all your materials, sewing machine, work desk and comfortable chair.
Storage solutions
There are all sorts of ways in which you can make use of your small room, but if you don’t have a specific use in mind and your priority is having somewhere to keep things, you could simply put some stylish storage units in the room and transform it into a well-organized space for keeping all your surplus possessions. Use the storage solutions that will give you the largest capacity without making the room look too full, and be methodical about how you arrange everything so that you can locate it easily when you need to.
Transforming a small, unused space into a functioning room means you will free up space in the rest of the house. As a result, you will find you have opportunities to adopt a more organized, cleaner layout as a result, which will give your styling a boost and make your home look less tired and cluttered. Take the time to find a purpose for your underused room, and you will be able to appreciate the value of your smallest space.
