small house...I can dream!

14 years ago

I have so many ideas I've cut out of magazines on ways to make a small house "bigger" but no $$ to do them! Here are some of the ideas:

Use unified flooring throughout. The magazine showed a picture of what I have now - different flooring in LR, DR & kitchen as "before" then "after" they had installed ceramic tile in all 3 rooms. It was a amazing- doubled the visual size of the house! I have the laminate flooring I want all picked out - just need $3000 to buy it!

Built-ins. I have articles showing built-in cupboards in the bed room - take one wall, build in floor to ceiling & around the window, with a window seat/bench under the window. Amazing amount of storage and looks great. You can get rid of dresser & chest and the room looks so much bigger.

Book cases. I saw this in a magazine yesterday - 3 walls of the living room are completely built floor to ceiling with bookcases, even over the door. The furniture floats instead of being right against the wall. It looked great for a small living room & added storage.

I already have cabinents all the way to the ceiling in the kitchen (no soffit). The prior owners had them built and they add a ton of storage. I'm very tall so I can use all the shelves.

Use the ceilng for storage. I saw this in a magazine - hooks on the ceiling of the closet to hang boots, purses, etc that aren't being used in the current season. There's a lot of wasted space up there in the top of the closet!

I haven't seen this but can visualize - some type of shelves built over the stairs/ceiling of the stairs going down from 2nd to 1st floor. There is a huge amount of wasted space up there over our heads!

My friend built in shelves inside the studs of the stairs going down into the basement, they are deep enough to store cans. He has a "pantry" in the basement stairway. Mine is plastered over so I can't do it, but if you have exposed studs this is a great idea. I guess I could do this in the garage - it has exposed studs inside.

Does anyone else have ideas to either visually expand or actually find hidden storage in small homes?

Comments (9)

pergie
14 years ago
mommabird, i would love to see a before and after pic of the floors, as I am thinking of doing something like this in my small home. Can you post the pics?
gayle0000
14 years ago
Match your window treatments to the color and architectural interior of your home. This will make everything look bigger, and not force your eye to stop at WT as a focal point.
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gayle0000
14 years ago
We had a thread similar to this a while back. Link is below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Older thread
gardenlover25
14 years ago
I also have a design in mind about a small home. I love to watch home makeovers in TV to get some styles and ideas on our future house.
ilmbg
14 years ago
When I built my home my daughter was a younger teen- too old for toys, but wanting to keep some things- and collectables. In her bedroom, I had shelving made that was about 18 inches or so from the ceiling. The shelving went all around the room- over the door too. I understand the current owners use that room as tv/computer room- now the shelving is full of books.
marilyn_c
14 years ago
I used to live in a tiny little house...just a living room, kitchen/dining area, bedroom and bathroom. We remodeled the kitchen and put glass doors on the cabinets. It gave the rooom depth and more interest and made it seem larger.
TxMarti
14 years ago
Hey Marilyn, good to see you!

I wish I could afford to put wood flooring throughout my house. I think lighter colors also visually enlarge rooms.
As much as I hate my white kitchen tile, it makes my narrow kitchen look much bigger.
Shades_of_idaho
14 years ago
I did the glass fronts in our cabinet doors and what a huge difference it made. It only cost me $80.00 to have it done.

Before when we were looking at the house to buy.
{{!gwi}}

After we had glass put in the kitchen doors. Removed the raised panel centers.
{{!gwi}}

We do not live in this house any longer. Was a fun house.

Chris
Shades_of_idaho
14 years ago
Forgot to say behind the door next to the fridge is a walk in pantry so we did not need these cabinets for food. I just had some pretty things in them. The serving bowls and stuff. I did not do the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen in glass. Just this one side.

Chris