If the house or condominium that you can afford seems too small, maybe you’re not thinking about space the right way.
Buying the best location you can afford is what successful real estate ownership is all about. These are the properties that hold value even in down markets and that appreciate steadily and consistently in all markets. Great-location properties are financial stepping stones to your multimillion-dollar dream home.
Since buildings and units in a price range decrease in size in inverse proportion to improvements in location — either at street level or vertically — when you make a smart real estate investment, you may end up with something smaller than your ideal.
Have you analyzed exactly how much space you really need?
Ask families with big houses how many rooms are occupied at once and where the family regularly congregates, and usually they’ll admit to less than half the space really being essential to daily life.
Tiny homes, floating homes, and micro-urban condominiums prove that the less space you have the more cleverly you use it. On top of that, the premium location you’ve selected offers benefits you value — many
of which encourage you to spend more time out of the house — so you’ll love your lifestyle, build wealth, and, therefore, enjoy living in your cozy home.
Prepare to make the most of a small space by getting rid of over-sized furniture and purging rarely or never used items including shoes and clothes that no longer fit in spite of your hopes. Take quality, not quantity, to your new space.
How many of the following interior design and decor ideas for accentuating small spaces are you ready to put in action?
Winning Design Elements
High ceilings, lots of windows, multi-level lighting, light layered monochromatic decor schemes, and sparkling surfaces like crystal, glass, and mirrors add warmth and volume to create inviting living spaces.
Functional Layouts
If you love to cook, a large kitchen matters; if you’re a take-out fan, you may appreciate this extra space elsewhere in the home.
Visually Enticing Verticals
Let decor draw the eye up to visually expand rooms. Use vertical storage and shelving units to open up floor space and reduce clutter. Hang pictures above each other to raise the eye. Install curtain rods just under or on the ceiling to add height to walls. Use paint accents or moldings to visually raise ceilings.
Clever Useable Space
Add shelving, built-ins, and storage everywhere possible, especially in under-utilized areas: under stairs, around windows, across windows, high on walls, over doors, under beds, in corners, in walls, as islands…. Add
elevated platforms for sleep or storage where ceilings are very high. Steal slivers of space from other rooms to expand the closets that matter to your lifestyle.
Open Lines of Sight
Enlarge doorways, windows, hallways, or shelf depths to improve flow. Remove walls to combine small rooms into wide-open spaces. Open lines of sight by installing glass, french, or louvered doors or by removing doors and trim. Install bay or green-house windows to add an airy, practical touch.
Camouflaged Clutter
Conceal screens, electronics, and associated wires to reduce visual clutter. Use slipcovers to transform distracting mismatched chairs into harmonious seating. Decorative boxes collect hobby paraphernalia and other task tools out of sight, but at your fingertips.
Savored Furnishings
Select multi-purpose furniture with open design, mirrored surfaces, glass tops, and compact-scale to reduce clutter — visual and practical. Space-saving furniture, moved out from walls and artfully arranged in conversation groupings, further adds to flow through the home.
Color Magnifiers
Add colorful, well-chosen, eye-catching focal points — a vibrant accent wall, sophisticated art, unifying accessories, smart cushions… — as creative bold emphasis to monochromatic decor to help minimize the importance of room size. Each paint manufacturer and many decor media have their own “Official 2018 Colors” so check around to uncover tones and shades that work best for you.
On-Trend Accents
Dictate whether and how trends can be beneficial to your home. Not every fashionable idea makes sense in your special small space. Ball-shaped lighting fixtures, circle patterns, golden-brass fixtures, natural materials, and velvet sofas are a few hot 2018 trends, but they won’t automatically add functionality and visual value to your space. Test trends on one or two accessory items or pillows to see what works. Before jumping into a major make-over, seek out small-space professional design input.
