Opening Up And Maximizing A Small Space In Your Home

By Danielle Wirsansky on August 2, 2020

When you are in college, your living spaces tend to be kind of small, whether you live in a dorm on an off-campus apartment. In many college towns, even the apartments are designed and built to be smaller so that property managers can fit more students in and the smaller the space, the cheaper it is which is very appealing to any frugal college student.

However, you most likely have a lot of stuff and how are you supposed to fit all of your belongings into such a tiny space? Especially when it is a shared space, whether it be a dorm or apartment, which makes it even tighter. While the spaces are made smaller, they are not necessarily designed to help a tenant maximize their space. There are certain tricks you can try to help you make the most of the space you do have. Read on to learn about opening up and maximizing a small space in your home!

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Magnetic Fridge Rack

When you have got a lot of cooks in the kitchen (or several people sharing one cooking space), space is a really important element that helps keep your belongings organized. Roommates are notorious for getting into each other’s food, so having clear separations of space can serve you well. However, a small apartment kitchen is not usually very equipped for this task. A surprisingly large number of apartments do not have pantries either, which can give you even less storage space than you might expect.

Any kitchen worth its mettle is going to have a refrigerator. This means that a magnetic fridge rack is something that every kitchen can utilize. You can use it to store spices, dry foods, paper towels, or even items you use in your kitchen every day like Ziploc bags. It will stick right onto the front of your fridge, it will not stick out so far as to obstruct movement around the fridge, and will give you some very valuable extra storage space.

Hanging Window Plant Shelf

Lots of college students are joining the trend of taking care of plants (succulents are especially popular). Many are interested in growing their own herbs to accent their cooking. But without a yard, or perhaps even a balcony, where can you keep your plants and still keep them alive? Sometimes even if you have a balcony, apartment complexes will not let you hand anything off of them for safety reasons.

Instead, you can maximize your indoor space and use a window. Have trays hang in rows on your window. That way, the only space they take up in the window frame without protruding too much from it and your plants get the fresh air and sunshine that they need to survive.

Nesting Tables

Table space is a big deal in any college student’s home. We all need a space to eat and do homework, but is a whole table necessary when you already have so little space? Is getting a big old dining table worth the expense of getting it and the effort to lug it in if you are not going to use it all that much and you do not really have the space for it? Many college students prefer to just sit on the couch and eat and do their homework, but not everyone feels comfortable doing that.

This is why nesting tables are a really great compromise. You can get tables of various sizes and heights, so you can have a set of tables perfect for just one person to use or two if you feel like sharing. And you can use the tables of different heights for different things. You could use the tallest for eating, the middle one for doing homework on, and the third to sit on the floor and work with. It is up to you! And by nesting the tables, you free up a lot of room for storage!

Corner Furniture

Corners are very under-utilized spaces, and in a small apartment or dorm, you can’t afford not to try and use that space! Whether you get a corner fitting hamper or a corner fitting desk, find a piece of furniture that might work best for you in a corner fitting shape so you can maximize your space and fit a piece of furniture in that you might otherwise not have been able to fit in your room.

Photo by Maksim Goncharenok from Pexels

There are lots of little tricks and tips you can follow to open up and maximize the small spaces in your home. Try these out and see if they help. From there, you can see if they inspire you with any other pieces or practices that you can implement in your own home to help you save even more space!

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