Help! How Do I Shed "Dorm Room" Vibes From My Tiny Apartment?

Illustration: Julia Abbonizio/Getty Images

Design Hotline is a new column dedicated to solving real people’s home problems. Here, writer Diana Budds speaks to experts to help a reader maximize their small-home floor plan.

Question: I’ve lived in small spaces in New York City for a while, but I’m struggling with how to maximize the layout in my new studio apartment. It’s about 450 square feet, and the living area is basically a square shape. I’d like to try to carve out a space for sleeping, lounging by the TV, and working at a desk without it feeling too chaotic, or too “dorm room.” I’m renting and might only be here for one year, so I don’t want to invest too much money in buying new items or building custom pieces. How can I make the most of my small-home floor plan?

Congratulations on the new apartment—how exciting to move into a new space and make it your own! About 450 square feet is indeed a tight squeeze. It’s entirely possible to live in that area comfortably and without having to revisit the lofted twin-extra-long beds of dorm-room days, but it’ll require a tight edit of the furniture and objects that you have, plus a spatially advantageous arrangement.

Let’s start with the furniture. Madelynn Ringo, an interior designer who lives in a 350-square-foot Brooklyn apartment, recommends reevaluating what to bring into the space.

“Sometimes we think an apartment has a couch, a bed, a TV, and a dining table, but it’s important to rethink that a little bit,” Ringo says. “That’s where you can get really creative with a small space. Is it actually a couch that you need or is it a really nice lounge chair with an extension for your legs that can multiply as a second seat for somebody who’s visiting?” If you work from home infrequently, Ringo adds, you could likely get away with a round café table that also works as a side or dining table.

While you mentioned not wanting to spend too much money on new things, the right new piece could make a world of difference. Carly Krieger, the founder of Past Lives Studio, suggests looking for items that have range. “I check off as many functional boxes as I can with as few physical items as possible,” she says.

Krieger, who lives in a small apartment with no closets, notes that a lot of the available square footage in spaces like yours is actually vertical. “I try to get things off the floor and onto the walls,” she says. For home interior ideas, Krieger prescribed a wall-mounted storage unit with a floating desk for the criteria you outlined. A piece like this, she adds, can also serve as a media console and will bring a sense of order to the studio. “You’re creating a more organized visual moment and framing things in a nicer way,” she says.

Having a good mix of concealed storage versus open storage will be important to the space too. “Not everything should be on display,” Krieger says. “And if you don’t make the effort or take the time to style what you have, then it will feel dorm roomy.” She likes to buy storage boxes, which can go on the wall unit, to conceal all of the random little things that might go into a junk drawer.

If visual clutter will make your inner minimalist spiral, you might also consider a storage bed as the one piece you invest in, suggests Jacob Esocoff, cofounder, with fellow architect Henry Ng, of the firm Ideas of Order. “Think of it like you’re buying a bed and a closet,” Esocoff says.

Ryan Brooke Thomas, founder of Kalos Eidos, agrees with this very ethos. “Even in small interiors, applying architectural principles of spatial hierarchy in positioning the main elements—which can include anchoring furniture like a bed or dining table to built-in features like partitions, ceilings, or millwork—creates a sense of organization and cohesiveness across a few different scales,” she explains. “When certain elements serve dual purposes, the layout can be more fluid and less cluttered. Prioritizing multifunctional pieces like a table for both dining and working, using hidden storage like under-bed drawers or overhead cabinets, and integrating two-sided features that serve different functions on each side can help configure an open floor plan into distinct yet continuous zones.”

What goes hand in hand with furniture is figuring out how you’d like to arrange the space. Resist the urge to banish everything to the walls. “In every dorm, things are pushed up against the perimeter of the room and everything’s individually separated without much connection.” So you might consider pulling the desk away from the wall. That way you can also have a backdrop for Zoom calls that keeps your more private sleeping area out of frame.

When it comes to home interior ideas, Ng and Esocoff often see the same challenge in both small and large spaces. It’s not necessarily the size that’s the challenge, it’s how the space is defined. They recently renovated an apartment in Manhattan which had a boxy living room. Their solution? Break it up. Dividing it in half made it feel larger because the spaces had more identity. It’s an approach they propose for your studio too.

“If your space is small, it’s kind of counterintuitive that finding intimacy might be the strength of the project,” Ng says. “Finding ways to create identity and zones will make it interesting.”

Ng and Esocoff suggest positioning your working zone next to the kitchen since those functions go together. Then, put your bed on the opposite side of the room to create a sleeping zone. They also recommend using a double-sided bookshelf to extend the wall across from the kitchen perpendicularly to give the space variety. “When you perceive more differences in the space, you’re extending the promenade or the sequencing of everything and that can make a space feel bigger,” Esocoff says.

After figuring out where your zones should go, then comes defining them. “A lot of people can’t figure out why their home’s cohesive and feels disjointed, and it’s because they forgot to think in terms of visual moments,” Krieger says.

Ideas of Order likes to use illumination to define the “moments” in their spaces. “We like to layer lighting.” Ng says. “We don’t like to do too many pendants—they can clutter up a space visually—but one over a dining table is great. Then below that is a floor lamp for a living room to bring light in. And then below that is a bookshelf light that you click on when you sit on the couch. Having that kind of strata of lighting will make the space feel very holistic and it allows for a lot of flexibility.”

For affordable, space-defining elements, Ringo recommends using large-scale items to create focal points. “I’m obsessed with color, so I’m always adding architectural drapery or a big piece of art,” she says. “That’ll make your apartment feel very custom because you’re starting to completely change the white-box experience.” Mirrors are another favorite of hers. She installed narrow floor-to-ceiling mirrors next to her windows in order to make her apartment feel more spacious. “It gave me the illusion that I was in a corner unit, which was really interesting,” she says.

But no matter which direction you go for, all four designers say to go in with a game plan. Make a mood board and measure everything. “When it starts feeling big is when everything feels intentional,” Ng says.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest