Architect’s TOP-6 Space-Wasting Layout Traps (& How to fix them)

What if I told you your home could feel significantly bigger without adding a single square foot? As some common home design features are out here hoarding space like they pay the rent. And so today I'm going to expose six of the very worst offenders so you can reclaim some of that wasted space in your home and make sure it's working as hard as it should be. But first this video is sponsored by Asus and their innovative ultra lightweight and mobile Weighing less than three kilos its ultra slim lightweight design makes it effortless to carry around with an integrated handle that both doubles as a kickstand and hanger with its included partition hooks. However with its fully adjustable quick release c-clamp stand this also ensures it remains a perfectly elegant and familiar productivity monitor for any workspace. With a stunning QHD IPS display and smooth 100 hertz refresh rate it delivers crisp visuals and impressive viewing angles whether you're working gaming or watching media. Featuring rich 2.1 channel audio with a subwoofer for immersive sound and USB-C power delivery and AV transmission for a one cable laptop connection or various other connections too with its array of ports providing you with a workspace that you can truly take anywhere. So to learn more check out the Asus ZenScreen MB27 ACR using the link in the video description below. Kitchen islands are the best kinds of islands endless snacks self-serve drinks but without the tourists and slow wi-fi connection. Now I'm sure I'm going to stir a little bit of controversy in saying this because everybody seems to love these including me but hear me out because in smaller homes straight or single wall kitchens actually make a lot more sense because of their versatility. Firstly by keeping wiring plumbing and the work surfaces to the room's periphery it not only reduces the complexity and cost of the kitchen's installation but it also provides the homeowner or tenant the choice to inhabit that space the way that they want to and then the ability to change it when they want to. And so for instance if you have an open planned home like our one and you find yourself wanting a larger dining table you can quite easily have one without necessarily compromising on the rest of your living space. And then if down the line you find yourself wanting more dedicated counter space you could quite easily build a freestanding or wheeled island to match your current cabinetry and worktops too. So what's great about straight or single wall kitchens is that they give you the choice but when you have a built-in kitchen island you lose the ability to move them without butchering the rest of your kitchen which can leave you compromising on your living space if you need a larger dining table especially as the heights of kitchen islands don't make them great for eating at for young children or the elderly. And so in my mind when space is limited by having a central dining table and reallocating kitchen storage and worktops to a room's periphery this still allows you to place items or prep food while you're seated while also providing a suitable area to host or eat at which means that you can potentially then free up space in other areas of the home such as the living area. And this can mean the difference between having to choose between a larger sofa or a loveseat or being able to fit in a child's play area or an extra workspace. However in larger homes I definitely understand why it's nice having wide appliances, stovetops or sinks in kitchen islands for that smoother task switching when cooking and therefore achieving that mythical kitchen triangle. But when prioritising space when you opt for a straight kitchen you then have the choice to purchase what's best for your needs which doesn't always come in the form of an island. And in many scenarios this can make your home feel far bigger and give you the opportunity to change it without having to relocate or sell a kidney which can then allow your spatially challenged home to adapt to the way that you and your family grows while also saving your pockets from the pressure of having to upsize. Corridors and entryways as these parts of the home are circulation space and not inhabitable space really their only job is taking you from point A to point B which really makes them not too dissimilar from gas station bathrooms as you're stopping there because you have to not necessarily because you want to. Now because we're talking about spatially challenged homes and not big ones we're going to set aside that architectural notion of the importance of threshold as double height spaces and grand staircases definitely have their place. But I'm going to guess that you clicked on this video because you don't have either of those things. So generally in smaller homes you're going to want to make circulation spaces as small as physically possible by overlapping them with other inhabitable rooms so these circulation spaces actually get used and appreciated as part of the rest of the house. This was actually a huge factor in why we decided to choose the layout of this particular apartment because relative to its size the circulation space is actually kept to a But in many of the apartments that we saw online circulation space simply runs rampant creating mostly unusable floor space that's usually factored into the overall costs of these apartments and so although a home's square footage may sound large it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to feel large. But if you're already thinking this sounds a bit like your space don't panic as there are ways to make these spaces work a little bit harder as if you rent or have a somewhat limited budget clever storage such as the fold-out shoe cabinet can absorb a surprising amount of items which don't all necessarily need to be shoes which can then eliminate bulkier pieces of storage furniture in other areas of the home by reallocating items into these wasted circulation spaces. And then if you have the width bookcases when equipped with cabinet doors are significantly shallower than cupboards and wardrobes which makes them great for hiding longer items such as vacuum cleaners mops ironing boards and folding chairs essentially turning your corridors into a stealthy cleaning closet library or even a pantry. But if you own your home it goes without saying that this space could be eliminated by removing or relocating walls which is arguably even better as removing glaring inefficiencies like these are likely to add value to your space too. Another space wasting room is the bathroom as compared to all the other rooms in your home this isn't somewhere that you usually spend a lot of time. In a lot of homes having two bathrooms is pretty normal but what I think eats up a lot of unnecessary space is when your home happens to have two tubs as unless you're planning on having synchronized bath routines with the other members of your household two bath tubs in a small home makes about as much sense as installing a treadmill in your kitchen. Now in larger homes I get that this is nice if you have small kids who aren't quite ready to take showers yet but in spatially challenged homes like two bedroom apartments studios and terraced houses significant amounts of space can be saved by installing shower cubicles. This is because when you're not restricted to the dimensions of a bathtub when determining room size this can also allow you to reduce the size of the bathroom's sink too which when done well can almost half the size of this kind of room. I completely agree that having a larger bathroom might be more pleasant to use and nicer for guests and bathtubs are usually a non-negotiable for people who have small children or larger pets but when space is tight you simply don't need to as when this can be the difference between fitting in an extra work or sleeping area in your home which is likely to get a lot more use than a bathtub it really comes down to a matter of what you prioritize the most. And if you're someone who's already stuck with this kind of problem and you're already starting to feel like your home's a bit short on space I've even seen desperate homeowners and renters get incredibly inventive as to how to make the most out of this wasted area. Awkward nooks for instance spaces underneath staircases and unusually deep cupboards. These are spaces in the home that can easily take up a lot of room without you even realizing it. Containing valuable floor area that for the most part goes completely underutilized. Now there are usually two types of things that end up in these kinds of deep storage spaces. Stuff that you completely forgot about and stuff that you're pretending to forget about because you don't want to deal with them. Now because these kinds of zones are somewhat fixed you might feel that there's not really that much you can do about them but if you have the budget and you're incentivized to do so spaces like these can actually be incredibly useful through the use of Now certain nooks like areas either side of a chimney breast or other structural or building service related elements are great examples of utilizing spaces such as these as they're often much easier to take advantage of because of their shallow depth. However if you want to test the limits of your patience just try retrieving something from the back of a deep storage nook without knocking over everything in front of it. And so just like in kitchens where drawers are far more useful for accessing items at the back of your cabinets custom drawers or wheeled shelving can also provide this same functionality in these areas which can completely unlock just how usable these kinds of spaces are. And in some homes I've even seen powder rooms bars and desks being placed inside these areas so there's really no excuse for leaving all this expensive floor space going to waste. Guest bedrooms. Now you may have already heard me harp on about how much of a waste of space these are simply because when you draw a heat map of where you usually spend the most time in your home this room ends up being the one that's used the least. And so the fix for this room just like with circulation space is to overlap its functionality with another room. So a guest room can also become an office, home theatre, gym, artist studio or playroom. And if it's in close proximity to your living space there's really no limit to what this room could also be. In my mind it's absolutely criminal to complain about not having enough space in your home when there's an enormous guest bed sitting there empty for 99% of the year. And so the best way to get around this problem is through the careful selection of versatile or transforming furniture pieces such as day beds and sofa beds and extendable or foldable tables, chairs and equipment. Now if it's really important to you to have your guests sleep on a purpose built bed by all means go for it. But it's probably wise to consider for the perhaps one or two times a year that this happens if this expensive floor area is worth compromising on. When you could quite easily be having a far more luxurious and enjoyable experience in your home by essentially gaining a whole new room that you use far more often throughout the year. So using a financial example to illustrate this although lump sum payments can feel more expensive than subscriptions over time they're usually actually far cheaper. So again when you use this example in relation to hosting it's arguably far more efficient and more pleasant to pay for your guests Airbnb than renting a larger space with a guest room that sits empty for 99% of the year. And when looking at this through the lens of home ownership too considering that mortgages are mostly made up of interest it's surprising how guest bedrooms can secretly be throwing so much money down the drain. And so if you're finding yourself short on space and you happen to have a guest bedroom this is me telling you it's okay to get rid of that old guest bed frame and get the very most out of your space. As this principle is something that you can even apply to master bedrooms much like what we've done with ours by choosing to use a day bed as our main bed. Walk-in closets. These are the perfect room to secretly cry about how much money you've wasted on clothes that you never wear. And on top of this you may be surprised to hear that if not designed carefully they can cost you a lot more than your unworn outerwear again due to their unnecessary circulation space. Now these storage spaces are actually not alone as this also applies to pantries and laundry rooms too as when looking at a floor plan it can be quite common for these rooms to be placed directly next to other circulation spaces such as corridors or simply other natural circulation routes through other rooms. And by equipping a bedroom with a walk-in closet much like the one that's in our bedroom when compared to using traditional freestanding cabinetry or cupboards walk-in closets sometimes double the necessary circulation space which conversely when replaced with a traditional freestanding wardrobe this significantly would enlarge the room that it's connected to while also eliminating the wasteful and rather awkward corner storage that tends to be in walk-in wardrobes too. Just like with kitchen islands I kind of feel that walk-in closets are a bit of a selling point for the uneducated who don't quite understand how important versatility is in smaller spaces over time as this allows inhabitants to use these spaces in the most effective way to meet their needs as not everyone wants a large wardrobe or a huge stockpile of dry goods sitting in their pantry and even if you do there can be far more efficient ways to store these. For example hardware for pull-down shelving can provide better access to hard-to-reach cabinets which fully utilizes a room's height or pull-out cabinet pantries can provide similar accessibility and sight lines as a walk-in pantry while also taking up far less space and if you don't have the means to eliminate inefficient storage spaces like these in your home it's actually becoming quite common to utilize their privacy for other things such as using them as a tiny office or gaming nook or a nursing room with a changing table but of course when it comes to all of these space wasting features in this video it really comes down to a matter of personal preference and priority and really the thing that stands out across all of these items is that they lack versatility and in smaller homes this is something that I think is really important to factor in in order for them to grow and adapt with the inevitable lifestyle changes that we go through over time and if like me you dream of the day when ordering guac doesn't feel like a reckless financial decision hopefully understanding some of these common space wasting features will help your dollar just go that little bit further in order to get more out of the home that you currently live in or the one that you eventually choose to move into but finally thank you so much for watching if you made it all the way to the end of this video and if you enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe and maybe check out one of the suggested videos on screen too