My bedroom when I moved into my new place was…tiny. Like 92-square-foot tiny. I have emotionally distressingly measured every inch of it approximately fifty zillion times because I couldn’t compute how small it really was.
So when I first moved into the room I panicked. Up until this point, I’d lived in pretty spacious rooms in shared houses. Hell, my room in the last flat was enormous.
But this felt worse than stepping into someone’s closet with a view. It wasn’t until weeks later when I stopped staring at the walls in terror that I realized it: my tiny room had taught me more about creating a home than any of the larger spaces I’d previously lived in. * *drum roll* The secret isn’t filling your room with all the things you love.
Oh no, I tried that.
I hung all the art I owned on the walls. I brought in the giant armchair that definitely doesn’t work in this space (thankfully I moved it back out soon after). I convinced myself that layering meant having three pillows on my bed.
It was exhausting! Walking into my room gave me anxiety. I took everything off the walls, moved everything out of my room, and donated/stored it all.
Literally started with a blank canvas. A beige box that shall remain nameless. I sat on the floor in that empty room and forced myself to think about what truly made me feel at home.
It wasn’t about what I thought looked homey—Pinterest has no sway here! It was about what makes you feel at home. What calms you down after a stressful day?
What cheers you up when you wake up? What makes you feel like this tiny space is yours? Okay, here’s the thing.
It wasn’t about buying a bunch of expensive stuff. The first thing I did was paint one wall—which color Wall??? Hear me out.
After hanging that dark sage green paint in my first flat I’ll never underestimate the power of paint again. But since you only have one wall you have to be strategic with your color choices. I chose a warm dusty pink.
And guys, I literally can’t think of a worse color than dusty pink. It sounds horrible! But Trust me.
This color reminds me of that perfect summer evening sky when you’re sitting outside drinking wine and life is awesome. Farrow & Ball call it Setting Plaster. I bought the Dulux cheapo version because quite frankly, £89 for a tin of paint still sends me into an anxiety spiral.
But knowing I could paint over it if I hated it, I took the plunge. Painting that one wall was my anchor point. Everything else in my room had to complement that wall or go!
From there I moved on to textures. This is where it got a little emotional for me. One of my favorite possessions is a quilt my nan made me.
It’s not super fancy. Just little patchwork squares of cream and blue fabrics sewn together in her lonely winter nights watching Coronation Street. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember but for some reason, I’d never used it in any of my rooms.
I didn’t think it was “cool” enough to hang up. But throwing it over the end of my bed in my minuscule room it suddenly became my favorite thing. It made my bedroom feel cozy and like someone had lived there—more than any before-after magazine pillow setup ever had.
Pro tip: if you have a special quilt/take/blanket from your childhood, now is the time to bring it out. The second texture I added was a rug. Another small one; just big enough so that my feet don’t hit the cold floor when I first wake up.
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I picked up this cute jute rug from the marketplace at my local homeware store for £35. It was so worth the texture and warmth it brought to the room. Then came the furniture decisions—which in a 92-square-foot bedroom means everything is multiplied by 100.
The armchair was obviously first to go. But I did splurge on a nightstand that doubles as a desk. (PSA: IKEA hack coming soon. It’s their LACK shelf mounted on the wall with some hefty brackets underneath to support all your stuff.) There was no way I could fit my desk in here so this shelf doubles up as my workspace while giving me a spot for my books and laptop.
Oh and it doesn’t take up any floor plan which is clutch. Storage was next. I opted for two skinny bookcases on either side of the window.
But the trick is to only use the top half for books. Insert tiny plants, and a few special objects here and there. But use storage baskets on the bottom two shelves for all of that “miscellaneous” junk that would otherwise be littering your floor.
Now for the pièce de résistance. Lighting. Strip lighting/ceiling lights are the worst when it comes to making your room feel cozy and homey.
Especially if you’re not blessed with uber high ceilings. If you can, opt for as few overhead lights as possible. I swapped the switch so I could use dimmer lights (cost me about £15 and was easier than it sounds if you’re savvy with electrical stuff) and added 3 other sources of light; A small lamp on my floating shelf, some battery-operated string lights around the window frame (jazz hands not fairy lights) and yep, one of those salt lamps.
I’m not one to buy into health trends but I will say that there is something about the soft glow of that salt lamp that makes my room feel so cozy. Art was definitely the toughest part about making my room feel homey. Because you have such limited wall space, you really need to choose your pieces wisely.
I opted for 3 small prints—I chose all the same artist and kept them within the same color palette so they would match my pink wall. I hung them really close together (like, they almost touch) above my bed. They’re photos of vintage European doorways.
Cheesy? Maybe. But they make me think of traveling and when I wake up in the morning that’s the first thing I see so it works for me.
Plants are obviously essential but when you have limited floor space you’ve got to be strategic. One big plant (this guy’s a rubber tree and has somehow managed to stay alive on my intermittent watering schedule) and three small succulents on my windowsill. That’s it.
More than that and it starts to feel cluttered. Lesson: if it doesn’t spark joy, out it goes. The moral of this story?
Literally every item in my room had to earn its keep. Not because it matched the rest of my decor, but because it either served a purpose or it meant something to me. That vintage brass mirror I picked up in a boot sale.
The pile of books I keep rereading. The bowl I toss my earrings into every night.
The wool blanket I’ve cozied up with for every Netflix binge.
Months into living in that pathetic excuse for a bedroom friends started to compliment me on how “homey” it felt. Like actually cozy and lived-in, not hip and decorated. And that’s because it was.
My room wasn’t pretending to be something it wasn’t. It was a reflection of my life; my real life, not the aspirational bullshit I probably put out on social media. It centred around my everyday routines and the things I actually loved—not what I thought would look good in a room that size.
And that, my friends, is how you make any room feel like home. When I moved into a bigger room I carried all these tips over. Room size isn’t what makes or breaks whether a home feels like yours.
Intention is. And honestly, sometimes the smallest rooms teach you the biggest lessons.*. *.#homelovin #tinyroomproblems #noregrets
