If you’re living in a studio apartment or loft style apartment, you might think you need to choose between setting up your main living area as a living room or a bedroom – but you can do both despite the small space.  With a little creativity, you can have clearly defined areas that offer a bit of prviacy – and a whole lot of style!

Canopy Bed Creates a Wall

The other day on the Rachel Ray show, I saw some great ideas from designer Kristan Cunningham for decorating small spaces.  This is a photo from that show’s segment regarding the use of a canopy bed to divide a room into separate living areas. With a canopy bed, you can create a faux wall for privacy and high style.  Turn your bed facing the wall, so your headboard is sort of floating in the middle of the room.  Leave enough room to walk around the foot of your bed and the sides.  Hang decorative drapes from the canopy posts behind your pillows, and place your loveseat, daybed or couch against the drapes on the other side, pointing into the room.  This helps when you have company coming over to visit -they won’t feel as if they’re walking right into your bedroom.  To further dress up your new “wall” you can even hang artwork from the canopy frame on top of your drapes.

Open Shelving

You can accomplish a room division with open shelving, as well.  It gives a different appearance and offers additional storage, another important requirement for small spaces.

As you put your items on the shelving, you’ll create the illusion of a wall – the items can be seen from both sides of the room but the actual viewing between the “rooms” will be limited.

It’s best not to overfill this type of room dividing shelving to keep it from looking cluttered and disorganized.  Keeping decorative glassware and knicknacks is a good use of the space.

Room Dividers

You can also always pick up the standard room dividers at your local department store or home improvement store.  These are typically made of 3 panels that stand on their own, and can be found in a variety of fabric and textures. 

Sliding Wall Panels

Using some creativity and elbow grease, you could install sliding panels (think closet doors) with the track on the ceiling right where you want to hang your room divider.  You could use glass doors, wooden doors, or build shelves into your sliding wall panels- the opportunities here are endless but be sure to get your landlord’s permission before installing anything into the ceiling or walls.

 Related Content:

• What are the signs and what is the best way to find out if my Girlfriend of 4 years is cheating on me?
• Selecting A Platform Bed
• Cabinet Secrets: Uses for Useless Things
• Creating Romantic Bedroom Décor
• Spirits, demons, and Dowsing rods? (General questions)?