Small Space Secrets: Float Your Furniture

Nancy Mitchell

published Apr 17, 2016

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One great trick for making your small space seem bigger is getting your furniture off the floor. You can do this by picking pieces that sit high on tall, thin legs, or take it a step further by wall-mounting your furniture and not letting it touch the floor at all. Floating your furniture eliminates the clutter of legs, takes up less space, and gives your furniture a certain magical lightness. And there are a suprisingly large number of pieces that you can do this with — read on for more inspiration.

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Above: In this image from A Merry Mishap a wall-mounted console floats, seemingly effortlessly, above the floor.

(Image credit: Stadshem)

I wrote a whole post about swapping your bookcases for wall-mounted shelving. Wall-mounted shelving takes up less space, and can almost appear to blend in with the wall. Image from Stadshem, via Freshhome.

(Image credit: Homepolish)

Wall-mounted desks, like this one from Homepolish, have a similarly minimal visual footprint. The lack of drawers and legs below reduces clutter (and leaves space to stack things underneath if you so desire.

(Image credit: Source)

Wall-mounted nightstands, like this one from Meg & Steve’s Urban Nest, are particularly good for small bedrooms.

(Image credit: SF Girl by Bay)

It is even possible to find a couch that mounts to the wall. This one, spotted on SF Girl by Bay, is the ‘Suspended Sofa’ by Poul Kjærholm. As far as I know it is not still in production, so if you’re really in love with it you’ll have to resort to buying one at an auction or on 1st Dibs. If you do, make sure that sucker is screwed into a stud. And then send us pictures.

(Image credit: Resource Furniture)

Wall mounted tables have all the advantages of other wall-mounted furniture, and some of them (like this one from Resource Furniture) even fold into the wall to save even more space.

(Image credit: Mor til Mernee)

This fairly typical shelving unit (from Mor til Mernee via Let’s Go Sunning) seems much less clunky when floated a few inches above the floor.

(Image credit: Patrick J. Hamilton)

It’s even possible to do this with a dresser, as seen in Marcia Patmos’ New York apartment. The space flowing under the dresser makes the room seem so much roomier and more open — and provides a great place to stash shoes, too.