Unconventional Decorating Ideas for a 1 Bedroom Apartment

There is something about a tiny 1 bedroom apartment that captures the essence of homeyness like no other kind of apartment can. When I moved into a little apartment I had rented that had just been created of spare space in a larger apartment in the middle of town, I thought at first that it was a step down - a sacrifice I had to make to be closer to my work. The bedroom was 8 feet long and wide, and the living room was not much bigger. The whole apartment was a grand 275 square feet. Still, the overwhelming cuteness of what was possible here sold me on it. The kitchen was pocket handkerchief-sized, big enough for a refrigerator and for two people to stand in, and the bathroom  was the size of a shower cabinet (a shower cabinet large enough to fit two people, which to my mind, was an essential). I kind of fancy myself an amateur designer, and I felt I needed to finally show what I was capable of here.

The philosophy you need to go by decorating a 1 bedroom apartment is to let the beauty of the walls and floors bring in all the beauty. Everything else needs to be mercilessly cut down on. Everything needs to be perfectly organized around the house, because there is no worse a space stealer than clutter or poor organizing. Every room in the house when I moved in into the apartment was just a spare white box. I started by taking out the industrial looking windows and replacing them with beautiful antique ones. I put in window niches, antique doors and moldings around every door and window. The overall theme was to go for a prewar ambience.

The problem with leaving a spare white box as it is, is, that no matter how much stuff you go and take out, somehow, everything still looks quite cluttered. I know that most people will tell you that you need to pick light colors verging on white to make a small space appear larger: I find that it doesn't really do that. Warmer colors, a mild purple, a beautiful maroon - these colors tend to actually, transport you to a state of mind where you feel that you are in a much better place than you actually are. Over one end of my bedroom, I used wallpaper with a beautiful Eastern design. It really expands the space I have. That's the only indulgence in the whole place. In a small 1 bedroom apartment, you always had to move about in the same small space a lot. Having rugs and carpets means you'll have to keep in mind all the time that you don't want to trip, and it can be really bothersome. I painted the floors with real finesse to bring out the effect of the richly inlaid floor, and got the most comments for this.

And then there was the storage space - plenty of storage space in shelves hung on the walls kept all my stuff where it belonged. The effect was to bring a lot more space into my little apartment.