Step up your home renovation game with these clever and unconventional alternatives to built-in furnishings.
Hide and seek
If you are the owner of a home with a small square footage, allocating one room to be converted into a home office may not be something that is high on your priority list. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be allowed a dedicated space where you can burn the midnight oil to meet your deadlines. Consider setting up a hidden workspace within a closet instead. All you’ll need to do is to hack out the original cabinetry in the closet, install a sturdy tabletop and some shelving units. Hidden workspaces are not limited to small homes, though. Big homes can benefit from this feature as well, for it provides a way to keep unsightly papers, appliances and cables from sight. Note that having this design element means you’ll have to sacrifice wardrobe space, so unless you have spare units, make sure you take all things into consideration and weigh which option is more important for you to have.
Image credit: Renaissance Planners & Designers
Sink into conversation
When it comes to entertaining, your living room is generally where people will gather. While there are many different ways to create and style the room for conversation, perhaps one of the most visually interesting and creative ways to decorate it is to lower the floor and line couches along the perimeter to create a cosy conversation pit. Because of its bi-level feature, a sunken living room often provides your home with an element of spaciousness and a unique design feature to the overall room.
Image credit: Quartzy
360º view
Perfect for adjoining living rooms and bedrooms, a partition wall that doubles up as a rotating television console is a unique money-saving feature, as you wouldn’t need to splash out more cash for a separate television unit and console. One side of the console can encompass storage or display units, while the other holds the television, and the versatile frame can be toggled to face the bedroom or the living room, depending on your activities at the moment.
Image credit: Itay Sikolski
Roll on out
Coffee tables are a standard feature in any living room, but if you’re not crazy about having a full-time coffee table that takes up permanent floor space in the middle of your sofa set and television console, we have just the solution for you. A detachable drawer-on-wheels! Taking up residence beneath your television console when not in use, this space-saving drawer can be rolled out to double up as a coffee in the centre of your living room when needed, and then rolled back into place when unused.
Image credit: Prozfile
Flexible living
Contrary to popular belief, demolishing partition walls to create an open-concept floor plan is not the only way to introduce flexibility between the various spaces in your home. You can also convert partitions into full-length door panels that follow a sliding track system. According to your different needs on different occasions or even time of day, these frameless movable walls are able to be rolled out to close off certain spaces or kept away for more room, providing homeowners with flexibility to create multifunctional spaces within a home’s limited physical confines.
Image credit: ASOLIDPLAN
Wrap it around
When it comes to designing any bedroom, chances are the headboard, ceiling and wardrobe units will all feature a different design. And while there is nothing wrong with this particular design approach, that’s not the only option available. For a more visually interesting and impactful effect, how about choosing to clad them in all the same finishes instead? As seen in this home here, the four walls of the bedroom – from headboard to the ceiling design feature to the wardrobe units – was covered in the same teakwood strip, creating a cocoon-like structure with a cosy ambience that wraps around the occupant sleeping within.
Image credit: akiHAUS
A surprise discovery
Most households these days come with its own built-in bomb shelter but it does not necessarily present itself as the most aesthetically pleasing section in the home. Instead of leaving it as it, transform it into something that encompasses both form and function. For starters, you can construct a full-length storage cabinet that takes up the entire surface area of the bomb shelter, increasing the amount of storage solutions for items like shoes to household accessories to novelties. Alternatively, you can embrace the place it has in your home by drawing attention to and flaunting it with a decorative feature, such as a built-in aquarium tank. For something simpler, decorating the exterior with framed pictures of your loved ones to create your very own “hall of fame” works well too. The options are endless!
Image credit: Dreamcatcher Interior Design
Give an extension
Uneven walls are not something most homeowners will want to see in their home. After all, these jagged edges are not only unappealing, there is also a high level of difficulty trying to fit anything into this odd pocket of space. However, all is not lost. Simply asking your contractor to construct a false wall to level these columns and beams out is an easy way to create a neat and streamlined appearance in your home. But don’t just stop there. Take things one step further by creating a niche in the centre of the false wall and add a personalised touch to the space by displaying a favourite painting, pictures of loved ones or decorative ornaments from your travels.
Image credit: Khoo Guo Jie for WHITE
Time to pivot
If your apartment comes with a balcony, chances are that the doors leading to this outdoor space is that of the sliding variety. But most of the time, these traditional sliding doors are not very aesthetically pleasing, and as it only opens up half of the space at any one time, the amount of air flow filtering into your home is also halved. To counter this, swap out these doors for a pair of pivot doors. Compared to its sliding counterparts, the pivot doors have the ability to allow 100 per cent of the air to flow in from the outside when both doors are pushed open. In addition, when they are closed, the doors will also be fully flushed with the walls, resulting in a fully flat and streamlined appearance.
Image credit: Wong Weiliang
