Designing a Small Living Space
By Kelly Vorous
Welcome to our home! I’ll be sharing some of my tips and tricks that I’ve learned while furnishing and decorating our small living space. When we first moved into this home, I was worried about the lack of space. Our living area opens up into our dining room and kitchen, basically making it one space. The style of our home has changed towards a more modern feel over the years, which our family really enjoys. Modern design tends to be more clean-lined with a neutral color palette, which works well for a smaller space like ours. I have learned to love the challenge that comes with furnishing and decorating a smaller space!
Scale
Sometimes you have to live with a space and learn from your mistakes and that is exactly what I did. I always recommend measuring your space before shopping for furniture. Measuring will help you eliminate what won’t work so you can focus on what will. I measured our living area before shopping and knew what I had to work with.
Function
Small spaces often lack storage, which requires us to think more about how we live in our homes and how we need them to function. Our home has a designated media niche for the television above the fireplace. The niche is an open space but offers no storage. There are hallways on both sides of the fireplace so there is literally no place for a media cabinet that most people have in their homes. My solution to our storage problem was opting for a nightstand in place of a traditional end table. The nightstand provides functional storage for library books, toys for our cat, and throw blankets.
Color, Texture, & Accessorizing
You may notice that lack of color in our home. I prefer to stick with a neutral color palette, especially when it comes to furniture, curtains, and rugs. I always recommend sticking with neutral colors when buying these items because they tend to be the most expensive. Color can easily be introduced and even swapped out seasonally with throw pillows, candles, books, flowers, and other inexpensive decorative pieces.A neutral color palette helps to make our home feel cohesive since it is open to other areas. I love neutral colors and texture over color in a small space because it’s less distracting and allows our living space to blend into our dining and kitchen area. I feel like I have more freedom working with texture and a neutral color palette because I can layer and decorate more easily.
Personalizing Your Space
We happen to live in a unique area of San Diego and I wanted to bring some of the history of our neighborhood into our home. Our neighborhood is on the grounds of the former Naval Training Center boot camp which is now known as Liberty Station. I tracked down an old photo of the area from 1929 and had it framed. I also had a black and white photo of my husband on his first ship, the USS Tripoli, that I framed.
Follow Kelly on Instagram at @houseofaqua.