Would you believe that this small unsuspecting house has four floors?! From the outside, it looks like our ordinary terrace house with just two floors (the ground and the first floor).

However, once you enter inside, you’ll find out how they managed to create several levels. It comes with a complete kitchen, living area and bathrooms!

How did they manage to do it? Here are a few tricks that can be replicated to help make your small spaces look spacious and brighter.

1. Keep colours simple and light

The walls are kept white to keep the space feeling open and airy. For some colour, the house owners stuck to brown shades using wooden furniture and even have wooden countertops in the kitchen. If you do not fancy the earthy shades, just remember to keep things simple.

2. Keep the décor minimalistic

Clutter will take up space even if they are tiny, miscellaneous items. To keep the area looking fresh and neat, only have a few select décor out for viewing.

For example, there are only small photo frames, a vase with artfully arranged twigs and reasonably sized vases of flowers. The largest pictures are hung up instead to balance out the bareness of the large white wall. Furniture-wise, they pared it down to simple benches which can be easily padded up with cushions.

3. Have wide windows and doors

Wider windows and doors help the house feel less closed-in and stuffy. Throwing open the large doors or windows are great when it’s time to air the house too! Having large windows to let natural light in also brightens up the insides of the house and saves you electricity.

Opening a wide door as you enter the room also feels welcoming and makes the room larger than it seems. For something different, you can transform the lower section of the wall into glass windows too.

The lower wall windows are about an adult’s eye level from the kitchen on the lower floor so it lets the residents of the house look outside as well.

Wide main door opens up the space as you enter

4. Be creative with storage

Instead of having bulky or imposing shelves or bookcases, look for shelves with open frames. Shelves with open frames have multipurpose qualities. You can just stack items into the empty ‘boxes’ or slide in nifty fabric boxes like the ones sold in Muji if you want to hide away certain items.

Leave some ‘boxes’ empty for decor

What happens is if you use a mixture of open shelves and slide-in fabric boxes, you can create a pattern for your shelves! If you prefer something sturdier for items such as plates in the kitchen, you can always opt for wooden drawers.

5. Recessed walls or lighting are friends

Recessed wall doubles as storage

The mirror and medicine cabinet in the bathroom can take up wall space and make a small room looks even tighter. A way around this is to have a recessed wall above the sink.

This way, you can still have a light over the sink via a recessed light and use the ledge created to store toiletries. The recessed area doesn’t need to take half a wall in order to store toiletries. As long as it can fit your tallest shampoo bottles, you’re all set.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? All the best in redecorating and designing your home!