Get in The Zone: How to Divide an Open Plan Apartment

If you have an open plan apartment, or are moving into a studio apartment, then you may be wondering how to divide your new place up so it’s not just one mash of indefinable areas. Learning how to create zones in a room will maximise your floor plan, particularly if you live in a studio apartment. There are some great single man home decorating ideas; decorating a mans apartment on a budget and some general small apartment ideas for guys.

In this article we will discuss various methods on dividing or ‘zoning’ certain areas of your living space; from creating zones in a living room with rugs and couches, using accent walls to define a living room area, using lighting to define a reading corner, and using a Scandinavian approach to zone off your bed in an open plan studio apartment.

Zoning A Living Room With Rugs & Couch

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You can use a rug to zone an area in your apartment. Zoning an open plan living room with rugs and an L-shaped couch can create a living room like TV sitting area. Square the rug up with the TV to define the zone. The addition of the L-shaped couch creates an additional edge to further help define your living ‘room’ zone. Using a mid-century modern with legs will also make your living room area appear more spacious.

Another tip to make your place seem more spacious, when open plan zoning, is to make sure to pull your couch away from your wall, if applicable. You can rearrange your furniture to make your living room look bigger by pulling furniture away from your walls; it may seem counter intuitive, however, you will only need to pull it away from the wall by a couple of inches, so you won’t love much space at all.

How to Make a Bedroom in a Studio Apartment

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If you want to know how to make a bedroom in a studio apartment, then you should divide a room with bookshelves. Dividing an apartment or room with furniture is a Scandinavian method. Learning this neat method for dividing you home will almost make you want to forgive Scandinavians for manufacturing their cars with constantly running headlights… The method adds utility to the space, as well as dividing one room into two. You can use traditional ‘dividers’ however this method is somewhat old-hat now.

Separate your open plan bed area using the Ikea Kallax shelving unit; as shown in the photos. Obviously any shelving unit could be used; however the shape of the Kallax works well for zoning off your bedroom due to it’s size – roughly bed sized. The Kallaz unit is approximately 4.8 feet in width – a similar size to a typical double bed; which is usually 4.6 feet.

A Change of Lighting

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Changing an areas lighting can help to divide a room and create a reading corner, for example. Using a floor lamp is a great way of achieving this. Looking at the above, you can get an idea of what we mean. One of the photos below also has a good example of a zoned off reading area, which uses lighting to divide it from the open plan living room.

Zoning Your Home With Accent Walls

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Check out the above pictures for some inspiration on how to create zones in a room, using accent walls. Zoning a living room with paint, as an accent wall, or with an exposed brick wall or wood panelled wall, is a great modern way of zoning your apartment.

One tip to zoning a living room area with paint – in an open plan apartment – would involve painting the wall directly behind the television a different color or structure. In the image above you can see that, in a similar vein, the wall behind the TV is different to the surrounding walls. For some more inspiration, check our our popular page on cool accent walls for men.

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