Your apartment is your castle, and you are its king or queen. So it makes sense that your apartment should be the one place on earth where you feel most comfortable, right?
If you’re not feeling like the queen or king of comfort in your apartment, read on for simple ways to make your living space feel more comfortable.
What’s making you uncomfortable?
Comfort is both a physical and a mental thing. Feeling like you don’t have enough room for all your stuff, for instance, is a physical thing. But feeling unsettled or anxious when you’re trying to relax is mental. Figuring out the kind of comfort you need from your apartment is the first step to creating a better living space.
Decorate your apartment
One way to feel more comfortable in your apartment is to change up your furniture. Interior designers have plenty of tricks for making apartments feel more comfortable, and you can probably use many of them:
•Infuse comforting colors into your space by adding throw pillows, artwork, and curtains.
•Pick comfortable furniture pieces that everyone can use. What’s the point of having a plastic-covered sofa that no one’s allowed to sit on?
•Have multiple seating options. Get a comfortable chair or two and arrange them around your couch to create a conversation area.
•Create more comfort with soft, eye-level lighting.
You don’t need a huge budget to decorate your apartment with comfortable furniture. A few small changes can make all the difference.
Regulate apartment temperature
Feeling more comfortable in your apartment might be as easy as doing a better job regulating the temperature. Being too hot in summer and too cold in winter is a bummer and a major source of discomfort. But these small changes could help you feel more comfortable — without turning the thermostat up or down:
•Use energy-efficient blackout curtains to keep extreme temperatures out.
•Install temporary UV window film to cool your place.
•Use ceiling fans all year round. (Most fans have a switch that reverses the blades so they can push cool air down in summer and suck warm air up in winter).
•Cook on the outdoor grill to keep your place cool.
•Get an electric blanket so you don’t have to blast the heat to stay toasty warm in bed.
These ideas will not only keep you more comfortable, but they’ll also help you reduce energy costs.
No-cost ways to add comfort
You might not need to change very much to have a more comfortable apartment. Simple changes that don’t cost a dime can make a huge impact.
Decluttering a messy area in your apartment, for example, can totally change your day-to-day life. Decluttering your apartment is a simple matter of getting rid of everything that you don’t need, don’t want, or can’t use. It may take a few hours — or, in some cases, a few days — but the payoff is massive: you’ll free up usable living space and feel calmer without the distraction of clutter.
Rearranging the items you want to keep in your apartment can also help you feel more comfortable. Try to improve any room in which the furniture arrangement lacks a sense of flow. Giving just a little thought to the furniture arrangement can create more comfort — mentally and physically.
Create a comfortable furniture arrangement by following a few simple interior design rules:
•Leave enough space for folks to navigate comfortably in your apartment. (18 inches is the suggested minimum amount of space to leave between a coffee table and sofa.)
•Arrange furniture on angles to create a more casual and restful feel.
•Settle on a focal point (a window, a piece of art, the TV) and arrange the rest of the furniture around this focal point.
While decluttering your space and rearranging your furniture may require a small time investment, neither requires a monetary investment. Creating a more comfortable apartment could be as easy as spending a Saturday morning working with what you already have — for free!
