How can you use furniture to save space in small homes?

Sunita Vellapally Sunita Vellapally
Independent Villa - Pune, DECOR DREAMS DECOR DREAMS Living room
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Designing the interiors of small houses can be quite a challenge for any homeowner. You need to optimize the available space to include all the essentials but without making the room seem overcrowded or cluttered. There are visual tricks such as installing large mirrors on the wall, which help to make the room appear larger than it is. However, a more effective solution is to use multifunctional or custom-designed furniture. Multi-functional furniture comes in several designs, from pull-out beds to foldable ladder-chairs for the kitchen. All you need to do is to identify a piece that fits perfectly into your home.

In today’s ideabook, we present ideas on the diverse types of furniture you can use to save space in a small home.

Space-saving furniture design for living rooms

In living rooms, coffee tables are an essential piece of furniture. Besides being used to place your cup of tea or coffee, it also serves as the resting place for a few well-chosen décor accessories. If your home is too small for a coffee table or end tables, a jigsaw-style coffee table is a perfect option. You can put all the pieces together and place it at the centre when you aren’t entertaining. When guests arrive, each section can be pulled closer to a guest to offer a place to rest their drinks or snacks.

Small living room furniture designs

In small living rooms, multi-functionality is the key to space saving. If the living room arrangement doesn’t permit wall shelves to display accessories, opt for a multifunctional partition that divides the room and allows you to decorate.

In a small studio apartment, the living room can have a shelf that coverts into a bed to accommodate extra guests. Alternatively, a tiny cabinet in the corner can serve as a home office with a pull-down desk. Similarly, you can consider stackable or folding chairs, futons with storage or pull-out sofas to save space in a small living room, depending upon your requirements.

Small Indian style furniture for living rooms

Even if you want to use ethnic furniture for your home, you can find designs that help to save space. An antique wagon can be arranged against the wall as a style accessory and when you are entertaining, it can be wheeled in closer to the seating to double up as a coffee table.

Instead of opting for bulky modular sofas that take up a lot of space in a small room you can get traditional Indian furniture customised to suit the size of your room. For example, sofas with a narrower seat and thin legs can make the living area look roomier.

You can work with a local carpenter to custom-design your living room furniture.

Furniture design ideas for small dining rooms

In small or narrow dining areas, a visual trick that you can employ is to have a glass-top for the dining table. This allows a lot more of light to filter into the area and makes it seem more spacious compared to a solid wood table top. Remember to choose light-toned and slim chairs to amplify the effect.

In an irregular shaped dining area, you can get creative with the form and style of the table. Instead of the conventional rectangle, square or round tables, think out of the box and get a semi-circular or perpendicular design that doubles up as a bar counter with stools. To optimise the space, build storage into the unit, so that you can access crockery and glassware easily.

For a narrow dining area, with very little passage space, instead of chairs, you can opt for a bench on one side of the table. This not only offers more space for seating additional guests, but also allows you to push the table closer to the wall as you don’t have to worry about the chairback brushing against it, and it frees up one side of the room for the passage.

In a tiny studio apartment where the dining area is a part of the kitchen, you should consider custom-made furniture such as a folding table that can be pulled down when it’s time for meals. At other times, it rests against the wall and serves as the cover for the crockery display unit.

Furniture design ideas for small bedrooms

In modern houses and apartments, often the guest bedroom is small and narrow without sufficient space for a double bed and cupboards. To provide passage space during the day or when the room is not in use, a pull out diwan-cum-bed or futon is an excellent space-saving alternative.

In modern houses and apartments, often the guest bedroom is small and narrow without sufficient space for a double bed and cupboards. To provide passage space during the day or when the room is not in use, a pull out diwan-cum-bed or futon is an excellent space-saving alternative.

In children’s bedrooms, especially when the space is shared by more than one child, fitting in beds into the small area can pose a challenge. While bunk beds are easily available in the market, you can consider innovative custom-designed alternatives that add a fun and interesting element to the room. These include double-decker beds with a rope ladder to climb to the upper level as well as an additional a pull-out drawer bed to accommodate extra kids during sleepovers.

Unique ideas for kitchen furniture

As kitchens get smaller in urban homes, especially in apartments, it’s important to plan the furniture in the area wisely. Besides installing organizers within cabinets for storing cutlery, pots and pans, if you have an eat-in area in the kitchen, opt for slim counters and high stools with thin legs so that the airiness of the room isn’t compromised.

Similarly, you can get a rollaway cabinet that can be stored in the corridor or dining area when you don’t need to access items within it.

Get ideas for space saving in small Indian kitchens.

Other ideas for how to furnish the house without using too much space

The staircase is the most neglected area in most houses, but it can turn into an invaluable space for storage or even add a stylish highlight to the room. Besides bookshelves, pull-out drawers or closets can be designed under the stairs to upgrade the storage space in your house. Some designs even feature a drawer built into each step of the stairway.

It all depends on the size of your home and the amount of storage that you need in each room. For every room in the house, you can find clever furniture designs that provide storage without occupying too much space. If you are creative and know a good carpenter who can bring your designs to life, you can work with them to build furniture that is customized to your needs. Innovation is the key to saving space in small homes. Ideally, you should work with a professional interior designer to get furniture that fits perfectly into your rooms and serves more than one function so that the space utilization is optimized.

Find inspiration from these amazing space-saving ideas to furnish and decorate your small house to make it feel spacious and look stunning.

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