Adding Rooms to a Small Apartment

The Problem

I worked from home and lived in a apartment with an open floor plan. I was working with a main area, one bedroom, and a walk-in closet off the bedroom. Since I used a desk in the bedroom for both my work and my personal computer, I felt like I was spending a lot of my time in one small room. I wanted to introduce some separation in where I worked, spent time at home, and slept. I decided to try adding rooms to my apartment.

Before Adding Rooms to the Apartment

In the above image, the following items are annotated:

• A: the bedroom
• B: the walk-in closet
• C: an area of the living room
• D: the bedroom windows
• E: the living room windows

Ideas – Adding Rooms to the Apartment

Since I was not able to hire a construction crew to put an addition on the side of my home, living in an apartment, I had to come up with some way to partition off space without making the areas feel excessively small. Since I had a walk-in closet I started with an assumption that if I curtained off the bed, and left walking room between the bed and the wall, I could create an acceptable sleeping area next to the closet. I will revisit the other part of the bedroom later. I also had an area of the living room that only had a bookshelf and a storage ottoman that I believed would be big enough for a desk. Later, I put a curtain on one side of this area to create a small office that would provide visual separation without feeling claustrophobic.

One Floor? No Problem.

I used tension rods for most of the curtain rods (the kind that have rubber feet on both ends and spring against the ceiling), except for some of the horizontal ones where I could instead put a plastic bracket against the wall. Later I also placed a curtain across the hallway between the front half and back half of the apartment. In doing this I had one section included the front door, bedroom, bathroom, and closet and another section with the living room, office, dining room, kitchen, machine room, and back door. I thought this false wall would look nicer when on video calls. I wasn’t specifically adding rooms to the apartment, but it did have a nice effect.

Lighting Rooms in the Apartment

I didn’t feel the living room lamps (in four corners of the larger portion of the room) cast enough light into the new office area, so I decided to put a hanging lamp above the desk. In addition I noticed that while some light diffused through the curtains, so the sleeping area wasn’t completely dark with the ceiling light on (the light was on the other side of the curtained off area), I wasn’t happy with how much light I was getting. I decided to put a hanging lamp above the bed as well. To avoid having to manually control the lights via a cord I elected to go with smart bulbs and a smart switch with motion detection in the bedroom.

Adding Decor to the Apartment

While I already had an area rug for the living room, it was fairly tattered (I used to own cats and the rug was also old.) I replaced the area rug for the living room and got a second for the office area. I already had wall art against the one wall in the living area and grabbed some more for the other wall above the TV. Lastly, I put artificial plants in the living area to add some color and depth, along with a filing cabinet in the office area to fill out empty space next to the desk.

Bonus New Room – Lounge

Since I had a significant amount of space in the bedroom that was no longer being used and I wanted to again try adding rooms to the apartment; I wanted a lounge for reading, watching things, or listening to music. I moved my bookshelf into this area and also placed a few lamps, recliners, end tables, and a bar area (along with a mini fridge, tea kettle, and a TV.) Then I grabbed an area rug, some wall art, some artificial plants, and blankets for this room. I didn’t like that the windows were not centered on the new area I was using. To address the issue, I chose to put curtains along the wall with the windows. In doing this I not only reduced the lack of symmetry, I also added some mood to the room as well.

Takeaways

I am happy with:

• the lounge atmosphere
• feeling like I’m in a different room while sitting at the desk
• looking outside while at the desk, instead of at a wall
• the improved webcam background (hallway curtain)

I’m not happy with:

• the bare wall and area of floor in the lounge
• the small amount room I have next to the bed

I enjoyed:

• diagramming and mapping out the rooms
• measuring things I might add to the rooms
• shopping for things that would fit the aesthetics I wanted

I’d do differently:

• be more deliberate when purchasing things
  • the end tables I originally grabbed were too big
• use some kind of presence sensor, not a smart switch
• reduce the the lounge, expand the sleeping area

Things I still need to do:

• wash the curtains to see if I can get wrinkles out
• figure out a way to hold open/closed the hallway curtain
• decide if I want anything on the wall next to the desk
• update photos here from WIP to final versions