5 Studio Apartment Layouts That Just Plain Work

Arranging your furniture is hard enough when all the furniture you own isn’t jammed into a single room. But here you are, in your itty bitty one room apartment, generously called a “studio”, and all that stuff has to go somewhere. Take heart! And take a few lessons from these real-life studio apartment layouts created by real-life studio apartment dwellers like yourself.

Click the links in the descriptions to see more photos of each apartment.

Above: Sandra’s Toronto studio feels surprisingly spacious for an apartment that’s only 204 square feet. A trunk next to the bed creates a bit of separation between living and sleeping areas, as well as providing extra storage. And instead of a couch, Sandra has opted for a single comfy chair — just right for an apartment for one.

Linsey creates a separation between the living and sleeping areas of her West Village studio with a simple trick: placing the sofa and the bed on opposite walls. This helps to define the two spaces and eliminates that hotel-room feeling that comes from sitting on a sofa that’s right next to the head of your bed. It also leaves space for a small work area at the foot of the bed.

If you’re dealing with a studio apartment but hate the idea of looking at your bed all the time, take a cue from deRaismes’ 312-square-foot DC studio. Here, a bookcase (the trusty IKEA Expedit (now Kallax)) creates a legitimate bedroom on one side of the space — there’s even a folding door.

A sofa, with a console table behind, helps define the transition between living room and kitchen. It’s a great idea for a small space, as the console can also provide additional kitchen storage and countertop space in a pinch.

If you have enough space, simply floating the sofa away from the bed, like Lauren did in her San Francisco studio, can be enough to create the feeling of a separate living area. Just because your space is on the small side doesn’t mean all the furniture has to hug the walls. Floating furniture in the middle of the room can help a room feel much more spacious and open up a lot more space planning possibilities.

In Amelia’s 490-square-foot New York apartment, she’s created a cozy bedroom nook by positioning her bed in a corner and placing a bookcase at the foot of the bed. This leaves plenty of space for her living/dining area, which is actually quite spacious — proof that you can have it all in just one room.

Re-edited from a post originally published 6.27.15 – BM