Most small apartment living rooms have the same problem. They are asked to do far too much. One room has to be a lounge, a dining area, a place to work and somewhere to hide the coats, all in a few square metres. When we took on this Hampstead apartment, that was exactly the challenge. Here is how we tackled it, and what you can take from it for your own small apartment living room design.

How Do You Design a Small Apartment Living Room That Works Hard?

Start with the floor plan, not the furniture. Work out what the room needs to do, then look at what is getting in the way. In this flat, the answer was a handful of well-planned changes: fewer walls, hidden storage, furniture that does two jobs and lighting you can adjust. The sections below take each one in turn.

Can Removing Walls Make a Small Living Room Feel Bigger?

Yes, and it is often the biggest change you can make. This apartment was chopped up by partition walls that did nothing useful. We removed them and created one clear line of movement between the kitchen, living room and bedroom.

Daylight now reaches much deeper into the home, and the living room no longer feels like a box at the end of a corridor. If your flat feels dark and cramped, the walls are often the real culprit. This is the kind of thinking that sits behind good space planning.

How Do You Hide Clutter in a Small Living Room?

Put it behind flush doors. In a small flat, coats, shoes, chargers, the router and the ironing board all need a home. Our answer was a run of pale oak joinery along the length of the living space, with clean doors that hide everything behind them.

Behind those doors, we fitted:

Utility storage for the household bits and bobs
A coat cupboard
A built-in work desk
Space for the media equipment

Close the doors and the desk disappears. The room goes from home office to living room in seconds, which matters when you work from home but do not have a spare room.

Should Storage Go Up to the Ceiling in a Small Living Room?

Yes. Every storage unit here runs to ceiling height and lines up with the door frames and window reveals. That detail may sound fussy, but it is what stops joinery looking bolted on. Gaps above cupboards collect dust and make a room feel untidy, while full-height units use the space properly and keep the lines calm.

This is where bespoke work earns its keep in a small home. Our custom furniture design service is built around exactly this kind of problem.

How Do You Fit a Dining Area Into a Small Living Room?

Build the seating in. Rather than squeezing in a table and chairs, we added a banquette to the dining alcove. It has deep drawers under the seat, so it stores things as well as seating people. It frees up the middle of the floor, yet still seats up to six guests comfortably.

If you are short on space, built-in seating is one of the smartest moves you can make.

What Colours and Materials Work Best in a Small Living Room?

Keep the palette tight. A small room gets noisy quickly if you mix too many finishes. We stuck to three:

European white oak for warmth
Textured linen upholstery for softness
Honed composite stone, chosen because it is hard-wearing and bounces light around

The result feels light and settled rather than busy.

What Is the Best Lighting for a Small Living Room?

Lighting you can dim and adjust. Low-glare recessed downlights sit alongside dimmable LEDs built into the joinery. Together they let the room change with the day: brighter for working at the desk, softer for dinner with friends. In a flat where one room does several jobs, lighting that can change is not a luxury. It is essential.

What Should You Remember When Planning a Small Living Room?

If you are working on your own small apartment living room design, here is the short version:

Remove walls that block light and movement
Hide storage behind flush doors
Take cupboards to the ceiling
Use furniture that stores things as well as seating people
Keep the materials simple
Use lighting you can dim

Every London flat is different, so the right answer depends on your layout. If you would like help with yours, have a look at our interior architecture and residential interior design services, or visit the Oraanj Interiors homepage to get in touch.