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Make your small house look spacious with our list of design hacks for every room in your home
Mumbai is known for its busy life, beautiful views and cramped homes. Yes, though it has an enduring magical vibe around it, the dream city is a bit short of spacious homes, which is why it becomes essential to have a smart interior design for Mumbai homes that can utilise the space ideally.
When we talked to one of our interior design experts, Sneha Kadam, Studio Manager, Design Cafe, Mumbai, she explained the problems with small Mumbai apartments and how to deal with them through Design Cafe’s hacks.
While discussing the design tips for less-spacious homes, Sneha said: “God is in the details, and it is rightly said! With Mumbai’s lifestyle and space constraints, the apartments and houses need to be designed creatively with savvy space-saving details. For instance, adding a design detail like a mirror wall panel can make space look large even in a compact apartment. And choosing the right mix of textures, colours, and patterns is another great way to make a tiny space look spacious.”
She also went ahead and shared some of her quick tips for small Mumbai apartments:
- Use modular floating furniture designs to make space.
- Go for multifunctional furniture pieces that are user-centric.
- Design spaces with straight lines and linearity to make the space look calmer and appealing.
- Arrange your furniture in such a way that there is enough room for unrestricted movement.
- Choose light colour schemes.
Here are some of our designer-selected tips to make a Mumbai small space home look and feel spacious. So, to all Mumbaikers, these are some tips that would definitely come in handy for you.
Use A Sleek TV Unit And Multipurpose Furniture For The Living Room
How to make a small room look bigger? Simple! Add modular and functional furniture sets that add storage along with style.
A small living room requires a calculated interior design to look spacious with all the necessary furniture. So, the first thing to do is use furniture pieces that are space-saving and multipurpose. For example, in the picture, we have designed a Mumbai apartment living room with a sleek TV unit that utilises the room’s wall space without taking much of the floor area. The TV unit also comes with open floating shelves — ideal for displaying articles. The TV unit also has a cabinet unit with open and closed shelves to store living room essentials like the remote, magazines, set-top box, etc. In this living room, we have also used the window area (which has a seat) and drawers for storage. There are recliner couches arranged by the wall to have a spacious middle ground for the rest of the living area.
As you can see, the living room, though narrow, looks spacious for unrestricted movement. We have also used the room’s vertical space to install a small pooja unit that accentuates the interiors. In terms of decoration, we have used accent wall colours that add dimension to your interiors.
So, the trick here was to use functional furniture with various modular storage to keep things clutter-free and clean.
Create A Super Space-Saving Dinner Area For Your Small Mumbai Apartment
If you are thinking about making a room look bigger, you need to include simple furniture sets. Most city apartments come with a living-cum-dining area. This means you need to arrange your dining section right across your living room without cramping the place. So, go for small dining tables that don’t take up a lot of space. For example, in the first picture, you can see we have used a multipurpose foldable dining table with a wall-mounted crockery unit. This table can be lifted to create a spacious area whenever needed. The second picture shows another example of space-saving dining set with a sleek, rectangular wooden table with chairs and wall-mounted bench arrangements that saves space without dulling the interiors.
PS: Avoid heavy wooden dining tables and chairs that take a lot of space. Use foldable and multipurpose dining setups to keep things minimal and spacious.
Make Your Cooking Haven Look Spacious With Design Cafe’s Modular Kitchen Ideas
Kitchens are the most critical areas in households. They are also rooms that require a lot of space. But new-age apartments come with limited kitchen areas, making it difficult to have a spacious kitchen design. Hence, go for our modular kitchen designs that utilise every corner of kitchen space to create user-oriented kitchens. If your kitchen area is small, but you need a lot of countertop space, go for a parallel modular kitchen design. With countertop space on both sides, you can get an added cooking preparation area in your kitchen. Also, go for modular cabinet systems that will add the benefit of multiple storages in your kitchen.
As you can see, the first picture reveals a small Mumbai apartment kitchen where we have utilised the vertical space of the kitchen with a variety of overhead cabinets — both open and closed. You can also add loft shutter cabinets for extra storage in your kitchen and lower cabinets of multiple types such as skirting drawers (to use the dead space), oil pullouts (to store oil bottles), etc.
As shown in the second picture, adding a glaring lacquer finish to your kitchen cabinets can create a mirror effect that makes small spaces look more spacious.
To help you with your tiny kitchens, here are some design hacks straight from Design Cafe’s Studio Manager in Mumbai, Tasneem Arsiwala:
- Align all your storage cut lines from the base unit to loft units.
- Coordinate your appliance colours if possible.
- Include patterned floor or dado tiles to take away attention from the size of the kitchen.
- Use open units for shelving to break the continuity of heavy units and make the space look bigger and livelier.
How To Make A Small Bedroom Look Bigger? Go With Simplicity!
Bedrooms need to be spacious and clutter-free, hence avoid heavy decor and unnecessary furniture. In our Mumbai small homes, we have gone with simple and minimal bedroom designs to create sleep quarters that are airy and spacious. We have modular furniture, such as wardrobes with extra storage, wardrobes with concealed dressing units, beds with storage drawers, etc. The tip is to keep everything under the cabinets so that the room stays clean and spacious. Design Cafe’s wardrobes come with multipurpose designs with a lot of additional storage. The first picture shows a small Mumbai apartment bedroom design with a modular wardrobe with an attached dressing mirror and loft storage. The wardrobe uses the wall space of the bedroom—helping to keep things clutter-free. The second bedroom also has a wall-length, floor-to-ceiling design with separate sections to keep his and her stuff separately organised. The wardrobe also has an open section where you can fit your little one’s things separately.
PS: Don’t jam-pack your bedroom with decor. If you have a small bedroom area, keep it minimally furnished so that there’s always enough space to move around freely.
Play With Neutral Colour Shades To Make Your Small Rooms Look Airy
If you want to make your room look bigger, use neutral colours such as white, cream, beige, etc. These colours make spaces look more expansive and airy. Hence, use these types of softer tones in your small bedroom, living area, kitchen, etc. You can also use neutral colour combinations — such as white and cream, beige and off-white — to break the monotony of the colour scheme. Sometimes, you can add a pop of colours or accent colours to break the monotony of your interiors. In those cases, colours like yellow, blue and orange can work great with neutral tones.
PS: Avoid dark colours as they look heavy and intense, which may not go well with narrow and small spaces.
Dress Your Windows With Tall And Light Drapes
Another critical point in making your small room look spacious is adding thin and light-coloured curtains and drapes. As most Mumbai small homes come with narrow spaces, you can make the rooms look visually spacious by adding tall curtains in light colours — ideally white and beige. This is because thick and dark-coloured drapes can make the rooms look heavy and dark, whereas lighter tone curtains make spaces look airy and free. For windows in the living room and bedroom, use tall floor-to-ceiling light curtains that will make your rooms look taller and wider. The bedroom in the picture is from a Mumbai apartment that uses a neutral colour scheme with tall, thin and lighter colour curtains that add spaciousness.
Decorate The Ceiling To Accentuate Your Small Rooms
As small rooms are often narrow, we advise keeping the decor minimal. However, that doesn’t mean your interiors cannot have some drama. You can add some embellishments to your small-sized rooms through some gorgeous ceiling work. If your apartment has tall rooms, you can utilise the room’s height to add some ceiling decor, such as suspended lighting. This will add a glam factor to your place without affecting your floor area. Adding ceiling lights and decor can also make your small rooms look brighter and hence, spacious. So, go for ceiling lights and frames to enhance your small house’s interiors.
Make Your Living Room Look Spacious With Sleek Sofa With Thin Legs
How to make your living room look bigger? Use furniture that has a sleek design. In this Mumbai apartment, the small living room has a traditional style high arm sofa that looks sleek and clean. The sofa’s thin legs further add a visual spaciousness that makes the living area look clean and airy. So, go for wooden furniture with low-height or thin legs to add spaciousness.
There you are; these were our eight go-to interior design hacks to make your small Mumbai apartment look spacious and lively. Remember: the thumb rule is to invest in modular furniture with the right colour schemes to make each room look wide and spacious. For more such design ideas, check out our blog section now!
