Most homes have more space than their occupants realise. It is just not in obvious places.
It's in spaces like the alcove beside the fireplace that held the same dusty ornament for three years or the wall niche that was never decorated because nobody knew what to do with it. That awkward corner at the end of the hallway just collects clutter; it has no defined purpose, and it need not be redundant.
These pockets of dead space are not interior design problems, but opportunities to enhance neglected spaces, and most of them cost very little to transform.
There are so many possibilities. With creative flair, an eye for detail, and a sense of proportion, you can develop something simple or grand from small spaces.
Decorating cubby-holes with beautiful ceramic pottery.
Alcoves
An alcove or nook is a partially enclosed section of an interior space. It is cave-like in appearance and is separated from the room space by walls or arches, like a cut-in space without a door.
Alcoves were known features in period homes formed from chimney breasts that protruded in the centre of a room, forming double recesses on both sides of the fireplace. They served as built-in shelving for books, décor items, and other display items in the living room. And in the bedrooms, they served as wardrobe space.
Today, alcove designs have anything from small tucked-away kitchenettes to art galleries, built-in bathroom stash cabinets, and stand-alone display units.
And alcoves formed under the staircase, in lofts, dead corners, and similar odd spaces can serve functional purposes like storage solutions, work-at-home stations, private seating areas, built-in closets, personal reading/library, or craft-making areas.
Niches
A niche is like cubby holes, but their sizes and shapes can vary from very small to large sizes with regular or irregular shapes. They are great ways to create more space for décor display objects like sculptures, figurines, vases, and collectables or serve as spaces to stash anything from napkin holders and spices to books, tableware, or odds and ends.
Wall niches can be created easily by building recesses into an existing wall or as ready-made wooden boxes installed in holes punched into dry walls. They are wall enhancements and may appear like a gallery of symmetrical or asymmetrical cubby holes.
Decorating small spaces like niches demands creativity and careful planning, whether you intend to carve them out during renovations or embark on new constructions. They are in modern high-end homes as pre-fashioned insets with an arch or straight top ends. Many come styled after the Greco-Roman design with classical sculpting on the sides.
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| Niches in a modern bedroom, with a yellow and grey colour scheme |
Wall Recesses and Awkward Corners
There are always several tight corners, wall recesses, dead ends, and other general spaces around the home, which designers call wasted space. Decorating these small spaces can be overlooked at times. Why? Because many household occupants hardly ever notice them.
Don’t let any extra space like this go to waste. Maximise every square foot (or metre). These spaces can serve as functional features around the home. For instance, narrow floor-to-ceiling wall shelves will fit into any little corner and are an excellent way to store bathroom essentials. And in the bedroom, you can make a dead-end space functional by installing hanging hooks.
So, whether you live in a studio apartment or a three-bedroom home, creative interior design and decorating ideas will help you make the best use of every small space, corner, or dead-end in your home.
16 Small Space Decorating Tips
Positions and sizes of what requires decorating will differ from home to home. But whatever the form or configuration may be, decorating these empty/dead-end/cubby-hole/wasted spaces should add function and aesthetics to the room.
To spark your creative juices, open your imagination, and inspire you, below are a few guiding tips to make you do something about that unused space in your home.
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| Beautiful bathroom setting with two sinks and a bathtub on a hardwood floor. Note the two alcoves and arched wall niche. |
- Install a custom-built unit for added storage space in nooks.
- Add a stool (or nesting stools), flowers (fresh or faux) in a vase, and woven baskets (fill with whatever you wish and place strategically).
- Hang a round or oval-shaped vintage mirror on a dead-end wall. Add dried plants in large urns (vases) to soften the space.
- Transform the end of a windowed corridor by introducing a custom-built window seat (or bench) with vibrant colored cushions. Ideal for dead ends.
- Think vertically. Exploit the often unused space between the top of furniture and the ceiling. Use hanging or high-mounted elements.
- Create a gallery wall with plaques or framed pictures of varying sizes and shapes. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical arrangements work well. Extend the gallery wall into a corner to help the lines of your space disappear.
- Add a floating desk to free floor space. Additional shelves above the desk will be display surfaces for books or ornaments.
- Hanging plants take the eyes up. Add corner shelves for potted plants display, like cacti or other tiny colourful plants.
- Add groups of varying heights of vases or urns, and if it is a small space, add a tall urn and hang a framed painting above it. Place them on a small round rug.
- Depending on the floor space available, put a chair in the corner and place a floor lamp next to it. Make it a reading corner.
- If it is in the hallway, you can install hooks to hang a bicycle on the wall.
- Tiled mirrors do wonders in tricking the eye into seeing a seemingly enlarged space, so utilise mirrors if you can. Use bronze or antiqued mirrors for a dramatic look.
- Create a floor-to-ceiling library of books. Use floating shelves for a lighter feel.
- Install a couple of floating shelves to hold bowls of potpourri, a tabletop waterfall feature, or bowls with scented candles floating on water.
- Turn the under-staircase alcove into a work-from-home office.
- Make it simple by placing a round table in a corner with an eclectic table lamp and decor objects set on it.
For Interior Design Students and Working Designers
If you are studying interior design or working with clients on residential projects, decorating small spaces such as alcoves, niches, and recesses is a staple brief. Getting the proportions right, sketching layout options, and presenting ideas clearly to a client all require one thing: a proper place to work through your concepts before committing to them.
The Square-Shaped Interior Design Drawing Book gives you exactly that. It combines graph grid pages for drafting and sketching, canvas pages with borders for presentation drawings, and mood pages for illustrations and swatches, and all this within a structured 28-project format with client title blocks and index pages for easy navigation.
Whether you are documenting a single niche design or building a portfolio of small-space projects, it keeps every concept organised from first sketch to final presentation.
Get your copy on Amazon.
Images used under license from: https://www.istockphoto.com
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