How a Little Swedish Apartment Lives Large
I love seeing how people live little, especially in other countries, and especially in Europe, where they've been doing this sort of thing for years and have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. This little apartment in Umeå, Sweden, is full of clever solutions — let's take a look.
At the heart of this apartment is the kitchen, whose cabinets turn a corner and wrap around a little nook that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be the bedroom closet. It's so clever I wish I had thought of it myself. I also like how the homeowner worked a nightstand into the narrow bedroom area by tucking it under one of the shelves in the closet.
Here's a view from the kitchen to the rest of the apartment. Although the apartment isn't very big (only 375 square feet), the compactness of the kitchen and bedroom means that there's plenty of room left over for a fairly spacious living room.
In the tiny entry hall, built-ins provide extra storage, and a shelf with hanging space underneath and a shoe rack are good spots for storing jackets and boots, important when you're living in Sweden.
At first glance I thought this was a 'wet room' — a pretty common setup (for Europe) where the entire bathroom functions as the shower stall, and everything in the room can get wet. But upon closer inspection, it looks like the shower is separated from the rest of the bathroom by two glass doors that can be folded against the wall when not in use. This, along with the fact that the shower has no curb, makes this small bathroom a lot more spacious.
This apartment was for sale through a Swedish broker and is no longer. This is unfortunate for those of us who collect tiny Scandinavian real estate, but those just wishing to see more photos of the apartment can head on over to Desire to Inspire.
