Studio Apartment Ideas: How to Fit Major Style into a Tiny Studio
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Studio apartments might be small, but trust me, you can pack a lot more style into them than you might think!
With the magic of interior styling, there’s an entire potential world you can create for yourself with your studio apartment decor; a world where you can feel comfortable, inspired, and at home - as if you own the place! (Even though you’re technically renting. 😉)
In this post, I’m giving you some studio apartment decorating tips and inspiration that will give you some ideas on the potential styling magic of your own studio - or small apartment of any kind, really!
And I’m also going to show you some real life studios that were featured in Apartment Therapy to demonstrate even further how these tips of mine can actually manifest in your studio apartment layout.
So by the end of this post, you’ll walk away with a bunch studio apartment ideas and an understanding of just how much potential your studio has. Head to the blog and see!
Would you rather watch than read? Here’s the video! ↓
Studio Apartment Tip #1: Don’t Be Shy
No matter how small your studio is, there's always room for your personality to shine through—a lot more room than you might think.
You don't have to shy away from colors or patterns or expressing yourself fully. I think a lot of people feel the instinct to shrink themselves just because their space is small, and you don't have to do that!
The studio I lived in for 5 years was seriously like the apartment version of me. It was my personality to a tee. Anyone who knows me in real life was able to look at that studio and say, "Oh yeah, that's so Steffi."
It was 500 square feet (which isn't the smallest a studio can get, but still small), and it was filled to the brim with pieces that really represented me and made me feel happy, to put it simply. And it didn't feel cluttered or crowded—at least for me. It may have been a minimalist's worst nightmare, but that's okay with me. 🙃
Another example: if you look at this studio apartment that was featured in Apartment Therapy, you can see that it's bursting with personality. But does it look crowded? No!
Her studio really is a study on mixing patterns and colors boldly, along with a heavy dose of personality and cultural identity. When I look at these photos, I see the decorating choices of someone who seems to really know herself and knows how to tell her story through styling.
She describes her personal style as maximal, colorful, quirky, kitschy, feminist, and grandpa alien; so yeah, I feel like this is someone who has a strong sense of self, to say the least. (Can we make Grandpa Alien Core the next aesthetic that people talk about?)
And notice how she manages to fit all these things about herself into her 560 ft studio. She's not shy about her styling—from her coffee table books (you can tell so much about a person just by their coffee table book selection!), to her wall art (special shout out to her Save the OA piece— the fact that Netflix canceled The OA is a crime I will never forgive them for), to her wallpaper and wall art that distinctly express her cultural identity and her feminism, to the fact that the first thing you see when you enter her bathroom is a set of titties. 😏
This studio is packed with personality, and she isn't shy about it!
So think about how you can do your own version of this. What's important to you? What do you love about yourself? What are some fundamental things that make you you, and how can you express those things through your decor?
These things don't have to take up a ton of space. Small accessories throughout the room can accomplish this. Don't limit yourself just because your space is limited. Don't be shy!
Studio Apartment Tip #2: Go Bold, Vertically
All of us small space dwellers are probably very familiar with the go-to styling tip of drawing the eye up and making use of vertical space. And that's a good standard practice when it comes to decorating a studio—you don't have a lot of latitude, so make use of the longitude!
But to get more specific with the idea of vertical space, you could do something really big and bold with one or more of your walls.
For example, you could consider doing a big wall of mirrors like @twentysquaremeters did, which is a studio apartment Instagram account I featured in this video. The great thing about this choice is it not only makes a bold statement vertically, but it also makes use of mirrors, which of course creates the illusion of more space.
Or you could do a wall hanging with wall panels like I did in my studio above my desk. This was a super easy, bold statement because all I had to do was just connect them together and hang them, and they made quite a visual impact!
And you could also go for a real stunner of a vertical statement like this studio does!
Look at that arched wood and mirror statement above her couch—I mean, what a showstopper. This is where you can really see the power of having a strong focal point in a room.
Would you ever even guess that this is a 296-square-foot studio?
And while you're busy being dazzled by this big vertical statement, you don't even notice just how clever she is with her storage. And the best kind of storage is the kind you don't even notice until it's pointed out to you. Sneaky storage. 😉
She has a banquette she DIYed with hidden storage, so she gets to reap the benefits of having an eating area as well as additional storage. And even her bed is stored away in the form of a Murphy bed. But what's really notable here is, once again, her use of vertical space. Her jewelry is hanging up above her door, so it's acting as pretty decor as well as being organized and out of the way. She even has what basically amounts to a vertical bar cart!
Her studio really demonstrates a beautiful use of vertical space in terms of both form and function.
In other words, she has the stylish statement piece in her living room above her couch, as well as the practical use of vertical space for her storage. It's truly expert-level studio styling!
Studio Apartment Tip #3: United We Plant
A great way to make a studio feel cohesive and united is to take an element and repeat it multiple times throughout the space. It can be a color, a material, a subject… The simple act of repeating something over and over is such a simple and effective way to tie everything together, especially in a studio where things can feel chaotic and disjointed very easily.
So find ways to unite the space through repetition. This studio does it with plants!
Aurora Yim/Apartment Therapy
Not only did this studio dweller make great layout choices in terms of furniture arrangement and flow, but I think that the repetition of plants is what really unifies the space and breathes life into it.
I may exclusively use faux plants and flowers in my apartment, just for the sake of avoiding death and the existential dread that looms in the dark corners of my brain… But that doesn't mean I can't recognize the beauty and the symbolism of plants! They breathe life into a room—also a constant threat of death—but such is life! 🙃
Anyway, this studio is divided beautifully—creating the sense of separation between living room and bedroom—but at the same time, it's unified by plants.
And you even have the planter wall, which does both simultaneously; it acts as a divider, but also joins the other plants in unifying the space. And I love how it divides, but it doesn't completely block off the bed from the rest of the space.
Also, as a Seattleite, I do have to shout out the Pike Place Market sign. I love it, and I love that she found a way to incorporate a piece of home into her space—with her being from Seattle and this apartment being in New York. This goes back to my first tip about not being shy about filling your studio with pieces of you.
She personalized her space beautifully, while bringing it all together with the repetition of plants.
So if you can handle the trials and tribulations of confronting life and death in your studio—unlike me—consider becoming a plant mother!
Studio Apartment Tip #4: Warm Hug Styling
The final studio apartment styling tip I have for you is to consider thinking about how you can make your space feel like a warm hug. Because leaning into warmth and coziness can be a great remedy to a lot of the common challenges of studio living!
Having a cozy-first mentality that prioritizes comfort above everything else can help you through the whole decorating process, from furniture arrangement to the small styling details.
With every choice you make in your studio, ask yourself: Is this comfortable? Is my couch comfortable enough to lay around watching TV and playing video games for hours on end? Does this rug feel soft against my toes on top of looking good? Is my furniture and everything flowing naturally, or is it cumbersome and chaotic? Do I need to rearrange some things to make it more comfortable and easy to navigate? Do these colors fill me with a sense of well-being? Does my studio feel like a warm hug?
This studio sure looks like a warm hug!
For one thing, what a pretty, warm color palette. It's so glowy and cozy-looking, this space looks like it's in a perpetual state of golden hour.
To me, this looks like a studio that was decorated with a cozy-first mentality. And in addition to the warm color palette, you have so many textures and softness and beautifully placed details. So with this tip, I'm not telling you that you have to go for a warm color palette like this studio in order to make things cozy. It's about leaning into whatever gives you a sense of cozy comfort.
And when you see her TikTok video linked in the article—which is a before and after of her apartment—she worked miracles in there. She added faux wall molding, which is such a beautiful way to customize a room and avoid the landlord special look. And she arranged the studio in a way that really flows. She repeated the warm brown-orangey color throughout the room, which—like the last apartment did with plants—unifies the space.
Really, this studio just looks like it's dripping with cozy comfort.
So consider approaching your styling with a cozy-first mindset and aiming to make your studio feel like a warm hug, whatever that looks like to you. I mean, everyone has their own sense of what a warm hug would look like in terms of interior design.
A warm hug for you could be black walls and a moody ambiance, or it can be white and airy minimalism. Whatever your warm hug of a room would look like, approach your studio with comfort top of mind—because living in a studio comes with enough potential discomfort, from things like space constraints, sacrifices you have to make, and likely a bustling city outside your window.
Chaos outside means creating comfort inside is extra important.
So those were some tips for decorating a studio apartment, as well as some exquisite inspiration examples from those studios in Apartment Therapy!
I hope those gave you some concrete ideas coupled with the tips that I gave, because I wanted you to see these things in action—and that even the smallest studio can be packed with style and personality.
If you want some more studio apartment ideas and inspiration, check out this playlist of mine! It has all the videos I've made about living in and decorating a studio, including a lot from when I lived in my studio apartment. So check it out for more tips and ideas!
