Ingenious space-saving hacks every apartment dweller needs to know

If space is tight at your place, it’s easy to feel like you’re buried in your own belongings. Here’s our room-by-room guide to making more space to live.

The living room

The best way to create more floor space in your living room is to give everything a home. That often means investing in multipurpose furniture and shelving galore.

• Use an ottoman that can also be a coffee table and storage for winter blankets
• If you have a side table, make sure it has a drawer to put the remote controls away
• Tall bookshelves are a great idea to utilise the whole of your walls for storage space, and reduce the clutter
• Using a room for multiple purposes will maximise the space you have. For example, with a sofa bed and a foldaway desk, your living room can serve as a guest room and home office as well.
• A floor lamp takes up an entire corner that could be used as living space, so keep lighting to the ceiling and walls only.

Make sure everything has a home in the living room. Photo: Domain listing

The kitchen

“In the kitchen, you want to avoid single-purpose gadgets,” says professional organiser at Creative Surrounds, Linda Eagleton. There are many ways to save space in the kitchen, including:

• Invest in a good set of knives and a quality saucepan set, which can do the jobs of other gadgets and appliances
• Avoid single-purpose appliances, and instead choose things like a combined blender and food processor (rather than one of each)
• Installing racks or shelves insides your cupboard or pantry doors, or along the cupboard’s side walls, means they can hold towels, spices and cling wrap
• “Pegboards are flexible and can be practical, whether you use them for hanging cleaning essentials or an ornamental arrangement”, says director and principal stylist at Vault Interiors, Justine Wilson.
• Every kitchen has a drawer for holding useless things, right? Not in a smaller kitchen. Use that third drawer as a spice drawer.

It’s all about multi-purpose cookware in the kitchen. Photo: Domain listing

The bathroom

“Trying to make everything fit in a compact bathroom can be like playing Tetris,” says brand specialist at Highgrove Bathrooms, Wesley Sinclair. He offers these tips to make you a winner in the old-school game:

• Mount a towel bar on the shower screen to save finding extra room for a towel rack
• Use flush mounted ceiling lights to open up the vertical space in your bathroom. Tape lighting around the vanity can add extra light without taking up more room
• Go with wall-mounted taps so that your sink can be narrower, giving you a wider walking space around the bathroom
• If you’re renovating, get the toilet’s cistern tucked away into the wall and opt for a wall-hung toilet
• Hang your washing basket from the inside of the door, so it’s not taking up any valuable floor space.

Make use of your bathroom walls and door. Photo: Domain listing

The bedroom

While a wardrobe or spare bedroom can be a good storage spot, it’s important to be very selective about what you keep.

“Your home is living space, not storage space” – so goes the quote contributed to author Francine Jay. So, how can you make sure your bedrooms don’t become storage units?

• “If you don’t absolutely love something or need it, it has to go. Everything should serve a purpose,” says Eagleton.
• “Do a declutter before you think about storage, so that you buy the storage solutions you need,” says Eagleton. “Otherwise you might buy too many shelves or containers, which will only add to the clutter and reduce your living space.”
• “Divide your clothes into seasons to save space. Just pack away and rotate when a new season rolls around,” Wilson says.
• Your bed has many storage capacities: underneath the bed in drawers or roll-away boxes, on the wall above your bedhead, or a self-created bedhead that’s actually handy shelving
• If you don’t have space for a home office elsewhere, get a tall bedside table that can double as a desk.

With a few adjustments to each room, your apartment will feel like a spacious home to spread out in.

Be storage smart in the bedroom. Photo: Domain listing