Make your small space feel bigger

The director is a 20-year-old YouTuber and it's based on his popular web series.

“Why is this online phenomenon taking off at the box office?”

We get into it on NPR's "Pod Culture" Happy Hour. Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. You want a float furniture? Do we want to float it? Girl? No.

No. Because what does that even look like? That is going to look so weird in my place. Apparently no. It's an optical illusion that you actually have a little more square footage.

If everything's not up against the wall, you can do it like three to five inches. It's not like you put it in the center of your living room.

If you go to an open house where they staged it, you'll notice that they never put all of the furniture up against the wall.

They always do it like just a little. It gives you the feeling of more space. All right. Reporter Andy Tagle. Come in and straight away with the tips.

I'm Mary Elcegata. And today on Life Kit we're talking about how to make a small space feel bigger. Apparently, and I would say counter-intuitively leaving space between your furniture and the wall is one way to do that. We'll see. Maybe I'll try it.

I will say I'm in one of those moments with my apartment right now. Where I'm looking around and I'm like, it's time to change everything. Oh, yeah. Even though I think it's cute, you know, like it's time for a new pink color. It's time for a new couch or whatever.

But I think part of that is as my life has changed, I want to use this space for different things. And especially in a small space, one room does have to perform multiple functions.

“And then you have to think about like, what is my priority here?”

I have a word for you. The word is zoning. And the idea is that you could have even if you have just one space. If you have an open floor plan, zoning just means like you can zone off different areas of the open floor plan. There's no reason why you can't have a dining room, in a living room, in a kitchen, in a movie area, all in that one open room.

All right, we'll come up on this episode of LifeKit. We're going to talk more about floating your furniture. We're going to talk about zoning, about floor arrangements, about how to hang your art. Lots of low budget and non-permanent solutions to make your space your own. That's after the break.

[Music] Brazil used to have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. People call it the country of the future. There are songs. O Brasil.

O país. Do futour. Because it seems like we have it all, man. But then the music stopped. On the planet money podcast, a lot of countries these days aren't rich.

They aren't poor. They're just kind of stuck in the middle. Why is that? Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Andy.

What do we need to think about when we're designing small spaces specifically? Like, how's it different when you're trying to make a studio apartment or a one bedroom? Your own versus a three-acre farmhouse or a 10-room mansion? It's a good question. Let me introduce you to Shemika Lynch.

She is the founder and principal designer of maximizing tiny interiors in New Jersey. And her answer was, you know, in a lot of ways, a home is a home. So, you know, people got to cook, people got to work, kids need room to play, and do their homework. So, a lot is the same.

But here's what she says is really essential to the design of small spaces specifically.

No room can be just an extra room. You don't have any extra square footage where it's like, oh, well, that's just going to be decorative. Every single item in your home needs to serve a purpose. And our motto is that everything in your home should work for you. And work is a verb there where these have at least two functions.

Right? Your living room was probably also functioning as your dining room. And also functioning as your play room. Yeah, you really have to make use of all the space you have. Everything can cranny and then the other thing is downsizing.

All the experts I spoke to said that, like, more than furniture size or picking the wrong pink color, what is really the enemy of small spaces is clutter.

“If you have a small space that you want to rearrange, the very first thing you need to do is declutter.”

Because once you pair down to the things that you really need, it's a lot easier to see how much space you actually need for storage. How you can get creative with solutions. And overall, it can just help you be more intentional with plenty of space. Yeah.

I always think that I've tackled my clutter.

And then there's another round of decluttering. And I'm like, what? Like, I thought I needed this thing six months ago. But it turns out I really don't. The clutter monster always lives again.

After tackling your clutter or your latest clutter monster, at least. You want to organize your stuff in a way that actually makes sense for your life, right? Faith Roberson is a professional organizer and decluttering coach in New York City. And she lived for a while in a 550 square foot studio. And she wrote the book, "What's Days and What Goes?"

How to organize with intention and create space for grace.

you're going to work better and you're going to feel better.

“The key to small spaces is learning how to disperse things in multiple areas in order to create a flow and a sense of harmony in the space.”

I had to start to think, okay, where am I going to put my workout gear? You know, where am I going to put this? Under my bed, I had storage, of course, that's like a no-brainer. And also using the height of the cabinets was important, just going all the way up to the ceiling. She talks about flow. What does it mean for a space to have good flow?

Yeah, and I feel like this is a term that you hear a lot when it comes to designing, decorating.

But the definition is a little bit slippery. So, Shemita told me, when she thinks about flow, she thinks about how well all the elements of a home are working together for the people who live in it. So, for example, in your kitchen, you know, when you go to put your dishes on the drying rack, is it easy to do? Is it right there? Are you tracking water all over the floor with every dish?

“That might be one example. If you have to dig in and out of a closet every morning, if you have to hop up and over, work out equipment every day, might be time to rethink.”

Yeah, that makes sense. And then you also, if you think about that ahead of time, then you know what you might need to buy or repurpose, rather than just sort of aimlessly going to a storage store and getting stuff that's not going to work for you. Right. Well, I know the experts gave you a lot of tips for the apartment from the ground up really, so let's start with the ground, huh? Let's do it. Yeah. Coverings. What'd you learn about that? Okay. General role, I would say, from the experts across the board, Rugs are a good idea. In small spaces, they are a quick and easy way to add warmth to add texture, personality to a space.

So, if you don't have one, you want to add that to the top of your list. Another great thing about Rugs zoning. So, they are great way to create distinct areas in your home. I thought this was a wonderful tip from Shemika. She works a lot of people who live in open floor plans, and she says, sometimes she doesn't even have to buy something new. She'll just re-orient to room by switching up a rug. Everywhere the rug touches is the living room, right? That's the living room rug, like Lion King. Everywhere the light touches is yours. And even if you're, even if you're dining room is right next to the living room, which mine is, there's a dining room rug, right?

That says, you know, this is where the dining room is. So, rugs really help for that to define those spaces. It can be a little hard to know what size right to get. I would say, generally speaking, you want to go bigger instead of smaller. When you go too small, the ratio can be off, and it can make a room feel accidental. It reminds me of when Chris and Wague used to do this on SNL, where those doll heads, yeah, it's like the proportions are off. Right. Yes, you're like, this is like normal size person with like little baby doll hands.

“Is there something unsettling? And I think that that happens when you're rug is too small. Yeah, that is exactly right. The proportions are off.”

So to help us think through ratio, I'll turn to Alexander Gator. She's a home decor expert who specializes in making over small spaces for her YouTube channel. It's really fun. Definitely worth a watch. She told me if she had to put a number to it, you want to aim to cover around 75% of a room with your rug. Wow. Yeah, it's a lot more than you think. You know, you may want to have a clear walkway in between one space or another, one room or another, but but generally speaking, you want to have at least the two legs of a couch, the two legs of any chairs,

or if you can fit everything, like if you can fit an entire living room set on a rug, that's a good idea. I will say, rugs can be kind of expensive, especially if you're getting a big one. Yeah, it's definitely a higher ticket item when it comes to redecorating. So I did a little bit sourcing online for you.

Rugs USA and IKEA seem to be a couple of the top spots people turn to for low cost, brand new quality rugs, face to market place and offer up also not bad ideas for second options.

Coming up, how to arrange your furniture to make your room feel bigger. That's after the break. Richard Reeves is unimpressed by online influencers who pedal ideas about hyper masculinity. You're talking about boys and men. Where's your policy agenda? You're good on podcasts, but we've actually done a bunch of stuff of boys and men. Sorry, what have you done? Ideas about the next era of manhood.

That's on the Ted radio hour podcast, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, let's move on to furniture arrangements. We were talking about floating furniture. Can you just explain exactly what that means and why we're supposedly supposed to do it? Okay, so floating means you don't put your furniture, say couch right up against the wall. You just listen space behind it and what that does is create the illusion of additional depth and you can actually make a room seem bigger.

So for example, you can turn that couch sideways and define a space to like this is living room and this is the dining room or whatever. What do we do about the back of the couch thing like having to look at the back of the couch.

“You anchor it. That was Alexander's idea. If the floating feels weird, maybe you put a little console there, maybe it's your desk, right?”

You anchor it, you put a rug underneath that whole thing so that you have your specific zones and it grounds the whole area. What about the size of your furniture like how do you decide how big of a couch to get or how big of a table to get? I would say overall and surprisingly the experts cautioned more against going too small rather than going too big.

Like the first example that came to my mind was like a dorm room in college that hasn't been decorated yet.

You see a big blank wall and all they have is like a teeny tiny picture or two from a woman that big blank wall and it just doesn't look right, doesn't feel right now. Apparently there's a name for this kind of feeling they call it the doll house effect where, you know, if you put too many small things in the space, it creates visual clutter. It almost looks like a mistake because the scale is off. Let's say I have a sofa that it's 84 inches. If I have a five by seven rug, it looks like there's something missing, something else needs to go there.

Yeah, I'm thinking about to like regarding the size of the furniture, obviously you also have to think about how you're using it and what your priorities are. Like for me, I really wanted an extra deep couch this time, just to be able to fit more people on it. Yeah, you don't have to go small just because you're in a small space. You do want to be purposeful with the large furniture that you buy, you want to make sure that you're buying it for the right reasons with the lifestyle that you have in mind.

Another question that I had was, you know, what if you have something that you really love, you know, like a keep safe family heirloom that you love, but it isn't super practical and faith had a really good answer for this. Like, can you make it functional, you know, you don't necessarily need to buy something new, you don't need to toss it, you don't need to put it in storage.

Faith told me about this hutch that she's had for a million years.

“I think it was like an entertainment center, something I got on Craigslist and then I added a poll and made it into a wardrobe.”

And then here I brought it here and I just added shelves and turned it into like a shoe cabinet. It has lived nine lives and it's big and my living room isn't that wide. It's a space, but it's all about how you style it, right? So then I put this really beautiful, like plant next to it and I think I have like a lamp on the other side and it becomes a part of like art in the space. But it also solves a really big issue that I have, which is not having a home from my shoes.

I love that.

Yeah, I love having that piece that stays with you and that you can alter over time.

Okay, let's talk more about walls. What about wallpapers and wallpaper? What did you learn? So I have some news for you, Mario. I know that you have some feelings about this, but apparently the accent wall is out for small spaces.

“You know, I like my accent wall. I think it looks nice.”

I'm sure that it does. Let me explain to you why. Basically, they were saying if your goal is to make your small space bigger, they were saying you want continuity. I was kind of expecting them to say you want white or light colors. I was expecting you know, invite light. You want to make it as sunshine as you can in a small space to expand it. Avoid darker moodier tones, but really no, they were like whatever you like, go for it. But what is important is to be consistent in your palette.

Okay, that was popular was color drenching. So Shemika said, if you don't have fancy trim, if you have just like plain baseboards, you could paint the trim the same color. So go from your baseboards all the way up to your ceiling, instead of doing that all the same color. And that continuity can create some extra space, can you create extra height and depth for you wallpaper? Alexandra said wallpaper on ceilings is the thing that's popular in July. Yeah, you could go big.

Yeah, it's not hard to do though break in mind. She said, she said, she said it's a kind of she's yeah, she did say it's a commitment. So something to think about. Slightly less of commitment, but can help you make your space bigger curtains. So one good idea is just to hang your curtains a little bit higher and a little bit wider than your window frame. One guide I saw said about six to 12 inches higher than where your window frame is. And then you want to extend your curtain rod for to tend inches beyond that frame and doing that can help extend your eye.

And then Alexandra had a great rule of thumb about how long your curtains should be making sure your curtains just kiss the floor. I'm like pooling curtains. It just collects dust. It doesn't look like you thought it through. So just kind of kissing the floor is the rule that I love to follow when it comes to curtains just kiss the floor. What about art? I have a gallery wall and although I think that I did it partly because I don't know how to do anything else. Like in terms of art, I feel like when I've just had a big piece, it's never been big enough or two big pieces.

I guess I wonder is there a science to this like to how to hang your art in small spaces to make it feel bigger.

So when rule for you, she make it said for hanging art, the center of your art should be at eye level when you're hanging art. So for gallery wall specifically, she make it said, you know, it is okay to go on vibes. She said she aims for roughly two to four inches of space between frames or between items.

“She did say that the thing about gallery walls is sometimes in small spaces they can get a little bit busy.”

So you want to make sure if you're doing it in a big open space that you have a piece of furniture to anchor it a nice open sparse hallway is a good idea for gallery wall. You could do a gallery wall in a corner to create the illusion of space. So it doesn't necessarily need to be one flat wall. Another one is like a triptych situation. So if you have a piece of art that you really like, you can print it out over three, get like three frames, blow it up like over your bed say that can create the illusion of like expanding the wall.

And then generally speaking, having different frame textures different frame depths, you know, like shadow box situations can create more visual interest create more depth there.

What about mirrors? Yes, is my answer. Yes, I want them. Good for small spaces helps expand the space helps catch more light. Alexander said a lot of people are really into floor mirrors right now. Very popular, but she said hanging mirrors small ones in your gallery wall ones that you can hang over the door for space saving measures all the mirrors all the time. Yes, these are all such great ideas. And I'm in the midst of a lot of home improvement right now. I don't even know when this started or how this happened because I thought I was in a place where I was like settled in the apartment.

And I made a lot of changes and I was like, okay, now we're good, but suddenly here I am in the vortex again, and it's fun, but it's also kind of I don't know. I have this sense of urgency to it. Like I need to do everything now. And the space isn't good enough as it is right now, which I think is a trap. I guess I just like, I try to remind myself that it's okay to let this unfold over time.

“Right, as long as your house still feels like home when you get back at the end of the day, you know, I think that's what's important.”

There's always going to be something left to be done. Yeah, right. I was talking to Faith about a similar idea.

And she said, if you haven't found your flow in your home yet, you should just keep working at it and doing that, finding that flow is kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle. There's always like one more piece to put back together. Whatever put a piece in a puzzle, and it looks like it should fit, right? And then there's like this little sliver of space, and you convince yourself that it's the right piece. And then you start building on the puzzle and you can only go so far before you're like, oh, this is not, and it's messing up the way I can move forward organizing is like that.

That reminds me of Sudoku when I'm very far down the Sudoku puzzle, and I'm like, oh my god, that's not. Good thing I did this in pencil, but it's understanding that we do kind of have to live our lives in pencil. You're right, your home never looks like a magazine or Instagram, but like would you want it to? Yeah. Andy, thank you so much for this. It's been a pleasure. Let me know if you feel your furniture. All right. Maybe I'll do a little bit behind it. All right, folks, it's time for our recap.

Take away one to make your small space feel bigger. You want to start by decluttering. When you get rid of the stuff you don't actually use or want around, you will literally have more space, and it'll be easier to make a plan and reimagine your home in a way that flows. Take away two small spaces need to work harder for you. So make the most of your vertical space. Think about high-up shelves, for instance, and get creative with your storage. For instance, I just got a couch, and it has storage built into the seats.

“Take away three. You can have big, beautiful furniture in a small space, but you have to be mindful of proportion and scale.”

You want to make sure the space flows, and then it's usable. Also, this is about trade-offs. If your couch takes up most of the living room, you may not have space for a big dining table. So think about your priorities and how you actually want to use your home. Take away four. In tight spaces, you can create the illusion of height and depth. That might look like floating your furniture or painting the walls creatively or using rugs or a console table or a bookshelf to separate your space into zones.

It could also mean adding mirrors or hanging your curtains higher. You've got a lot of options. All right, that's our show. If you love life kit and you want even more, why not follow us on Instagram at NPR Life Kit. There you'll find videos featuring our favorite tips and comics on topics like how to talk to your baby and how to turn your lawn into a native plant garden. You can find those by following at NPR Life Kit.

It was edited by Sylvie Douglas. Our digital editor is Mallika Greeb and our visuals editor is CJ Rekeland.

“Megan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer.”

Our production team also includes Margaret Serino.

Engineering support comes from Tiffany Vatter Castro and Becky Brown.

“I'm Mary El Sigadra. Thanks for listening.”

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