6 Simple Solutions for Small Space Living
By: Zohaib Shahab | Tolobi
Entry hall, living room, drawing room, den, office, game room, gym, sauna, kitchen, pantry, laundry room — the ideal home has room for it all. But modern homes in Toronto are becoming smaller and the norm is becoming apartment living. So if you can’t have it all, just how should you maximize the little space you have to make your home as ideal as possible?
Have a flexible mindset
Static space doesn’t just make for a stale and boring home, it also encloses in on your life. Move things around. Change the layout and functions of your furniture with the occasion. Instead of a bedside table, get a chair. Sofa beds, pull-out beds, ottomans that act as coffee tables, tables that extend or fold in half — commit as little space as possible to single-use, and you might just find yourself with some stretching room or even the potential of a home yoga studio.
Unlock another dimension
Things need places to go. Storage can be tricky if you think only in square feet. Think vertically! Smart apartment-dwellers live in cubic metres. Lamps shouldn’t stand but sprout from the wall. Indoor plants shouldn’t cling to table space but hang from the ceiling. Don’t get bookcases or have a separate pantry drawer. Stack your books on a cubby wall shelf that you can sit under. Hang your pots and pans over the table. Display your jars of dried ingredients on floating shelves. Store clothing both above and below your bed. Think dorm-room days, only classier.
Play tricks for peace of mind
Minor touch ups can give you the right optics for a more spacious home. Parallel mirrors give the illusion of an infinite hall, but you’ll find that just one mirror can help extend your limited space and add extra roominess. Having bright lighting can give your room depth. Hidden storage, like drawers under the bed, and minimal clutter can make a bachelor-suite seem like it has the capacity for frequent wine and cheese nights. Carve out zones in a single room with partitions, curtains, painted dividers or just clear space between different types of furniture pieces.
Build to scale
The beauty of small space living is you don’t have to buy things for the sake of filling space. You could say the rich have that extra hurdle to get over to attain nirvana. For the rest of us, the solution to living in cramped quarters is to adjust expectations and be practical. Rid yourself of bulky china cabinets, clunky bathroom cabinets, or that office desk with enough drawers to start your own accounting firm. Stop stubbing toes or knocking into things. Minimal edges and means minimal damage.
Declutter to spark that joy
In the age of Marie Kondo, it’s hard to tell the difference between decluttering to spark joy for yourself or to relieve sheer peer pressure, but the end result is still less stress, isn’t it? Embrace the garbage bin and clean out the excess that was your life. Your new tidied up room might look cavernous in a bleak way, but hey, now you’ve got more room, and there’s nothing bright colours and good lighting can’t help!
Free ride without shame
The uncompromising demand for apartment amenities is defining the way developers build new housing. Gyms and party rooms are now the norm. There’s no need to fill your home with fitness machines and dumbbells, and there’s definitely no need to think about the comfort of others when you can host the party in a decked out communal room with one of the best views in the building. But there’s also the fact that we don’t need to stay in our homes all the time. The days of holing up in shelter are over. The best part of urban living is the parks, trails, waterfront boardwalks, and free amenities in the community centres.
Gyms and part rooms may be the norm, but apartment amenities vary. Have you ever wondered what the best apartment amenities developers conjured up?
