How do you turn an extremely small, completely stripped-back apartment into a comfortable home for one or two people, without spending a fortune?
That was the challenge with this apartment.
There was no kitchen, no proper bathroom and very little space to work with. The apartment also had two exterior doors, only two windows and a layout that made it difficult to create any real sense of separation between living and sleeping areas.
The goal was to create a home that felt spacious, functional and even a little luxurious, while keeping the budget under control. I wanted it to have everything you would expect from a proper home, including a full-size kitchen, dishwasher, washing machine, plenty of storage and a separate-feeling bedroom.
The result is a tiny apartment that works much harder than its size would suggest.
So how do you fit all of that into such a small space? Keep reading to see how we approached the layout, where we found space for everything and the unexpected solutions that made the apartment work.
Starting with the right person
The story of this apartment began a long time ago, when it was purchased at a very good price at a public auction. The apartment was in very poor condition, and once the floors and walls were opened up, even bigger surprises came to light.
As you can see from the photos, there was essentially very little left of the original apartment. I was brought into the project at the point when the situation looked like it does in these photos. I was given the floor plan and a very simple brief: make something beautiful.
The goal was to turn the apartment into a rental.
One of the first things I think about when designing a rental is who I am actually designing for. Even when you don’t know the future tenant personally, you still need to create an imaginary client or “avatar” to guide your decisions.
For this apartment, I imagined a young single adult or a young couple without children.
We also wanted the apartment to feel more luxurious than you might expect from a very small rental, without spending too much money on it. That meant being quite intentional about where to spend and where to save.
But creating an avatar is not only important when designing a rental.
If you are planning and renovating your own home, you are the avatar. You need to think about who will actually live there and, more importantly, how you want to use the space. What do you need every day? Where do you naturally spend your time? Do you cook a lot? Do you work from home? Do you need privacy? How much storage do you actually need?
These questions should be answered before you start making decisions about the layout, furniture or finishes. A beautiful space that doesn’t work for the way you live will never feel like a successful design.
For me, tiny living spaces have always been an interesting challenge. They force me to put my space-planning skills to work and look for solutions that I might not consider in a larger home. I have also lived in very small spaces myself, so I knew that living small does not necessarily mean giving up all the comforts of a proper home.
My brief to myself was to create a feeling that the apartment had at least two separate rooms, so that you could have some privacy when needed. When I lived in a studio apartment, I saw just how important this can be, especially when you are sharing the space with another person, or even more people.
Finding the right layout
The apartment itself was extremely small. There was no kitchen or bathroom before the renovation, which made the planning even more complicated.
The bathroom also needed to fit a shower, as there was obviously no room for a bathtub.
The toilet was originally accessed from the stairwell of the building rather than from inside the apartment. This meant there was an opportunity to rework it so that it could be accessed directly from the apartment.
The problem was that the tiny toilet room had originally been designed only for a toilet, so finding space for both a toilet and even the smallest vanity required some creativity.
There was another important factor to consider. The apartment had two exterior doors.
The upper door on the plan opened into the stairwell, which led directly to the street. The lower door opened towards the courtyard behind the building.
Having two exterior doors in such a tiny apartment did not make much sense, so one of them had to be closed off or simply not used. That was the first decision to make.
Since it seemed more logical to enter the apartment from the street side, I started looking for solutions based on that entrance.
I tried arranging the kitchen, living room and bedroom in different ways, trying to make everything work logically. I won’t pretend I didn’t spend a lot of hours on it, but eventually the solution came to me.
The kitchen had to go in the middle of the apartment.
Giving a tiny apartment a proper kitchen
One thing that has always bothered me in many small and medium-sized apartments is how tiny the kitchens tend to be.
The kitchen is the heart of a home, and my experience has shown me that even guests often naturally gather around the dining table. So instead of giving this tiny apartment a tiny kitchen, I decided to give it a kitchen that actually has everything you need, from a full-size oven to a dishwasher.
Placing the kitchen in the middle of the apartment also created the opportunity to make what felt like a separate private room behind it.
At first, I considered building a proper wall between the two spaces. But there were two major problems with that idea.
First, a wall would take away precious floor space, and there was already very little of it.
Second, the entire apartment had only two windows, and the window on the living room side faced north. If I built a solid wall between the spaces, almost all of the natural light would end up in the bedroom, leaving the living room and kitchen far too dark.
After several rounds of brainstorming, I came up with the idea of a glass partition.
It is thin, takes up very little space and allows plenty of light to pass through. To create privacy when needed, we installed a ceiling track for blackout curtains. This makes it possible to control both light and privacy depending on the situation.
I kept the bedroom as small as possible, while still making sure there was enough space to put a bedside table on either side of the bed and pull out the drawers underneath it.
The bed is not particularly wide, but it can accommodate two people when needed. It is a little narrower than a queen bed.
There was also enough room for a full-size wardrobe, which was important in such a small apartment.
The goal wasn’t to make the bedroom spacious. It was to make it just spacious enough to do everything it needed to do.
Making a bathroom out of almost nothing
The bathroom needed its own solution.
Because the building’s partition walls are made of timber and are very thick, we were able to use the thickness of the wall to our advantage. We also moved the bathroom wall slightly so that even a minimal vanity unit could fit.
The piece of wall that extended into the living room was turned into built-in shelves, which eventually became one of the most striking features of the apartment.
We tried to make use of every niche and recess in the walls to maximise the available space.
There wasn’t much room left for the shower, but with a cleverly positioned shower curtain, it is still completely practical to use.
The bathroom also required a few visual tricks so that the space would not feel even smaller.
I used small-format floor tiles because more individual tiles make the floor appear larger. The room also felt extremely tall, so to visually bring the height down, we installed the subway tiles horizontally.
I kept the color palette very neutral and light. In a small bathroom, I want the space to remain timeless for as long as possible rather than introducing something that could quickly make it feel dated or visually smaller.
Normally, I actually like using darker colours in small bathrooms because they can make the space feel bigger and more intimate. But this bathroom was exceptionally tiny, so white was simply the better choice here.
Where do you put the washing machine?
I believe every apartment should have a washing machine.
Finding a place for it was difficult because there was no room for it in the bathroom, and every inch of the kitchen was already being used.
Eventually, I found a place for the washing machine underneath the kitchen island, next to the chairs. This meant that access to the washing machine would come from the living room rather than the kitchen.
We eventually added kitchen cabinet doors in front of it, so the washing machine is completely hidden in everyday use.
This is one of those solutions that is not necessarily obvious when you first look at a floor plan. But when every inch matters, you have to start looking at spaces differently.
Visually, I knew that the apartment would feel much more spacious if we kept to one consistent colour palette, kept things hidden where possible and made use of every available corner.
Choosing furniture for a tiny apartment
Furniture selection is extremely important in a small apartment.
Furniture should ideally serve more than one purpose. It should not be too small, because surprisingly, very small furniture can actually make a room feel even smaller. I would rather have fewer pieces of furniture, but make sure they are the right size and provide enough storage.
In the living room, a large storage cabinet became the main piece of furniture, with the TV placed on top.
The cabinet provides plenty of storage for different things that can simply disappear behind the doors.
We had also planned to use a sofa bed, but for the time being, we used a sofa the client already had.
The kitchen was multi-purpose too.
The large peninsula serves as kitchen workspace, but it can also be used as a desk for studying or working, as well as a dining table.
Another small bonus is that the kitchen sink is positioned as if it were underneath a window. Technically, you are looking through the bedroom, but there is still natural light and a view when you want it.
Making the budget work
A large part of this rental apartment was furnished using IKEA solutions.
The kitchen, living room furniture and bedroom furniture were all purchased there. This allowed us to save money while also finding relatively flexible solutions for a kitchen that still needed to feel somewhat custom-made.
There is another practical advantage to using IKEA in a rental apartment. If something breaks, there is a good chance you can still find the same product or replacement parts later.
Using more affordable, readily available furniture also gave us more room in the budget to spend where it mattered most.
Creating a luxurious feeling does not necessarily mean using expensive materials or filling a room with expensive furniture. Proportion, lighting, colour, textiles and keeping visual clutter under control can have a much bigger effect on how a space feels.
The details that make a rental feel like a home
There are two things that are often overlooked in rental apartments but can make a huge difference: textiles and lighting.
These are two of the things that can take a space from feeling like a standard rental to feeling like an actual home.
We used both to create a more comfortable and welcoming atmosphere here.
For the rugs and curtains, we chose something simple but still supportive of the overall interior. Here you can read more about How to Make Cheap Curtains Look Custom
For the lighting, we used warm-toned LED bulbs at 2700K. We also added lighting underneath the shelves and kitchen worktop, as well as inside the bathroom vanity shelves, and looked for cosy table and floor lamps to add softer layers of light.
If you want to read more about all the ways you can create cosy lighting at home, you can find that post here (The Ultimate Lighting Guide: How to Fix Flat Lighting and Create a Cozy, Well-Lit Home)
Lighting needs to be planned from the beginning
Lighting is not something to think about at the very end.
It needs to be planned before the first construction work even begins.
That is why it is so important to have the overall apartment plan figured out first, including the furniture layout. Once you know where everything will go, you can plan the positions of all the lights and electrical outlets accordingly.
For example, because there are no cabinets above the kitchen sink, we needed to plan a spotlight directly into the ceiling to properly illuminate that area.
The location of the sink and washing machine also had to be decided early, so that the necessary water and drainage could be planned.
This is one of the reasons I always say that a renovation should be planned as a whole. You cannot really make decisions one at a time and hope everything will work out at the end.
Renovation is like a house of cards
Building and renovating is a little like building a house of cards.
Every decision depends on the one before it, and if something changes, it can trigger a whole chain reaction of other decisions.
Moving a wall can affect the furniture layout. The furniture layout affects the lighting and electrical outlets. Moving the kitchen affects plumbing. Even something as simple as changing the size of a cabinet can affect whether another piece of furniture still fits.
That is why the old saying “measure twice, cut once” is especially true when renovating.
Plan, plan, plan.
And don’t be afraid to think outside the box. In a tiny space, unconventional solutions can sometimes make the biggest difference.
This apartment is a good example of why I enjoy working with small spaces. The challenge isn’t simply fitting everything in. It’s deciding what matters most and finding a way for each part of the space to work harder.
A tiny apartment does not have to feel like a compromise. With the right planning, it can still have a proper kitchen, comfortable sleeping space, storage, a washing machine, good lighting and even a little bit of luxury.
