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Design Dilemma: Double-Duty Rooms

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Are you downsizing from a very large home into a very small one? If so, you’re probably feeling pretty overwhelmed. What to do with all that stuff? The answer, painful as it may be, is that you will sell, donate or recycle most of it. What remains, better be stuff that you really love, and that can be used in multiple ways. In fact, you’ll quickly discover in your new downsized place that all furniture has to work double-duty. In a smaller place with less square footage, every stick of furniture really counts. This is especially true of living rooms which must act as family rooms, studies, dining rooms and sometimes even guest rooms.

How do you do that? Let’s take a look!

In the living room above and below, just about all activities can be conducted in an apartment that is only 500 square feet. The tiny living room includes a sectional that allows three or more people to stretch out. There is a TV for television watching and a desk, which functions as a home office. A storage ottoman acts as a coffee table. The couch is large enough to easily accommodate sleep-over guests. Now that’s maximum efficiency.

In smaller homes, it’s a waste of square feet to devote any room to just one activity. Hence, dining rooms quickly become converted to libraries and home offices as well.

And this:

Don’t have a dining room at all? Below the homeowners opted for a long narrow table that can serve as a console or desk during the day, but that can be pulled away from the wall at night for dinner guests.

Here a home office doubles as a guest room. The bed is actually a Murphy bed that gets tucked away when the guests have gone:

In the bedroom below, a nightstand functions as a desk.

There are a gazillion ideas to get the maximum functionality out of every single room in your home. As you sift through furniture to decide what to keep and what to take, use the idea of multi-funcitonality as your guiding beacon to help make your new home comfortable and beautiful too!