5 Pieces Every Small Home Needs

If you live in a small house, your bed should be doing more than providing back support and a comfy place to spend the overnight hours. Because it's probably the largest piece of furniture in your home, the bed should offer some added advantages:

Small couch, small table, small lamp -- perfect!

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You've got to sit somewhere, but your small home may not support the large, leather entertainment seating unit you've always dreamed of. Downsized rooms require downsized furnishings. When you're shopping for a couch, look for one with clean, straight lines, and lose the overstuffed look. A style with longer, exposed legs is a good idea, too. If your living room is very small, consider buying a three-seater couch or a couple of loveseats instead of one, long couch. It'll be easier to arrange the furniture -- and rearrange it when the situation calls for it.

Acrylic would also work well, and it's oh so chic right now.

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Tables are everywhere in the home. They adorn the dining area, can be essential in a breakfast nook, grace the front of the sofa, and house a convenient lamp when placed behind the sofa or on a side table. There are end tables, occasional tables, entry tables and plant stands that look like tiny tables. With this wealth of horizontal space for displaying and storing treasures, it's easy to forget that tables can make already small rooms look even smaller. Tables obstruct the nice visual continuity provided by your carpet or other flooring. The solution: Use glass topped tables.

Because you can see through the glass to the flooring below, tables with glass inserts are less visually weighty, so your room will look lighter, airier and roomier. In a small home, they can make a big difference. If you absolutely refuse to install tables that you'll have to clean every day, try using metal or light-colored tables instead. Both will be better choices than medium or dark wood options.

Built-in kitchen cabinets with solid doors make most kitchens look smaller. The same can be said for almost any type of solid door-fronted cabinet. Instead of buying a large entertainment armoire or other closed-cabinet shelving system for your home, install open or glass-fronted shelves.

Wall shelves provide a focal point, add interest and offer lots of storage. If you want to anchor a conversational grouping, do it with a wall shelf and finish the look with an area rug. If you have an oddly-shaped room or one with a prominent architectural element you want to hide, buy modular shelving and arrange it on, over, under or around the pesky flaw.

You can find wall shelves to fit almost any budget. From putting wire racks over your washing machine, to mounting chrome and glass shelves in your den to hold your reference books, open wall shelving is a smart choice for your small home.

Lighting your small space is an exercise in making more out of less. Where a table lamp may look charming in a large den or living area, the same lamp may end up looking big or fussy in a small room. To make sure you always have great light and plenty of it, invest in track lighting. It'll elevate your illumination in more ways than one. Your ceiling will look higher, and you won't have to lend valuable tabletop space to bulky lamps and shades. You'll also be able to put task lighting exactly where you want it. Still need good illumination at reading height? Try a floor lamp. It will keep valuable tabletop space available for other things.

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