3 Studio Apartment Layout Ideas You Should Steal from One Very Creative Home Expert

How you choose to arrange your furniture has a huge impact on the feel of your space. This is doubly true if you don’t have much room to spare, like in a studio apartment where every single square foot counts. Position your coffee table incorrectly and you risk having the space feel cramped and cluttered. Do it just right, though, and your apartment feels instantly pulled together. 

To help achieve the latter, we asked interior decorator Stephanie Purcell for her playbook on how to stage the same studio apartment three different ways. 

“The key to creating a livable and functionable layout for a studio apartment is to think about how you will be using the space most,” says Purcell, owner of Redesigned Classics.

That is to say, if you’ll be doing a lot of entertaining, think about a floor plan that allows for ample seating—and zeroes in on a functional living room set-up, she says. If you cook homemade meals regularly and enjoy hosting dinners, putting emphasis on the dining area might make the most sense. If you tend to retreat to your home to relax, sleep, and work, then a bedroom-focused layout is the best fit, Purcell says. 

Here, three ways to stage your studio like a pro.

This layout allows for a more traditional dining area, plus a small two-seater table and chairs that are closer to the kitchen, Purcell says. A standard couch and coffee table opposite of the bed creates a combined living room and a bedroom that allows the end of the bed to be used for extra seating around the coffee table if needed. If you’re not sure you want guests plopping down on your bed, though, you could also have some comfy floor poufs.

The second layout combines a kitchen dining area with a more traditional living room, Purcell explains. 

A bar on the back of the couch, with bar stools, allows you to create a seating area for the kitchen while maximizing space for a more elaborate living room layout, she says. This layout ultimately leaves the bedroom area as a more defined space.

For this layout, Purcell created an office space that can function as a living room if need be. This setup allows for a more traditional dining area with a desk and chair that can function as an office opposite the bed. A flatscreen TV could be mounted on the wall above the desk with a padded bench at the end of the bed that can function as extra seating, Purcell says.

Now, it’s time to furnish your studio. Here are some real estate agent-approved design tips for studio apartments.