Home Design tips for small homes. Choosing the best furniture and arrangement, with multifunctional options. Futons, hangers, painting walls.

If you live in a small space, it can be difficult finding the right balance of style and affordability for your home design. For students and those just entering their careers, it can be especially tough. Paying the rent usually wins out over decorating your living room, but versatile furniture and space-saving accessories can make the most out of a small living space.

Get a futon. If you’re renting a studio apartment, you won’t have the luxury of both a bedroom and a living room. Make your space do double duty with a futon sofa. A futon can be pulled into a couch during the day, turning your bedroom into a living room. With this versatility you can entertain guests, while still having a cozy place to sleep at night.

Add interest with color. Painting your walls doesn’t take up any space, and can add a lot of personality to your home. Even if you’re on a tight budget, you can completely transform your tiny house for the cost of a gallon of paint and a few rollers. Invite a few friends over and turn your painting chore into a party. Check out some of the Expert Real Estate Tips videos for step-by-step advice on how to paint a room.

Turn seating into storage. In a small living space, all of your furniture should be put to work. Some footstools or seating cubes can open up to a perfect place to keep extra items like blankets or off-season clothes. TLC’s Small Space home design blog suggests tripling your furniture usage by adding a tray. With a hard surface addition, your footstools or seating cubes can serve as a coffee table.

Decorate vertically. Make use of your vertical space with shelves to display photographs and books. Higher shelves will draw your eyes up, and make it seem like there’s more space. Skip the entertainment center and mount your TV and other electronics on the wall.

Add hooks and hangers. If you don’t have a lot of closet space you can store coats on the back of your door with over the door hooks. Repurpose a few key racks and hang your jewelry, scarves, belts and other accessories from these hooks.

Small apartment residents suffer one major dilemma in their home design, a lack of space and lack of decor options. With manufacturers catering to smaller spaces and smaller budgets, your options for bigger deals are only improving. And when you save money creating more space, you’ll have more money to entertain guests when they come enjoy the roomier apartment.