With micro living arrangements in overpopulated cities becoming more and more popular, the need to know how to condense your life into small spaces is becoming more important. When you live in such a small space, you are presented with the problem of fitting your whole life, essentially, into only a few hundred square feet of space. Even if your living space isn’t particularly cramped, it’s easy for the things you own to begin to overtake the space they are in, making a large space feel significantly smaller.

Focus on decluttering

As humans, we tend to collect things, whether it’s conscious or not. What starts as just a small collection of our favorite items and knick-knacks, can quickly turn into a cluttered mess. When you’re looking to redecorate your space to make it feel larger and more open, the first step is to declutter. There are a lot of ways to begin the decluttering process. It can initially be really hard to say goodbye to items that you’ve grown fond of. Every old birthday card, Disneyland ticket, and childhood book seems worthy of a space in your home. There isn’t anything wrong with keeping sentimental items, but you should keep a limited amount, and keep it in an organized place.

For everyday items, if you aren’t sure you can get rid of something, put it in a bag or a box, and put it away in your garage, closet, or anywhere else that is out of the way. If you haven’t missed that item, or looked for it, in a month, then you can feel confident getting rid of it. Find a friend in need or a local thrift store or charity to donate your used items to.

Take advantage of open storage

It’s instinct to hide away our items. There are some items that you can do this with, but when you are working with restricted space, open storage will do the job just as well, but make your room seem significantly bigger. One great example of this is in your kitchen. If your kitchen feels small or crowded, knock out your cabinetry and replace it with open, floating shelves. It takes up the same amount of space, you can store the same amount of things, but it makes your room look considerably more open.

Use more light colors than dark

Dark colors have a way of instantly shrinking a room. Using light colors, especially on your walls, will invite light into the room, and naturally make your space feel larger and more open. If you love dark colors, this doesn’t mean you have to get rid of them completely, it just means that they should be used as accent colors. Have a dark colored couch, or utilize your favorite colors in the artwork on the walls. If you’ve ever noticed your favorite home interiors on Pinterest, many of them look incredibly open, because of their use of light and neutral colors. Mimicking these color pallets in your own home will help you achieve the open, large home of your dreams.

Remember, quality over quantity

Like I mentioned before, many of us tend to hold onto items when we no longer need them. But your space doesn’t need a lot of things you kind of like, and instead, you deserve to just have a few items that you really love. Your home will look cleaner, even if you’re actually cleaning it less often. I promise I won’t tell anyone. This just goes back to the decluttering! Anything that is non-essential, doesn’t have a purpose, or you don’t really like in your home, should all be discarded. And if necessary, replaced with a newer, better version of the item you discarded.

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