Simple Living: How to Make the Most of Small Spaces

Bigger isn’t always better.

For a while I’d been considering moving into a two-bedroom place, and saying goodbye to my studio apartment.

However, I knew that if I went bigger I’d end up paying a lot more and most likely buy more stuff to fill that space (I know my triggers, so I try not to go there).

Instead of moving into a bigger apartment, I decided to get rid of anything I hadn’t used in the 3 years since we’d moved in, and I redecorated purposefully.

Redecorating probably took a total of 15 hours and $150 (the beauty of little apartments and tiny changes), and turned out much better than expected.

I’m not a decorator, but my more fashion-savvy friends have been pleasantly surprised by the results. Here are some of the tricks that I accidentally learned along the way:

1. Get rid of everything you possibly can (clothes, candles, those 10 pairs of black leggings you don’t wear anymore, meaningless knick knacks, that stack of magazines you’ve been meaning to look at). This gives you more time to do the things you want, instead of maintaining and organizing all the junk you don’t use.
2. Throw away all your excess food storage containers. Somehow I had around 30, and I probably use 5 of them.
3. Get rid of books that are taking up space. For teachers, you may have a lot of excess textbooks and files/folders from former classes, get rid of those, and scan the important documents you absolutely need to keep.
4. Clear off all your counter and table space, leaving maybe one or two items. I don’t know how the illusion works, but for some reason your place will look much neater and somehow bigger.
5. Put aesthetically pleasing, large items on your walls. Like a guitar or bike (I did both).
6. Put big mirrors on your walls. It makes it seem like you’ve got a window and/or extra bedroom, and light will reflect off of it during the day making your place brighter (which I love).
7. Put your massive DVD or CD collection in a couple DVD/CD wallets, or download your songs to your iTunes and get rid of your collection altogether. I’m still having a hard time with this- I haven’t parted with my CDs yet, and will probably keep most of them forever, but I’m working on getting rid of the DVD cases.

Even though it’s not easy on everyone (myself included) to part with things, it’s all about priorities.

I absolutely love my apartment, it’s in the perfect location, and it’s affordable. Honestly, I think about how much I love it every single day.

By society’s standards, I should be increasing my space and belongings the older and more ‘established’ I get, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the only option. I’d much rather give up some of my insignificant material things to stay in this apartment that’s come to feel like home.

To me, my place represents freedom, simplicity, and extra time. It’s small, which means I can make the whole space look fantastic in 20 minutes flat. How great is that? I prefer to spend my time enjoying everything wonderful that life has to offer, not cleaning and organizing.

So here’s a possible goal for you: Try to add some simplicity to your life by subtracting what never really mattered to begin with.