by Erin Sund
Do you have to crawl over your coffee table and shimmy past an armchair just to get to the ringing phone? Is your bedroom furniture as gridlocked as a highway at rush hour? If your home is more obstacle course than refuge, it's time to reconsider your furniture arrangement. Sure, small homes present decorating challenges, but savvy furniture arrangements help you infuse more room into a tiny space.
Kill the Clutter
When your home is packed to the roof with old knick-knacks, toys your kids haven't touched in years and magazines collecting dust, you don't know what space you have to work with. Before you move any furniture, assess your space with an editing eye and get rid of stuff you aren't using or don't feel attached to. Decluttering is an instant room reviver, and the newly excavated space may spark ideas for better furniture configurations.
Map Your Furnishings
Once the clutter is cleared, give your home another pass. Decide which items of furniture you can do without, and sell or donate them. Ask yourself how often you sit on your itchy purple couch. If the answer is less than once a week, it's time to give it the old heave-ho.
When you're down to only essential furniture, decide if each piece really fits in the room it's in. Don't get stuck on where furniture pieces traditionally go; play around with what works best for your space. Does that bookcase dominate your minuscule living room? Why not try it in your more spacious bedroom where other larger furniture items add balance? If you're blind to your own stuff (most of us are) take digital photos — they'll give you an outside perspective. Take notes and sketch out a plan for each room before you and a helper start moving furniture. (Remember, bend at the knees and don't drag heavy items across your floors!)
Go Vertical
When you have a limiting floor plan, go vertical. Keep items off your floor by setting potted plants on side tables or installing shelves to showcase art and photos. Look for tall bookshelves and narrow cabinets instead of short, long ones that devour floor space.
Although it won't increase your square footage, vertical paint stripes create the illusion of extra space in a small room. Likewise, a darker color on one accent wall draws the eye in, making a room seem deeper. And when it comes to windows, choose sheer, long curtains instead of heavy, dark window coverings.
Use Double-duty Furniture
When you don't have a lot of floor space, multipurpose furniture is a saving grace. If you're not sold on the virtues of trunks, sofa sleepers or nesting tables, take a look at early 20th Century homes. Murphy beds that fold into the wall when not in use were all the rage in the smaller living spaces of the 1920s. A fold-away bed might not be practical today, but do seek coffee tables with drawers and shelves, benches with storage bins and other multipurpose pieces. Look for smaller sofa sleepers that won't blow a room's proportions by dwarfing other pieces. Remember — if a piece of furniture is going to take up precious square footage, it needs to pull its weight.
Find Your Angle
When arranging furniture, the goal isn't to clear the largest possible space in a room's center, but to make the space as comfortable as possible. While pushing furniture against the walls sometimes seems like the best way to use every last square inch, it can actually make a small room extra boxy.
Improve a small room's feel by arranging furniture on diagonals, if possible. Angling a couch and chairs softens corners and is more conducive to conversation. Put tall houseplants or lamps in the corners behind angled furniture to add height and visual interest.
Just because you have a small room doesn't mean you can't create cozy niches. Use decorative screens to divvy a room into separate spaces. For example, you can pair a chair and a small side table together in a living room corner to make a reading nook.
Whatever you do, avoid blocking a room's entrance. This closes the space, making it feel cramped.
Celebrate Your Small Space
While small rooms can present decorating challenges, they also have their perks. Small spaces are cozy. They're easier (and cheaper) to heat, cool and clean. And because you don't have a lot of space, you live only with the items that really matter to you, which adds heart to a home.
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