For many of us living in apartments we sometimes end up with living spaces that aren’t exactly to our liking. Whether it’s because we can’t paint the walls a bright red or there’s wall-to-wall carpet when we’d prefer hardwood floors or the furniture started out as hand-me-downs and now really needs to be replaced but there’s no extra cash, apartment dwellers often “settle” for lesser-than interiors. But even if you live in an apartment and are on a budget, there are things that you can do to breathe new life to the rooms of your home to really make them shine. Decide what is important to you – for example, spending money on one or two expensive furniture pieces might be more of a priority for you than buying a new area rug or perhaps comfort is more important than style: take into account what you like and the space you have to work with.
Take Inventory
Do a room by room inventory. Pretend you are a visitor and are seeing the apartment for the first time. Then make a list of what you liked about the room. Take note of what you’d like to change. Examine the inventory list you made for each room. Make an action plan for pieces of furniture you no longer like or would like to recycle or move to another room in your apartment. Recycle could mean anything from giving it away to painting it or repurposing it to actually disposing of it in the appropriate manner.
Work with the Things You can’t Change
Work with what is around you and accept the things you can’t change. Apartment living is often governed by rules we have no control over. If you are unable to paint your living room or bedroom the color you would like, you can brighten up the walls in other ways. Choose larger framed pictures or prints that are colorful. Or picking frames in bright colors for black and white prints will create interesting contrast while adding some color to the walls. You could also select multi-colored window treatments with a detailed pattern or pick an area rug with bright shades.
Change the Things You Can
If you never liked the couch that your aunt gave you after she bought her new leather sofa, now is the time to take action. Especially if the hand-me-down furniture you inherited was originally bought for a house, replacing specific furniture pieces that are in scale for apartment living will not only lend the room a new look, it will also give you more room to move around. When you can’t buy a new sofa or dining chairs, consider purchasing a removable sofa cover or adding seat cushions in a fresh color.
Sometimes simply rearranging the furniture can improve the atmosphere of the room by making it more functional or esthetically appealing. To rearrange a room so that the space is optimized:
- Select the biggest piece of furniture in the room
- Pick a wall that will be the best one to accommodate it
- Pick a focal point for the room: a bedroom’s focal point, for example, is the bed
- Arrange the rest of the bedroom furniture in the room around the chosen focal point
- Make sure that you can move around each piece of furniture easily and that you can open doors, drawers, etc. without bumping into anything else
Find ways to de-clutter; getting rid of things that you no longer use is particularly vital to successful apartment living. The look of a room can be greatly improved by replacing outdated lampshades, accent cushions, bedding, etc.
