Before I found my current apartment in Töölö, I spent two and a half years in a studio in Kallio where the “living room” measured exactly 15.2 square meters. I know this because I measured it roughly a hundred times, always hoping I’d miscounted. I hadn’t.
Fifteen square meters is about the size of a large parking space. Into that parking space, I needed to fit a sofa, a workspace, some kind of storage, and enough breathing room that I wouldn’t lose my mind during the five-month Finnish winter when going outside feels like a personal insult.
I made a lot of mistakes early on — a sofa that was 20 cm too deep, a bookshelf that turned one wall into a tunnel, a rug that made the whole floor look like it was shrinking. But I also figured some things out, and by the time I moved, that little room was the coziest, most functional space I’d ever lived in.
Here’s everything I learned.
The Mirror That Changed Everything
I’ll start with the single biggest impact change because it cost me €65 and took twenty minutes to install. I bought a tall, frameless mirror — 50 × 170 cm — from IKEA (the HOVET, which they’ve since renamed but still sell essentially the same thing) and leaned it against the wall opposite the room’s only window.
The effect was immediate and almost disorienting. The room didn’t just feel bigger — it felt like there was twice as much light. The mirror caught the afternoon sun and bounced it deep into the room’s back corner, which had previously been a permanent shadow zone no matter how many lamps I put there.
I’ve since seen this trick in nearly every small apartment I’ve visited in Helsinki. It’s so effective that I’d call it mandatory for any room under 20 square meters. The key is placement: the mirror should reflect something worth reflecting — a window, a nice view, or at the very least an uncluttered wall. Putting a mirror opposite a messy corner just doubles the mess.
Furniture Scale: The Mistake That Cost Me €800
When I moved into the Kallio studio, I brought a sofa from my previous (larger) apartment. It was a beautiful three-seater, 220 cm wide, with deep cushions and big rolled arms. In my old living room, it had been perfect. In 15 square meters, it was a disaster.
The proportions were completely wrong. The sofa ate nearly the entire back wall, left only a 40 cm gap to squeeze past on one side, and its visual mass made the room feel like a waiting room at a doctor’s office. A crowded one.
I sold it on Tori.fi (at a significant loss — lesson learned) and replaced it with a compact two-seater from IKEA’s ÄPPLARYD line, 150 cm wide, with slim arms and a lower back. The difference was extraordinary. I suddenly had room to walk, room for a small side table, room to think.
The general rule I now follow: in a small room, furniture should have the lowest possible visual weight. That means slim legs (preferably visible — you want to see floor underneath), narrow arms or no arms, and lower profiles. A sofa that sits on the floor like a block reads much heavier than one that’s lifted on slender wooden legs, even if the actual dimensions are similar.
For more on how Scandinavian design principles naturally solve small-space problems, I’ve written about the core principles of Scandinavian interior design.
Going Vertical Changed My Storage Game
Floor space is precious. Wall space is free. It took me embarrassingly long to internalize this.
I removed a standard 80 cm wide bookshelf that sat on the floor and replaced it with two rows of wall-mounted shelving — IKEA LACK shelves, 110 cm wide, mounted at 150 cm and 190 cm height. The result: more storage capacity, zero floor footprint, and a completely clear floor that made the room feel dramatically more open.
I went further. I mounted my TV on a wall bracket instead of a stand (freed up about 40 × 45 cm of floor space — that’s meaningful at 15 m²). My bedside storage was a wall-mounted wooden shelf rather than a nightstand. Even my desk was a wall-mounted fold-down model from a Finnish maker called Isku, which folded flat against the wall when I wasn’t working.
The fold-down desk was perhaps my smartest purchase in that apartment. It was 75 × 50 cm when opened — enough for a laptop, a coffee, and a notebook — and when folded, it was just a 7 cm deep panel on the wall. I paid €180 for it, and it single-handedly made the dual-purpose living/working arrangement viable.
If you’re interested in creative IKEA modifications, my Billy bookshelf built-in hack shows what’s possible with some basic tools and patience.
Color Continuity Is Not Optional
In a large room, you can get away with an accent wall, a contrasting ceiling, a rug that’s a completely different world from the rest of the palette. In 15 square meters, every visual break fragments the space further.
I painted everything the same warm white — walls, ceiling, the inside of the one built-in cupboard, even the door frames. Tikkurila “Lumi F497” if you want the exact shade — it’s a barely-there warm white that doesn’t yellow under artificial light but doesn’t go cold and clinical in daylight either.
The floor was already a light birch parquet, which helped enormously. If I’d had dark floors, I would have covered as much of them as possible with a large, light-colored rug.
My furniture stayed within a tight palette: whites, warm greys, natural wood tones, and black as a sharp accent (the desk lamp, some picture frames, the legs of one stool). The only real color came from textiles — cushions and a throw in dusty sage green — and from plants.
This restraint sounds boring on paper, but it’s what makes a small room feel cohesive and calm instead of chaotic. Every color boundary is a visual wall, and visual walls make rooms smaller. Eliminate the boundaries, and the space breathes.
Multifunctional Pieces: Make Everything Work Twice
In a small apartment, single-purpose furniture is a luxury you probably can’t afford. Every piece should do at least two jobs.
My coffee table was an old wooden trunk from a flea market — storage inside, surface on top. The two-seater sofa had a storage compartment under the seat cushions (I kept spare blankets and seasonal textiles in there). One of my dining chairs was actually a step stool that folded flat when I didn’t need it — the BEKVÄM from IKEA, spray-painted matte black to look intentional.
The most versatile piece I owned was a simple wooden bench, 120 cm long, from Artek (the Bench 153A — not cheap at around €650, but worth it). It served as: additional seating when friends came over, a coffee table when pushed to the center of the room, a plant stand along the window wall, and a surface for stacking books. One object, four functions. That’s what small-space living demands.
Lighting Layers Make Tiny Rooms Feel Layered
One overhead light in a small room creates a flat, institutional feel. Multiple light sources at different heights create depth, shadow, and the illusion of a more complex space.
In my 15 m² room, I had five light sources: a pendant light above the dining area (a small Muuto Under the Bell in grey — at 55 cm diameter, it was proportional to the space), a wall-mounted reading light by the sofa (the IKEA SKURUP, simple and effective), the desk lamp (an Anglepoise, second-hand), a floor lamp in the corner (a slender arc lamp that took up almost no floor space), and a string of warm fairy lights draped along the wall-mounted shelves.
That might sound like a lot, but here’s the crucial thing: I almost never turned them all on at once. The magic of multiple light sources is that you can control the mood by switching on different combinations. Working? Desk lamp and pendant. Reading? Wall light and floor lamp. Evening with friends? Pendant dimmed low and fairy lights. Each combination made the room feel like a slightly different place.
All bulbs were 2700K warm white. This is non-negotiable in the Nordics. Cool-toned bulbs make a dark winter evening feel like an interrogation room. Warm bulbs make even the smallest studio feel like a refuge.
The Decluttering Philosophy I Actually Stuck With
I’ve tried Marie Kondo. I’ve tried Swedish death cleaning (döstädning). I’ve tried the minimalism thing where you remove one item on day one, two on day two, and so on. None of them stuck because they all felt like events — a dramatic purge followed by a slow slide back to accumulation.
What actually worked was a quiet, ongoing practice: the one-in-one-out rule. Every time something new comes into the apartment, something old leaves. No exceptions. A new cushion means an old one goes to the charity shop. New books mean old books go to the free shelf in the stairwell (most Helsinki apartment buildings have one, and they’re wonderful).
I also adopted what I think of as the “small apartment edit.” Once a month, usually on a Sunday morning with coffee, I walk through every surface and every shelf and ask: has anything accumulated here that shouldn’t have? Receipts, random packaging, objects that migrated from their proper place, things I bought and now regret? Out they go.
It’s boring. It’s not dramatic. But over two years, it kept my 15 m² from ever feeling cluttered, and that ongoing lightness was worth more than any single organizing hack.
The Expensive Mistakes (So You Don’t Repeat Them)
That oversized sofa I mentioned? €800 lost in resale value. But there were others.
I bought blackout curtains because I thought I needed them for the bright summer nights. They were dark grey, floor-length, and heavy. In a small room, they turned the window wall into a visual dead end — the room felt like it stopped where the curtains began. I replaced them with light linen panels and bought a simple eye mask for summer sleeping. Total cost of the mistake: about €140 in curtains I used for three months.
I tried a large area rug — 200 × 300 cm — thinking it would make the room feel unified. It did the opposite. A rug that reaches wall-to-wall in a small room makes the floor feel like it’s rising up around you. I swapped it for a smaller rug — 120 × 180 cm — that left a visible border of bare floor on all sides. That border of exposed floor is what gives the room its sense of space.
And I bought a “space-saving” corner desk that turned out to be 130 cm on each side — way too large for the room. Measure everything. Measure twice. Then measure a third time while imagining yourself actually moving around the furniture. I can’t stress this enough.
What I’d Tell Someone Moving Into a Small Space Today
Start empty. I know that’s not always possible if you’re moving from another apartment, but if you can, start with nothing in the room and add pieces slowly. Live with each addition for at least a week before adding the next. You’ll be surprised how little you actually need.
Buy the best sofa you can afford — it’s the piece you’ll use most. Go small but comfortable. And get it on legs.
Mount things on walls. Everything you can lift off the floor, lift off the floor.
Keep the palette tight. Three main tones plus one accent, maximum.
And let yourself love the space. I know that sounds soft, but I mean it. My Kallio studio was small, slightly cold in winter, and the bathroom was essentially a wet room where the shower shared space with the toilet. But when I stopped resenting its size and started working with it, it became one of my favourite places I’ve ever lived. The limitations forced creativity, and the creativity made it mine.
If you’re looking for ways to do more with a tight budget, my post on budget-friendly kitchen makeover ideas covers a lot of the same thinking applied to kitchens.
Small rooms aren’t a problem to be solved. They’re a constraint to design within. And constraints, as any Finnish architect will tell you, are where the best ideas come from.
