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How have you improved your living spaces?
We each shape our living spaces in our own ways, and I feel like sharing your own approach can often help inspire others.
This could be anything, small or large; from the kinds of furniture you prefer and how you arrange it, to the standard home improvement work, to how you decorate your spaces, and even how you choose to use them.
Desk setups/home offices/battlestations all count, and pictures are welcome!
Not sure if this makes me sound weird, but here goes...
In my kitchen all my pieces of tableware are identical and come from a restaurant supply company. My mugs are all the exact same thick white ceramic diner mug. My glasses are all standard bar pint glasses. My silverware all matches.
I hate the cognitive overhead of having to worry about whether my "favorite bowl" is clean or not. If something breaks, I have identical backups from the restaurant supply company. I find it liberating.
I have about 15 pairs of identical socks for everyday wear. Not that I would have a favorite but because I can't be buggered anymore to match types after laundry. I do have a couple pairs of fun socks but just wear those occasionally.
Shh don't tell them about the socks secret!
I’ve finally done this recently too as I found a sock brand that ticks all the boxes. Big relief. Same with underwear. Somewhat there with tshirts too.
And to add to the thread topic, something I do with all parts of my living space is triage / tidy up / Marie Kondo around two times a year. I donate what’s in good shape, trash what outlived its useful. Keeps things clean and organized. From kitchen cabinets, to clothing, to pet toys and supplies, you name it.
hahaha I actually do the opposite, I get all my mugs/cups/bowls/plates/silverware from thrift stores and none of it matches. I love them all equally, though, and when one breaks I have no emotional attachment to it so I can just shrug it off.
I have the unfortunate habit of instantly forming an emotional attachment to thrift store finds. I love other people's stuff. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I also do that, almost no duplicates.
It's actually even less cognitive load, the unifying principle is that there is no unifying principle... (Syndrome would agree, if every chairs is special, none are special.)
I do form emotional attachment to most, but this scheme make me able to bring home anything I fall in love with even if it doesn't "fit in" perfectly. You occasionally get heartbroken but better to love and lose than never having loved at all.
And it's a much cheaper lifestyle, you could probably get by with buying nothing and just collecting stuff that people discard...
Side bonus, our home is much more interesting than bland standardized white/black and beige stuff.
I did have to make a rule not to buy a mug just cause it was neat… it has to be functional too otherwise it’ll just clutter the cabinet.
Idk how theres so many poorly made mugs. Like, weird shapes, thin material, not dishwasher safe? Its a mug!
Oh yes, of course. I have 6 mugs and if I bring a new one, I get rid of an old one. (actually, I have a 2 mug buffer in case of change of heart, but the buffer is in an attic box so it doesn't clutter the cabinet). So I only bring in mugs I like better than the ones I already have!
Thats a good rule, I just avoid the mug section when I know I have no space haha
Ooh, I’m not there yet but I can totally see this as a future pathway I’ll be following! So far I’ve just been sticking with mostly IKEA stuff, but that’s because they’re super close to home, and not necessarily because I think they’re good quality or value or whatever. I’ve never really thought about it but of course restaurant suppliers would have excellent value options! Thank you for sharing!
Speaking about back when my life wasn’t a mess and more stable.
I was renting so couldn’t make major changes, but some things that helped:
Mounting the TV to the wall: less clutter, less dust, better ergonomics
Making a custom shelf that matches exactly the dimensions of the space it fit in. This was so satisfying. I paid the store to cut it to size as I don’t have a workshop, then did the oiling and fitting myself
Adding home automation for electronics to work together well (for instance turning on the PlayStation would adjust the lights in the room, set the proper input on the TV, pause music in the room, switch the receiver on)
3D printing! I designed and printed so many little things that made furniture and appliances nicer to use. In no particular order: custom holder for the ikea smart light switches (with built in magnets) that would fit over the existing light switches (we’d flip the light off by mistake sometimes and the smart switches don’t do anything anymore because the smart bulb is powered off), a golden 👍 thingy that would clip over the bench furniture thing to hold the shoehorn (diameter of the clip customized to fit that exact furniture’s tubing), herringbone mechanical hooks for towels, and other thugs I don’t remember but with the same custom made idea
An ebook holder for when I’m reading in bed. Kinda like these tablets and cellphone articulated arms but for my ebook reader. Paired with a wireless clicker, I could read in bed lying down without holder my arms up getting cold and ants
A smart master switch that would set the house to sleeping mode (switch any lights I forgot about off, turn music off, etc)
Sewed little drink cozies to keep the cups warm in the winter, a cover for the kitchen aid so it wouldn’t get dusty when not in use with this super cute fabric…
A big cork board so I could pin things to it. Premade ones were too rich for my taste so I just bought cork board, glued some foam core sheets to the back to make it more rigid and avoid the pins going through and I had the biggest, cheapest pin board I could wish for
Went paperless. I had a lot of paper (especially since I lived in different countries) that was a total pain to organize and drag around as I moved. So I bought a used, standalone document scanner, set paperless-ngx up on my home server, and scanned everything. I then shredded 99% of the documents. The scanner uploads via FTP directly to paperless where I can search (and find!!) almost anything I’m looking for. It’s backed up offsite so if there is ever a fire I should still recover everything.
There is so much more I wanted to do… maybe one day if I ever end up owning my place (haha, right)
Paperless (then -ng, and now -ngx) was one of my first home lab projects, and it has hands down been one of my best QoL improvements. The amount of paper it's enabled me to recycle has been very gratifying. Highly recommend this project for anyone home labbing already.
Paperless ngx should come with a complimentary paper shredder haha
I've been using paperless-ngx for a while now for scanning receipts with my phone, and it's been really nice. What scanner do you use?
I should get/make a corkboard... not sure how to best mount it, given the age of my apartment (lead & asbestos), but I'll figure something out. Thanks for the inspiration!
I bought a used but like new brother ADS2600W. It had something like 500 pages scanned and it’s rated for 50k before you have to service the rollers. It’s standalone and can scan to usb or ftp. Paperless then watches that ftp directory and imports.
For the cork board, I used command strip thingies to attach it to the wall. It wasn’t so heavy that it needed strong adhesive and the command strips don’t damage anything when taken off (except wallpaper, sometimes).
I would love to go completely paperless, and select the option whenever a service presents one, but I'm always worried that at some point I'll get asked for an original for things that give me physical paper (tax related, government and identification related, etc.).
Depends on wheee you live but a lot of places accept digital copies instead of physical ones. I’ve still kept some stuff like birth certificate, diplomas, car service history etc. But it’s nowhere near what I used to have. My instance currently has close to 3000 documents and I can find almost anything quickly because it automatically classifies and OCRs the documents.
plants and colors. Everything is beige and clean these days. Live a little <3
Yes to the colors!! I hate the trend of beige and clean, it makes the world feel so sterile. I love seeing houses with actual colors, it can make a HUGE difference and feel so much more lived in. Heck, recently saw an old photo of our old kitchen back when the walls were orange, and I was struck by how warm that photo looked.
I can still accept beige/cream walls over white at least, just because easier to hang up art without it clashing. On that note, I'm in an eternal battle with my mom to add more artwork and decorations with bright colors to the common areas of our house.
We’ve embraced this in our new place. We’ve gone through many fights, multiple color making companies, hell, even two interior designers to give color advice. It’s been hell to find common ground; my wife and I somehow always like what the other dislikes. But after doing the first room, I think we’re finding our way. Our kitchen is now a blend of different shades of green, white fake marble, walnut and dirty pink accents. I’m really happy with this direction. Can’t wait to do the living room, which will be in shades of muted reds.
Bidet.
Install a silent bathroom fan.
Puffing lock graphite on all the door hinges. No more squeaks.
Vacuum robot for each floor.
Lawn robot.
Giant music speakers.
Art on all the walls.
Black light bedroom with black walls (my kids idea)
whole home water filtration.
Furniture arrangement can make a HUGE difference. At our old house we had our living room set up a certain way for years—TV on the long wall, couch in the middle of the room facing it in front of the door to our porch. We rearranged it at the advice of a decorator so the couch was against the wall, and the TV got put on this built-in cabinet. The room felt so much bigger that way (and no longer had the sun shining directly at the TV screen part of the day!).
You can also use furniture to make separate "spaces" and natural divides. Putting couches or chairs in the middle of a room rather than against a wall, the backs can serve as a sort of "wall" separating one part of the room from the rest. I admittedly use that trick in video games with house design a lot more than real life, but it did lead to me arguing against moving a chair last year. It would've sectioned off half the living room, and the remaining space is too high-traffic to add any furniture, but also pretty big.
And on that note: rugs. Rugs are good. They can also be expensive, but a rug can fill an empty space very well.
Other than that, we just pick up things as they catch our eye. We go to art and craft fairs when we can, and just grab whatever catches our eye and is a good price. Garage sales are also a good place to find some good deals. Our old neighborhood has an annual weekend for garage sales (this year they even had a digital map!), and some houses even had pieces of furniture for sale.
Other than all that, my personal take: don't worry about everything matching perfectly, or trying to fit a specific aesthetic. I personally prefer seeing houses full of eclectic things and "clutter" rather than carefully organized and designed. It just feels a lot more cozy and lived in to me. Just make sure you can identify the primary walking areas and keep them clear.
(And please, PLEASE have color. I swear that society would be a lot happier if we just had some dang color, it adds so much whimsy and brightness, and I feel like the current trend of beige and minimalist design is just adding to a population-wide ennui. I hate the trend of stark white walls with a passion.)
My reason for asking this is that I've somewhat recently moved into a small apartment, and it feels both cluttered and empty at the same time. Some of this is because I have relatively minimal furniture and likely insufficient lighting; it's an old building with no ceiling lights, and my two standing lamps aren't quite up for the job. While I was in college I was resistant to buying large furniture like couches, since they're a pain to move, but I'm realizing I'll likely be in this new place for a while.
So as a secondary question, do you have any advice or recommendations for people starting out on their own, to help make their spaces more livable?
My current apartment has a living room with no overhead lighting, so we got two floor lamps for uplighting (lightbulb screws in “down” basically at the bottom of a bowl on the top of the lamp) and put 1600 lumen bulbs in them.
We like warm light (it feels much more welcoming IMO), but it can sometimes feel dimmer, so we went for the higher lumen bulbs, and they definitely help and are an improvement over the 800 lumen bulbs we originally had in them.
Of course, only one outlet in the room is controllable via a light switch, so we got a smart bulb for the other lamp so we could still easily turn them on/off.
We also got an uplight we put behind the TV on our TV stand that splashes light up the wall behind it.
The best thing you can do in a small space in my experience is to have as much organization as possible - storage that closes, so you can hide stuff. Clutter really exacerbates the feeling of being in a small space.
That plus some decent lamps rather than overhead lights will make a huge difference in how the space feels.
Read up on interior design. There's a handful of rules that will make your space drastically nicer. Here's a link with examples:
https://blog.designfiles.co/interior-design-rules/
Simone says home automation, and I’ll go a step further with smart lights… the colored ones that turn on when you get home, can be changed to purple, green, whatever, it just changed my whole attitude at home. So much more comfy with soft orange light, instead of white LED blasting my eyeballs. That and I have the Apple ecosystem, and have the HomePod play the ambient station when I get home too. It’s like walking into a new world every time.
Lighting matters
Minimize visual clutter
Give your furniture some space
Plants
couple plants, and I got some framed lithographs of rivers from the 1600's i'm proud to have up in choice spots, was a good find. other than that i have a framed picture of mel gibson with his signature, and the sword from the movie braveheart in the man cave. I'm not a huge fan of the man but it always leads to interesting conversations. Everyone loves a big sword.
Kitchen has a few graphics from my parent's tenure as graphic designers, mostly related to the local chef school. Alongside some originals of my own and my girlfriends. Beyond that I have un-earthed a fairly large amount of early to mid century medicine bottles and I have to assume liquor bottles from my lawn. The people who lived here 100yrs ago were a good time.
The most important thing for me has been getting furniture that is practical for my body shape (petite) and disabilities (migraine, recurrent elbow conditions). I think we managed to pick furniture that's comfortable for everyone. We have a loveseat and small couches that don't have headrests because they push my head forward and cause migraines. None of our chairs have armrests, which can cause posture issues and are often more harmful than helpful.
We also don't have a TV in our main living spaces and sleeping areas. All of our watching happens in a dedicated entertainment space. I think it's important to compartmentalize the TV away from spaces where you might want genuine connections and discussion or sleep to occur. Instead, we have a lot of art, and all of our furniture pieces in the main living area face toward the center of the room (instead of facing whatever wall the TV might be on) to facilitate connection. This has worked really well when we have company over.
We also changed almost all the lighting when we moved in to flush-mounted disc-like LEDs and stylistic drop fixtures. The original lighting was all a variation on the classic developer "boob light." Mr. Alpaca is actively working on switching some of our lighting to Philips Hue because the system we were using before was starting to misbehave. I'm looking forward to my lights having more fun colors and being able to change them to more comfortable tones depending on the time of day.
I have set up my office so that my (digital) piano is literally a chair swivel away from being playable. That lets me noodle around on the piano during builds, test suite runs, downloads, long app startup times, etc. The incremental practice time adds up.
Honourable mention to https://mynoise.net/ , which has already been shared on Tildes in the past.
I do the same! And I have a guitar hanging on the back wall for the same reason.
Feng Shui might be a bit woo woo for your taste, but I think it's worth exploring a few of its principles. Cliff Tan on YouTube/TikTok/Instagram has a really good approach to it, IMO. It really helped change the feeling of my home for the better. I think the main thing I've benefitted from is a big overhaul to the entranceway. We changed the mat from a tiny little thing to a larger one. The small one felt really cramped and constricted when you were trying to take your shoes off, which is not how you want to feel when you step into your home. We also added a reed diffusor, massive spider plant, and warm lightbulbs to the space to make it feel fresh and cosy. It's a massive win, coming home into a space that immediately feels welcoming.
You want to really consider the flow of your rooms, and imagining footpaths that lead from the doorway to your most inhabited positions really helps with this. For instance, we had our kitchen table sticking out into the middle of the room, which was directly in the path between the doorway and the cooking area. It's a minor thing you barely even notice, but the tiny inconvenience you feel when you need to start cooking builds up, especially if you're crossing the kitchen three or four times. We rotated the table 90 degrees and it fixed the whole issue. We've done similar things with our lounge and our bedroom and it's a big improvement.
I second the Cliff Tan rec. And many of the principles he teaches and showcase is not so much mysticism and very practical with a touch of orientalism. So he may talk of flow of good energy / toilet energy / birds and monkey trying to eat you while you sleep, but it's really a neat shorthand to talk about the flow of people (see desire path) and some common aspect of human psychology.
Paintings, posters, tapestries. Lots of lighting options. In general stuff that gives me joy and comfort!
I make paintings and hang them up in my room. Sometimes I will stare at the them for a while and gain a new perspective. The best ones actually amaze me that I was the one to make them.
One issue I've noticed is that it's very easy to fall into a fixed design where you decorate once and stop. Move your art around.
I do a lot of tinkering which more or less equals having a lot of diverse tools. I have framing materials and tools, phone disassembling tools, tiny files and screwdrivers, scalpels, soldering nonsense, etc. When we moved to our new place I had a room all for me. I got a big work table (an expanding dining table from IKEA, on clearance), a magnifying lamp, and a tool organizer (the kind with a lot of little drawers but deep enough for the hand tools.) (Moving really forces one to reduce and reorganize.) I love having this workspace behind my desk so I can just turn around and get cracking.