Designing A Cozy Retreat: Step-by-Step Guide
In this blog post, I’ll share how I transformed a one-bedroom apartment with a challenging layout and limited space into a cozy, inviting haven. If you love warm neutrals and are designing a snug retreat for yourself, this guide will offer practical tips and inspiring ideas to help you make the most of your space.
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Let’s begin!
Designing a small apartment requires thoughtful consideration of space, color, texture, and furnishings to craft an inviting and comfortable atmosphere. In this post, I'll provide a step-by-step guide and share how I applied these principles to create a welcoming home. While I’ve covered the entryway, living room, and dining room here, stay tuned for the next post where we'll dive into designing the bedroom and bathroom.
1. Assess The Space & Plan The Layout
The first step in designing any space is to assess the layout and create a rough plan. This crucial step helps you visualize how the space will function and prevents costly design mistakes from impulsively purchasing furniture that might not fit or work well in your space.
This apartment featured a compact footprint and a challenging layout, with a narrow entryway and a long wall that closed off the kitchen. Additionally, the fireplace was off-center in the overall layout. By carefully assessing the space before diving into the design process, I was able to develop strategies for arranging the furniture in a way that optimized the space, avoiding a cluttered or awkward appearance.
2. Styling The Entryway
Begin by styling the entryway. No matter how small your apartment or entryway, there is always a way to design and style an inviting entryway. With careful planning and creative solutions, you can maximize the space, adding both functionality and aesthetic appeal.
In this apartment, I was working with a very narrow entryway as you can see from the layout above. My favorite way of designing an entryway is placing a console table and adding styling elements. Although placing a table right at the entrance wasn’t feasible, I positioned it a few steps in along the wall. To enhance the narrow space, I added a runner rug, wall hooks, and picture frames. These fill up the empty space and also give an idea into the aesthetics and design that’s about to unfold as you enter the home!
Related: Check out 11 Fall Entryway Styling Ideas For Inspiration
3. Create Zones & Use The Focal Point
A very common design mistake you’ll find in living rooms is furniture pushed back against the walls. The long walls are instantly seen as prompts to place furniture and the design aspect of it is overlooked in the process. Instead of defaulting to wall placement, consider bringing the furniture closer to create a balanced and inviting layout that enhances the overall design of the space.
Now let’s talk about focal points. Focal points work as an easy guide and indicate where the furniture should be. In this design, I used the fireplace as a focal point to decorate and arrange furniture around it. The room looks cozy, inviting and optimally used.
If you’re designing a space that doesn’t have an obvious focal point like a fireplace, you can play around with the layout to see which works better. Ensure there’s enough pathway around the furniture and you’re not blocking off or closing off the space by putting overly large pieces. Especially when working with open spaces such as this, it is important to remember that you can create multiple zones instead of treating the entire room as one.
3. Arranging The Living Room Furniture
We talked about the importance of focal point. Now let’s see how to arrange furniture by taking into consideration the surrounding spaces.
Although this design had a focal point, it’s a semi-open layout space. The long wall that covers the kitchen made furniture placement a challenge. I also had functional objectives to meet while acing the decor. I had to place the furniture such that the path to the dining or kitchen wasn’t obstructed.
Commonly all furniture points in the direction of the television or the fireplace (basically, the focal point) but in order to meet the functional objectives, I went a different way and placed them opposite one another. This way, you get a dedicated living room, beautiful design, open living room that has enough pathway around it to access the surrounding spaces.
I chose a 3 seater couch and a pair of accent chairs. Another common mistake seen in a lot of homes is placing L or U shaped sectionals. Personally, I’m not a big fan of sectionals in any living room, big or small but especially in an apartment since sectionals fill up the space and make it look smaller. You may be tempted to buy a sectional but understand how it might negatively impact the overall look and functionality of your home.
Related: Don’t Miss These Pointers If You’re Planning To Buy A Sectional
4. Thoughtful Coffee Table Styling
Here’s a little decor tip for coffee table styling. For a rectangular coffee table like this, divide the table into a 3 x 3 such that you have 3 columns and 3 rows, equally divided. You now have a grid to work with. The idea is to decorate the second row across the length.
Place a vase in the center with faux stems, 2 to 3 vertically stacked books adjacent to it with a decor object, a tray with some more decor objects and books on the other side.
5. Choosing Window Treatments
If I had to choose an element that makes or breaks a design, I would pick window treatments! They are highly underrated, often overlooked and very impactful. To get the designer look you want, say a hard no to blinds and a big yes to drapes.
Since I was aiming for a cozy vibe in this apartment, I chose warm neutral colors for the drapes and paired it with rattan shades. The combination works beautifully in adding warmth to the space.
Related: 7 Foolproof Curtain Hanging Tactics To Get The Designer Look
6. Gallery Wall Opportunity
A long wall that does not have a lot of footprint to occupy a furniture piece is an opportunity to display a gallery of pictures. In this apartment, the wall that closes off the kitchen was so big and closing off the living room so awkwardly that I could not place any furniture after completing the living room arrangement.
Initially, my thought was to place a chaise lounge or a bench along this wall above which I could display a gallery wall of small square picture frames. But doing so cut off into the living room and narrowed the pathway into the living and dining room further. So I ended up removing the furniture and doing a simple but a big gallery wall.
The frames I chose are identical and have a lot of negative space in them. In interior design, negative space refers to the empty or open areas around and between furniture and decor items. It creates a balanced, uncluttered look enhancing the visual appeal of the room.
7. Designing The Dining Room
Let’s discuss a little bit about the dining room design. If you’re working with an open space like this, layout of the dining table and chairs becomes even more crucial. You don't want to have a dining table that is disproportionately large or too small; it's essential to choose a table that matches the scale of the furniture in the other open space for a balanced and harmonious look.
If you do this the right way, you’ll be left with some room to place a sideboard buffet or a cabinet. In this apartment, I used the window in the dining room as the focal point to achieve symmetry in the look when deciding the furniture layout. I then used the space next to the window to put a cabinet that can be used to display crockery. A rug underneath the table is a must to anchor all the pieces. Remember to place a flatweave rug to allow easy movement of the chairs.
8. Cohesive Design
A cohesive space is key to attain the designer look in a home. Regardless of whether you’re working with an open space or a more segmented layout, achieving a cohesive design is essential to ensure the home feels unified and harmonious.
It’s a very broad topic in itself but the easiest way to get a cohesive look is by maintaining the color, patterns, textures, materials and styles throughout the space.
In this apartment, to get a cohesive cozy look I did multiple things. I carried the same window treatments, stuck to the warm wood tones and color scheme, chose soft furnishings that have similar patterns and are close in style, and added ample of ambient lighting throughout (table lamp on the console, picture lights above the gallery wall, lamp on the dining room cabinet).
I had a great time designing the living spaces of this apartment! Stay tuned for the bedroom and bathroom looks. How did you like this design?
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