Tips for Making a Small House Work for You
Living in a small space can sometimes feel suffocating, especially if you like entertaining. It's one reason many people gravitate towards larger homes, even with the tiny house movement in the background pushing for more modest living arrangements. Truth be told, there is a happy middle ground in
Posted — UpdatedThe difficulty level of these tips is highly variable, from basic interior design tricks that require very little money (if any at all) to significant remodeling. You can decide how far you want to go to make your home work for you!
If you're building from scratch or remodeing, get rid of tiny, cramped windows and doors. Think expansive with large windows and French doors or sliding glass doors. The big scale will open up the interior space, giving you room to stretch your wings. More than that, it will create a connection between indoors and out, which will make the home feel like a part of something larger.
Big spaces can handle big, radical textures and colors. Little ones? Not so much. They can start to feel busy, cramped, and a little bit intense. Go for subtle splashes in the environment, and they'll make the room seem much larger. It's also important to keep clutter to a minimum, increasing the sense of space by reducing crowding.
Hallways can turn into spatial voids in a small house; they eat up room without offering any real benefits. And you don't want that when every square foot counts. Make hallways work for a living if you have to have them, and use the space creatively. An entry can open on to multiple rooms, for example, with space against the walls of the entry to store shoes, jackets, bags, and more.
Rooms seem bigger when you can see all the way across them, and through into other rooms. Those long, graceful views open up a space, but they may require some careful design or remodeling to position walls just right.
High ceilings make spaces seem bigger. It's an old trick for expanding the size of small spaces without actually changing their footprint at all. For bonus points, add high windows or skylights to increase the sense of light and movement in the space, and paint the ceilings white or cream to bounce light around, making the rooms of your house feel even bigger.
Small spaces, as discussed above, don't do well with clutter. It's best to display only a few things at a time (think about rotating art and precious items), but you also need to keep all the belongings you use, from plates to toiletry items, under control. Think about clever, innovative storage, from hidden cupboards to elegant shelving to under-bed storage compartments. The more you can hide away, the more clean and open your house will feel.
With a little work, you might learn to love your small space!