Small Apartment Decor

New Year’s Eve comes a week after Christmas, so most apartments are already half-decorated. The easiest New Year’s look starts with what’s already there, takes the red and green out, and adds gold and black. Keep the lights, change the rest Leave up any white string lights (on Amazon), garland and candles from Christmas. Take down stockings, Santas and anything red. Greenery with white lights already looks like a winter party; it doesn’t need to look like Christmas any more. ...

A small apartment is actually a good place for a holiday party. People stand closer, conversations overlap, and it feels busy with fewer guests. You just have to plan where people will stand, where the drinks go and where all the coats end up. How many people A rough guide: about one person for every 10 square feet of floor you can clear. A 300-square-foot living area that’s half furniture fits around 15 people standing, fewer if most of them want to sit. If you’re inviting more than that, plan for people in the kitchen too, because that’s where they’ll go anyway. ...

A full tree in a small apartment takes a corner of the room for a month and then a corner of a closet for the rest of the year. If that’s not worth it to you, there are plenty of ways to have something tree-shaped, or at least tree-like, that take up much less space. Things that stand on the floor or a table 1. Lit branches in a vase. A tall vase with battery-lit branches (on Amazon), or real bare branches with a strand of lights wound through. Hang a few light ornaments from them. It takes up about as much floor as a lamp. ...

You don’t need a long farmhouse table and fourteen chairs. People remember the food, the company and whether they had somewhere comfortable to sit. Eight people around one table in a small apartment can feel more like a feast than a big formal dining room ever does. Here’s how to make it work, in five parts. 1. Choose the table Dinner happens wherever the biggest flat surface is. A 6-foot folding table (on Amazon). Seats six, or eight with one person at each end. Put a floor-length tablecloth over it and nobody will think about what’s underneath. The kitchen island. Stools on both sides seat four to six. Two tables pushed together. A desk or card table against the end of your regular table, with one long cloth over both, seats eight. Measure ahead of time. Each person needs about 24 inches along the edge of the table, and there needs to be about 36 inches behind the chairs so people can get up. A 6-foot table is 72 inches: three people per side, exactly. ...

A balcony is the part of your apartment the whole street can see. It’s also awkward to decorate: there’s usually no outdoor outlet, the lease has rules, the neighbors are close, and the wind gets everywhere. None of that rules it out. It just changes what you buy and how you hang it. Check the lease first Most leases are fine with temporary holiday decorations, but nearly all of them ban screws or nails into the outside of the building. Some limit how heavy balcony planters can be, a few restrict real greenery or blinking lights, and HOAs sometimes have rules about dates and colors. It takes five minutes to read the balcony section. ...

By mid-December, wrapping supplies are usually everywhere. A roll of paper under the couch, the tape gone again, scissors somehow in the bathroom. You don’t need a craft room to fix that. You need one place where it all lives, whether that’s a cart, a door, a shelf or a bin, and the habit of putting the tape back. Pick one setup A three-tier rolling cart (on Amazon). About 18 by 12 inches and 30 inches tall. Tools on top (scissors, tape, ribbon on a dowel, pens, tags), tissue and bags in the middle, rolls standing up on the bottom. A tension rod or a piece of PVC pipe across one side turns it into a paper dispenser. It rolls to wherever you’re wrapping and into a closet afterward. ...

Homemade decorations look best when you make a lot of one thing in a limited set of colors. One dried orange slice looks like a craft project; a bowl of twenty looks like something from a catalog. Volume is the trick, and most of these materials are cheap enough to make in bulk. Each idea below costs under $10 in materials, most under $5. Paper 1. Paper bag stars. Nine paper lunch bags, a glue stick and string. Fold each bag in half lengthwise, glue the folded edges together in a stack, cut a point or a curve into the open end, then fan it out and tie it open. It opens into a star about 24 inches across. Use 6 bags for a smaller one, 12 for a big one. About 20 minutes, under $2, and it folds back flat. ...

Guests notice the bathroom more than you’d think. It’s the one room where they’re alone for a few minutes with nothing to do but look around. It’s also the cheapest room in the house to decorate: one set of towels, a tray and a candle gets you most of the way. The main thing to plan around is steam. Real greenery wilts, paper curls and candles don’t throw much scent in a humid room, so a few of these ideas are about choosing things that cope. ...

A desk has to stay usable in December. Whatever you put on it should either sit somewhere you don’t work, like the top of the monitor or the shelf above, or take up less room than your coffee mug. Off the desk surface A slim garland along the top of the monitor. About 2 feet long and no more than 2 inches thick; a fat garland looks like the monitor is wearing a hat. Hold it with two small clips on the back edge of the monitor, not on the screen. You see it every time you look up, and so do people on your video calls. ...

A 7-foot tree in an apartment takes up around 16 square feet, blocks a window and drops needles into the couch for a month. A well-placed 3-foot tree gives you most of the feeling for a fraction of the space. With small trees, the footprint matters more than the height. A “small” tree with a 30-inch base still takes over a studio. Measure your corner before you shop. Types of small tree Tabletop, 18 to 24 inches. (Example (on Amazon).) About 12 to 18 inches across, so it fits on a sideboard, a shelf or the dining table. Use tiny ornaments, around an inch, and one 20-light strand. In a studio, this plus a wreath on the door is a complete Christmas. ...