Apartment Inspiration Part Two: Tips for Living in a Tiny Space

Whether you live in a college dorm, a tiny apartment, or the abandoned boxcar of a train (do you remember THE BOXCAR CHILDREN?!) you have probably struggled with living in a tiny space. Humans are meant to have ROOM to live! (I accidentally wrote 'love' at first; 'room to love' how cute.) But alas-urbanization! Globalization! Needing-twelve-roomates-to-afford-your-rent-ization! I get it, man. Last year, I had six roommates. Now I have two, and it is much easier to breathe, but we are set on making our small apartment as lovely as possible.

So without further ado, here are some mini-tips and tricks for living in a small space.

♥ If you have roommates, share! This should be obvious, no? There is no reason for having 3 vacuum cleaners or 15 coffee mugs (we really like teacups and coffee mugs, it's becoming a problem.)

♥ Multi-use or foldable furniture. A sofa that turns into a bed, a table that folds up and down to become bigger or smaller, stackable chairs.

♥ Open your shades! If you have windows, it definitely helps to have some sign of an outside world. Even if your view isn't exactly of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, it helps. Also, one good thing about having a small apartment is that I almost never have to turn my lights on during the day because a little bit of sunlight lights the whole apartment. Holla at my low electric billllll!

♥ Mirrors are also supposed to make rooms look bigger and reflect light. However, I'd advise against having too many mirrors simply because it becomes hard not to look in them all the time! (Va-va-vanityyy, uh oh.)  My roommates and I also quickly learned that having a mirror in the kitchen is super-weird, because people don't really like to watch themselves eat.

That's all I've got at the moment; I'll try to update soon with some pics or illustrations...! This is a really crazy time of year! (Okay, seems like it's always a crazy time of year.)

Do You have any tips for living in a small apartment?!

with love and sweet-potato fries,

Apartment Inspiration 2012

Decorating for Young Adults with Teeny Homes 

or

What I Wish My Apartment Looked Like And How I'm Going to Make it Happen

My roommate's and my lease ends in June and already I keep thinking to myself, "when we get a bigger place...."  Well, that's not always possible if you are a.) on a limited/student budget; b.) living in a big city; c.) both.  So I told myself, get with the program, Nikki. You will MAKE. IT. WORK. (Did you get the Tim Gunn reference? I do go to Parsons, after all.) Here's what I'm going to do:

•  first, post my inspiration. 
• Then I will talk about some tricks of living in a small space. 
• Then, I will show some ways that I made my apartment look great while still being functional.

So let's start with the fun part: INSPIRATION YAAYAYAYA

Okay, so what I did first was: I collected a few (a ton of) pictures from The Great and Powerful Interbot that appealed to me. And yeah, I know that last one isn't' even an apartment, it's a tent. I just really like tents, okay? Tents and caravans. No wonder my apartment is so small. And packed with stuff.

You might have also noticed that these pictures all range wildly. Therefore, my next step is to try to figure out which specific elements appealed to me, and what the pictures may have in common. This is clearly a very scientific method of decorating. It's okay, they do it at Frog Design. (This might be true but I may have just made it up.)

That was fun, wasn't it?
Now it's your turn: what does your DREAM HOME look like?
Share in the comments, or on a site like Pinterest. And if these photos weren't enough for you, here's a link to MY PINTEREST BOARD FOR MY DREAM APARTMENT.


See you later!


love and sharing,