Designing small spaces~

The owner of this home has a large and beautiful house with a big spacious loft area upstairs in addition to the bedrooms. The problem is that the living room is rather small. (They have two small boys that like to play downstairs which makes it difficult to arrange a comfortable living room that also functions as a play area.)


~Click on pictures to enlarge~


Pulling furniture out from the walls doesn't make a room look smaller like many people are afraid of. It actually gives you usable space behind the furniture and allows the seating area to be pulled closer for conversations.



I angled the furniture in this room to create style as well as space to store toys behind the love seat. I found a toy shelf upstairs in the loft that fit perfectly here to hold the toys. Everything else in this room was repositioned to look and feel new.


I wanted to add some height to this area on the floor, so I headed outside to look for branches to stick into the vase. This home also sits on a beautiful piece of acreage so they weren't difficult to find!

Here's another home that was in need of a combined living area and play room.



This condo belongs to my daughter and son in law. There are 3 floors but all of the rooms are small and this living space is long and narrow. Pulling the sofa out from the wall divides the room into two areas. Now to be fair here, it's probably obvious that there were more changes made to this room than the new arrangement alone. They upgraded to laminate floors and got a new sofa and art work but the concept stayed the same.


Here's a view behind the sofa where my two beautiful little granddaughters play.

If you need your room to serve multiple functions, consider arranging furniture in a way that naturally divides the room into separate areas. Another helpful hint for small spaces is to consider having your furniture do double duty like a coffee table with baskets underneath to fill with anything from toys to office supplies. Even when the square footage is limited, you can always add shelving with baskets on the walls to hold essential items. Think about creating more space upward!