Your home can give you much more than you canthink. How to start expanding the existing possibilities of your living space – in our material today Have you realized that your current interior no longer meets your needs? Are you missing something, is something in the way, or have you simply become uncomfortable? Then it's time to learn how to expand the functionality of even the most cramped apartments. How? The main thing is not to rush to extremes and move forward slowly, step by step. So, let's get started.
1. Make a list
More precisely, 2 lists.In the first, list the purpose of all available functional areas and interior items and how often you use them. You will be surprised by the real state of affairs: a huge dining table is set only for holidays, and then only with difficulty; the mezzanine is piled high with things and has not been sorted out for over a year, and no one has sat in the chair that was once a favorite for a long time. Here you have a few square meters of free space for a laundry room, a home office or, if you are lucky, another bedroom. Make a second list. It will contain the extremely important, necessary and passionately desired. Combine both lists and figure out what can be sacrificed and what you can’t do without. Now let's look at several techniques with which you can remake, reorient and re-equip everything unnecessary and rarely used into something essential and functional.
2. Combine the bathrooms
Maybe it's time to do it? Just imagine: your bathroom will become 1.5-2 times bigger, and you will finally be able to install a corner bathtub with hydromassage here.
3. Equip a laundry room
It can accommodate not only a washing machinemachine, but also an ironing board, a laundry basket and much more. The laundry room itself can be placed in the corner between the bathroom and the bedroom or in the place where the cabinets you got from the developer used to be. You've already gotten rid of them, haven't you? Of course, not all dreams are so easy to realize, because the transfer of plumbing equipment and "wet zones" in our country is strictly regulated. However, almost any architectural bureau will be able to give you competent advice on what can be done in a particular case, and will help you find a solution.
Mito Melitonyan, architect:"It is generally accepted that hidden possibilities are the maximum use of space to fill it with various functions. This is partly true, but we must not forget that interior items also have such potential. A fairly common occurrence in kitchen interiors is a folding table attached to the wall. It allows you to save a lot of space in a small room. This solution is most often found in apartments where young people live. It is unlikely to be comfortable for families and the elderly. Furniture in general has a lot of hidden possibilities: a sofa bed, various transformers, French folding beds..."
4. Make a study room
Let's assume there is no room for it at all:the bedroom only has room for a bed and a wardrobe, and the living room has only a tiny corner that you don’t want to overload with a table and a computer chair. This is not a problem. Transformer furniture will come to your aid: the bed can fall right out of the wall, and the desk – out of a nice carved bureau. Instead of a massive leather chair on wheels, look for a plastic transparent ghost chair.
5. Hobby corner
Organize your wardrobe.Are you sure you wear everything that is stored there? If there is something that you haven’t worn for over a year, feel free to get rid of it. Shoes can be stored not in boxes, but in woven consoles, and the freed-up space can be converted into a corner for sewing/scrapbooking/photo retouching/drawing.
6. Remodel the dining area
A dining table for 12 is great, buttoo large-scale. If you do have noisy feasts, look for a folding table, of which there are now a great many on the market, and free up a few square meters. But if the idea of a dining table has finally lost its relevance for you, feel free to replace it with a bar counter.
7. Balcony
You probably have a dream about the idealbalcony? How do you envision it? A playroom for children, a yoga room, a winter garden, a study or a lounge area with lots of cushions? Stop dreaming and start doing!
Mito Melitonyan, architect:"Another interesting solution is a ceiling bed that goes down on rails to the floor level. In private houses where there is a staircase, the space under it is usually equipped as a storage room and filled with all sorts of useful and sometimes unnecessary things. If there are small children in the house and there is no attic, make a secluded corner for them there: children love such nooks. A rather interesting technique is the use of mirror surfaces on the entire wall, which will visually expand the space by 2 times. Combining rooms (for example, a living room and a dining room, a room and a loggia) can also be attributed to hidden possibilities. Loggias, by the way, are a great place to set up an office. Glazing balconies, which is quite widely used, I think is the wrong solution. Firstly, much less light penetrates into the apartment, and secondly, it most often becomes a collector of all sorts of junk. I do not recommend making mezzanines in the hallways, because in practice it is the same as a glazed balcony - another grave for things. High ceilings, at least 3.2-3.4 m, will allow you to arrange a sleeping place on the second tier (for example, in the entrance area, above the door). In general, hidden possibilities are very individual solutions. In each specific case, they can be different, and some are completely inapplicable in some situations. Most of them are quite well known and, in fact, are no longer something innovative. However, the ability to wisely distribute space and make the most of every centimeter of usable area will make the apartment an object of imitation. No matter how strange it may seem, but one of the most important hidden possibilities of apartments, I believe, is the ability not to use these very possibilities: it is better to simply remove unnecessary items from the house, thereby freeing up space for living." petagazine.com, digresser.com, tazatek.com, ranario.com, decosee.com, guatacrazynight.com, stupic.com, emmiez.com, novahead.com, majeshome.com, peelroom.com, leif1981.com, guatacrazynight.com, 66us.com
