You Do You: These “Rule Breakers” Prove You Can Use Rooms Any Darn Way You Want

Use a bedroom as a living room? An extra office space as a den? A closet as a bedroom?! Yes—though rooms come with “historical precedent” of how they were used in the past, it doesn’t mean you have to use a space in your home the way it was intended. Not only do you have permission to use your home any damn way you please—it just makes sense to do so. Why not craft a home that functions just the way you need?

Food lover and food blogger Michelle Lopez, of Hummingbird High, enjoys cooking for and entertaining friends in her home. When Michelle, her partner Erlend and their cat Penny recently moved into this compact Brooklyn apartment, they had to downsize quite a bit.

“We moved from a 2000-square-foot, three-bedroom home with a basement and yard to our 750-square-foot apartment. I thought I did a good job downsizing all our possessions, but it definitely wasn’t enough! We really don’t have any more space for more stuff.”

So to make their home work for them, Michelle and Erlend used the wide open area next to the kitchen as a dining room instead of a living room, converting the second bedroom into a lounge space. A little unconventional? Yep. Totally insane? Not even slightly. It’s just simply the best way to use this apartment for this couple.

“I move around a lot and my style really has changed depending on the apartment/home. It’s more about the specific space, listening to it to see what works.”

Though you may be a television fan, you may not be a fan of television sets. So what to do when you want to keep your living room for conversation but need a dedicated nook for binge watching? Take a small spare bedroom and turn it into a compact lounge, like Ariene and Daren do in their North Carolina house.

Their home isn’t really on the small side, but I think their cozy den is a great example of using an extra room in a way that gets a lot more use than a dusty home office or “junk” room.

All you really need in a bedroom is a bed. So if you’ve got a small space in your home that happens to be big enough to squeeze a bed frame into, you’ve technically got another bedroom on your hands.

Cai and Britt managed to carve out a bed nook in their 450-square-foot apartment’s closet off the living room, and the result is actually a very cozy looking sleep space!

You can even turn a studio apartment into a one-bedroom by using the closet-to-bedroom trick, like Kyle and Alex did in their small San Francisco rental.

Extra closets aren’t the only space you can turn into a bedroom. If your ceilings are high enough and you’ve got a lofted spot you might normally consider to be extra storage, consider it a perfect spot for a potential bedroom. Brett ‘s Providence apartment is inspiration.