A studio apartment, also called a studio flat, a self-contained apartment, bed-sitter or bachelor apartment, efficiency apartment, is a small apartment which combines, mostly but not always, the living room, bedroom, and the kitchen into a single room.
It is best suitable option for only one person, as living or making yourself comfortable in a small space can usually mean that you must put all of your clutter in such a way that you can make the most effective and efficient use of your living space. Let’s explore 11 most useful tips for how to do make your studio apartment clutter free:
Tips to Clutter Free your Studio Apartment
01. Stay within your Means
It is not really the best idea or something innovative, but rather it would give you a push to start in order to have a clutter free studio. The phrase “Stay within your means” in regard of your apartment means to allow the size of your studio room govern the amount of stuff held inside your room, and not the stuff occupying all of your room space and making you uneasy or uncomfortable. On the contrary if your wardrobe is overflowing, rather than aiming and deciding to get a bigger one, why don’t you try giving away some of the clothes to fit in the extra space you have? This question can be a solution to many of your problems.
02. Designate a Space for Everything
There is an old saying quoted by the famous “Benjamin Franklin” a.k.a (Founding Father of the United State) that “a place for everything, and everything in its place” which puts more light on the importance of a small space, because if everything is not put in it’s designated place, than in the end its default place will be either on a countertop, tabletop or on the floor and once by chance, you start putting things on the floor, the whole place will start to feel messy, smaller and more cluttered which will make the small spaces rather strict in that way. So, always try to keep things in their designated place.
03. Throw Away Trash Often
It might be a possibility that you are at the phase where your belongings and stuffs fit perfectly in your living space, but still these things have their own way of accumulating. So, in order for them to avoid accumulating, mark your calendar for almost four times in a year, to check and go through from all of your stuff to pick the odd ones out and get rid of that stuff which you no longer use. This will give you a sense of relief, comfortness and your apartment will be thankful.
04. Put the Walls to Use
Shelves and wall-fitted organizers are the best source of aligning things together and your new best pals on the list. You can probably make wall-fitted cabinets, shelves, wall-attached table and etc to store all of your stuff and avoid littering or can hang anything three-dimensional that you own on the wall. It is very important to look for storage space above everything else – as you can hang cabinets or shelves above desks and drawers, and utensil rails above countertops and sinks.
05. Understand the Importance of a Junk Drawer
This is considered as rather opposite to Tip #4. Every household consist of those little knick knacks which are tape, twist ties, pens, markers, and so on. These are the things that are used frequently in our daily life but there is no “right” place for them and it can either be seen lingering around the table or on the floor. Instead of worrying and wracking your head over finding a place for every small thing, make a junk drawer in order to avoid every last bit of clutter. And put every little thing inside so it can easily be found whenever needed.
06. Love Opacity
Surely, storing things in clean and clear boxes looks fabulous in that movies or billboards you saw; where almost everything inside the apartment is somehow of the same color and matching. But in real life it is not fully possible, and even if everything you own or in your custody is gorgeous, chances are very slim that it will look pretty. So, to avoid looking at that mess daily, you should calmly choose the best option of opacity when it comes to drawers, cabinets with doors and opaque boxes. Pretty stuff can be openly stored without any worries, but everything else which is out of the box or is not pretty gets covered by a layer.
07. Become a Habitual Organizer
This is probably the most crucial and hardest part almost for everyone; I always promise myself I will get better at this, but things just doesn’t go the way you think so every time I fail miserably. Putting the knife back in its drawer or washing the dishes immediately after the meal! Hang those clothes you didn’t wear back in the wardrobe! But at last, the idea which came into my mind is that the simplest way to make sure you put things away is to just do it rather than avoid it, and become habitual of it until it becomes your lifelong habit which won’t be avoided no matter what. Just by looking on how much better your studio apartment looks, it will give you motivation for keep on doing it.
08. Stop Clutter before it Starts
Clutter is that kind of thing that tends to accumulate and move in a space itself, but the only way it gets in there is not that hard to fathom: you are the one responsible for bringing it inside. How about you create a landing strip on your front door as a precaution to control and prevent the clutter right from where it begins. You can even do this without a dedicated foyer but it shouldn’t occupy too much of a space.
09. Allow yourself to Cheat (a tiny bit)
After all the above tips of being neat, tidy and litter free, now I am actually recommending that outsourcing a tiny bit of storage in your apartment is not even considered as cheating, because there are many other people who will admit to this. If you have something in personal that you don’t want to throw away but you plan on using it once or twice in a year, like a Christmas tree or a party outfit, you might want to keep it in storage. By keeping it in your storage you will find that it frees up quite some amount of space and your apartment begins to soothe your eyes.
10. Go Paper-less
The phrase “Go Paper-Less” is to completely erase all hard copies except for the originals and convert them into soft copies, it might seem a hard task to convert all of them , but once you have finished doing it, they’ll all be easy to find and you won’t have that much stuff to keep neat and look after for. (There are many apps like Evernote which allow you to search your scanned documents for specific words.)
11. Forgive yourself & try until you Succeed
Remember just a fact that no one is perfect, and nobody can make their apartment look perfect. Even all of those glossy looking and glimmering studio apartments you see on television and in magazines are not perfect — it almost took an entire team of stylists and designers to make them look great for the viewer’s eye to catch it. So, if you have a week or two, or a month of the tidying blues but suddenly your house looks horrible in shape, so you don’t have to panic. Just be calm and easy on yourself and just start again. Never forget a well-known quote said by Albert Einstein “Out of Clutter, Find Simplicity”
All in all, a life free of all clutter and litter in your studio apartment is not really that difficult to achieve if once you have put your mind into it. The recipe is just a dash of discipline and a dollop of effort!
Also Read:
How to Improve Your Bedroom Space?
9 Secrets of Perfect Interiors for Your Home!
Creative & Spacious Kitchen Corner Ideas
Author Bio
Indrani Ghosh – In the fourth decade of my life, I decided that I needed something more. I needed to tell everyone my story, but in a way that people would read it. So I have become a part-time writer. My main profession is that of a technical writer and I have been part of the IT industry for 19 years now. I have worked for companies like TCS and Ericsson and clients like Johnson & Johnson, Citi Cards, T-Mobile, Visa, and many more. I love my job and have a great passion for life. My husband is my best friend and he is as passionate about life as I am, though in subtly different ways. I am a loyal friend, a skilled professional, a loving wife and hopefully, soon a published author! I am Easily Reachable on – Facebook, LinkedIn.
