Storage And Joinery In Small Apartments

In a small apartment, storage is the difference between a place that works and a place that feels cramped. It is also one of the few improvements a tenant or a buyer registers immediately.

The design part is straightforward. The constraints are what decide the job.

Where the space actually is

Full height. Most wardrobes and cupboards stop well below the ceiling, and the space above them is dead. Taking joinery to the ceiling adds a substantial amount of storage in the same footprint and it makes the room read taller.

Above doors. The strip above a doorway is unused in almost every apartment.

Under the stair, in a two-level apartment, which is usually a void.

The hallway. A shallow full-height cupboard along a hall wall is often the single largest storage gain available, and it costs the hallway a few hundred millimetres of width.

Under a window seat or a bed platform, which turns dead floor into drawers.

Laundry and linen. Usually the worst-planned space in the apartment.

What stops it

Services in the wall. Pipework, cabling and in some buildings a riser. Fixing joinery to a wall means knowing what is behind it, and in an apartment that is not always documented.

Concrete walls and ceilings. Fixing into concrete needs the right anchors and it rules out some methods entirely. It also means no chasing, so any wiring for lighting has to be surface routed or planned into the joinery itself.

Out of square. Older apartments are rarely square or plumb. Joinery built square to a room that is not will show a tapering gap, which is why scribing and filler panels exist and why a measure on site beats a measure from a plan.

Access. Getting long sheet material into a small apartment up a lift or a stair. This is a genuine constraint and it decides whether the joinery is built off site and installed, or built in place.

Ceiling height and level. Full-height joinery needs the ceiling height measured at both ends, because it frequently differs.

Built in place versus installed

Installed joinery is manufactured off site and brought in. Better finish, faster on site, less mess, and it depends on the measurements being right and on the access allowing it.

Built in place suits difficult access, very irregular spaces and situations where the joinery has to work around something fixed. Slower and messier, and it can go where a manufactured unit cannot.

For most apartments, installed is the answer with scribing at the edges to absorb the irregularity.

What makes it work day to day

Hardware. Soft close hinges and drawer runners are what makes joinery feel good, and they are the part that fails first when the cheap version was used. In a rental this is where to spend.

Internal layout. Adjustable shelving rather than fixed. Hanging space at two heights doubles what a wardrobe holds. Drawers rather than deep shelves for anything small.

Lighting. A light inside a deep cupboard or wardrobe changes how usable it is, and it is trivial to add during the install and awkward afterwards.

Doors. Sliding doors save the swing space in a tight room. Hinged doors give full access to the opening. In a narrow hallway or beside a bed, sliding usually wins.

In a rental or a property for sale

Storage is one of the first things anyone comments on at an inspection.

An apartment with a proper wardrobe fit-out, a hallway cupboard and a usable laundry presents completely differently to the same apartment with a hanging rail and a shelf, and the cost of the difference is modest.

The sequence

Measure on site, check what is in the walls, confirm access, then design. Not the other way around.

We handle the measure, the joinery, the electrical for internal lighting and the make-good across carpentry, building and electrical. Send through the apartment and we will tell you where the space is.