Apartment hunting can involve a lot of settling, and many people decide to rent an apartment that’s a little smaller than what they’d prefer. But there are ways to make even the smallest, most cramped apartment floor plans feel more spacious than they are. Here are just a few:

1. Zone Your Space. If you have a studio with very few rooms (or even only one) it can feel like your whole life is just piled in one place. To keep from getting overwhelmed, try to break up your apartment into separate areas. Create spaces to sleep, eat and hang out within your limited space, and consider separating them with light curtains or decorative dividing screens. Finding clever ways to alter apartment floor plans without altering the apartment itself is a great way to create a comfortable space.

2. Buy Flexible Furniture. You won’t be able to fit everything you see at Ikea into your new apartment, no matter how small and nifty it is. Instead, choose pieces based on how many potential uses they can have, and how well they’ll fit into your space. If you’re really cramped, consider a daybed that can double as a couch for TV watching. Buy a coffee table that doubles as a storage space, or a desk that can work as a make-up vanity and dinner table. The more you can get out of a single piece of furniture, the less you’ll have to clutter up your apartment.

3. Trick the Eye. There are several designer-adored tricks for making a room look bigger than it actually is. See-through furniture and large wall mirrors can create the illusion of space, and floor-to-ceiling curtains add height to a room. You can also choose to select a few large pieces of furniture and cutting the rest. Large furniture can actually make a room seem bigger (as counter-intuitive as that seems) as long as you stick to a few small pieces. Calm, even colors can also give the illusion of space.

4. Use Vertical Spaces. Even if you find an apartment that seems impossibly small, you may still have surprisingly high ceilings. Don’t waste this extra space. Build shelves and cabinets up to the roof, or find a way to utilize the space between the tops of furniture and your ceiling. This will draw the eye upward and create an illusion of depth.

Apartment hunters and owners, what have you done to adjust small apartment floor plans? Let us know in the comments!
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