Renting your home means that it can be quite tricky to find ways to gain extra space in your home. As much as we’d love to start adding extensions into our current property, I’m not sure that our landlady would be on board with that, so it means we would have to be a little more creative to find added space. Obviously, in an ideal world, we’d love to just create a loft extension with a roof-light window and some VELUX blinds to use as a master suite with a bedroom and grown-up bathroom, but alas, it’s not an option! Here are some other ideas of how to get space without moving or starting major renovations:
Summer House
Wooden summer houses are a great way to add space if you have room in your garden. They can be decorated and fitted out to look really quite swanky, and can even be fitted with electricity, which would allow you to add lightling and potentially even an office space if you work from home. Someone I know has created a whole home spa area in a large summer house with a hot tub and bar!
Raised Bed
It used to be only kids who slept in bunkbeds, but lots of the major furniture retailers also now sell double beds which are raised around 6ft off of the ground and accessible via ladder. Although this doesn’t technically add space, per se, it allows you to reclaim a few square meters which would usually be taken up by the bed. You could add a seating area underneath, or even a wardrobe!
Wasted Space
Often, if you look around a home, you’ll see lots of areas which are actually wasted space. For instance, while many of us will have a cupboard under the stairs, there’s actually tons of space under the whole staircase, which a good carpenter can often turn into a really useful storage solution with pull-out drawers. Another place is under the bath – a sliding bath panel can give you a place to hide away all of the toiletries which don’t get used everyday, allowing you to really conceal your clutter.
Multifunctional furniture
Because space is at a premium here in the UK, people seem to be getting used to living in smaller properties, which requires you to be inventive about your belongings. This has given rise to a lot of clever companies making furniture which is multifunctional or can be folded away when not in use. Think about how much room you could save if your dining table folded up to the size of a suitcase?!
Go Outdoors!
Often, people don’t utilise their outdoor spaces to their fullest. Live in a flat but want a garden? How about some window boxes to grow your kitchen garden! There are so many clever solutions for outdoor spaces and you might find that bringing your garden/balcony/windowsill into your plan for living can really help you to feel like you aren’t completely boxed in.
This is a great post! And some great tips, I guess that’s what make it such a great post (and the high quality images you’ve share throughout) I feel we’ll see even smaller properties and even more functional, resize able furniture as time goes on both domestically and in commercial offices. Love this, thanks!