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Plenty of apartments have no dining room, just a kitchen and a living room, and you end up eating on the sofa. It works, but a real place to sit down and eat, even a tiny one, changes how the apartment feels. Somewhere to have breakfast, work in the afternoon, and have a friend over for dinner. Here’s how to carve one out of very little space. Find the spot Look for a corner or an end of the living room near the kitchen. Other good spots: ...

Rental bathrooms are usually small and almost never have enough storage: a sink with a cabinet under it if you’re lucky, a mirror that may or may not open, and one towel bar. Everything else ends up on the edge of the tub or the back of the toilet. The fix is to use the parts of the room that are empty: the wall above the toilet, the corner of the shower, the back of the door and the dead space around the pipes. ...

In a small bedroom the bed takes up most of the floor, and everything else fights for what’s left. The way to make it work is to stop thinking about floor space and start thinking about walls, the space under the bed and the closet. Where the bed goes Against a wall. In a really small room, pushing one side of the bed against the wall frees up a usable strip of floor on the other side. You lose easy access to one side, which matters for two people, but for one person it’s almost always the right call. ...

In December the light is gone by five o’clock, and a room lit only by its ceiling light feels bleak. String lights fix that faster than anything. And they don’t need a tree: some of the best uses of Christmas lights are nowhere near one. A few rules first, then the ideas. Three rules Warm white only. Cool white LEDs look blue and harsh indoors. Look for “warm white,” around 2700K. Colored lights are lovely on a tree, but around the rest of the room they quickly become a lot. ...

An apartment door in a shared hallway doesn’t get a porch, planters or a lantern either side. But it’s the first thing you see when you come home, and a little Christmas on it makes the whole corridor nicer for the neighbors too. The limits are mostly about the building: no damage to the door, nothing that blocks the hallway, nothing that’s a fire risk. Within those, there’s plenty you can do. ...

Most apartments don’t have a fireplace, and stockings still need to go somewhere. The good news is that once you stop thinking “mantel,” there are lots of places that work just as well, and most don’t need a single nail. A stocking stand The easiest answer: a floor-standing stocking holder (on Amazon). It’s a freestanding post with hooks, and it can go anywhere: next to the tree, beside the TV, by the front door. Once Christmas is over it comes apart and goes in a closet. ...

A cold bed is mostly a layering problem. People pile on heavier and heavier blankets, wake up overheated at 3am, kick them off, and wake up cold at 5. A bed made of a few thinner layers is warmer and easier to adjust. Here’s how to build one, from the mattress up. 1. The mattress layer Cold rises from below more than people think, especially on a platform bed or in a ground-floor apartment. A heated mattress pad (on Amazon) sits under the fitted sheet and warms the bed before you get in. You don’t need it on all night. Turn it on half an hour before bed and switch it off, or use one with a timer. ...

Most fall decorating happens in the living room and on the front door, and the bedroom gets skipped. That’s a shame, because it’s the room where a change of season is easiest to feel. You’re in it every night, as the evenings get darker and colder. The trick is to change the fabrics and the light rather than add decorations. No pumpkins on the dresser needed. Start with the bed The bed is most of what you see in a bedroom, so changing what’s on it changes the whole room. ...

Place cards seem formal, but they solve a real problem at any size of table: the awkward moment when everyone stands around holding their drinks, waiting for someone to say where to sit. A name at each seat ends that. It also lets you put the chatty uncle at the far end and the two people who haven’t met next to each other. And they’re one of the cheapest ways to make a table look finished. Here are a few versions, all quick. ...

When the dining table only seats four and there are nine of you, a sit-down Thanksgiving with every dish passed around isn’t going to work. A buffet does. Everyone fills a plate, finds a seat wherever there’s one (sofa, floor cushion, the arm of a chair), and the table is free for the food. The tricky part in a small apartment isn’t the food, it’s the traffic. Here’s how to set it up so people aren’t queuing through the kitchen while you’re trying to carve. ...