Space Saving Furniture Trends

Guides  ·  Smaller Homes

A field guide to furnishing the smaller home — the pieces, the proportions, and the principles behind a calmer way to live.

Living in a smaller home has never meant living with less style. In fact, some of the most considered, beautifully designed interiors we see are in compact London flats, mews houses and city apartments — rooms where every piece of furniture has been chosen with real intent. The trick isn't squeezing more in. It's choosing pieces that work harder, look quieter, and leave you with space to breathe.

From extendable dining tables that disappear when you don't need them, to sofa beds that turn a one-bedroom flat into a place you can comfortably host, the latest generation of space saving furniture is designed to reduce clutter rather than add to it. What follows is a guide to the current trends across the dining room, bedroom and living room, along with the principles we keep returning to after twenty years of designing for smaller spaces.

Chapter I

The dining room

The dining room is one of the trickiest rooms to furnish in a smaller home. You want somewhere proper to sit down for dinner, room enough for guests when they come over, and yet you don't want a table that dominates the space for the ninety-five per cent of the time it's just you and your morning coffee. The right space saving table and chairs — or, increasingly, an extending table paired with a bench — can solve all of that without compromise.

One

Extendable dining tables

Fig. 01 — The Plane, which lifts and extends from coffee table to dining height in a single fluid movement.

An extendable dining table is the most practical solution for a smaller dining room. It gives you the flexibility to expand the table only when you need it — for a Sunday lunch or a dinner party — and then return it to a compact, everyday footprint the rest of the time. When choosing one, look closely at how far it extends, whether the extra leaves store neatly within the table itself, and how smoothly the mechanism operates.

You can browse our full range of extending and convertible designs on our Clever Tables page.

Two

Folding & wall-mounted tables

For rooms where floor space is at a real premium — studio flats, small kitchens, narrow galley dining areas — a fold-down or wall-mounted table is often the most elegant answer. Modern designs have moved a long way beyond the flimsy drop-leaf of old: today's wall-mounted tables can fold out to seat four comfortably, with some console-style designs even extending to seat six or eight while taking up almost no depth when closed.

Three

Benches in place of chairs

Swapping out dining chairs for a bench — on one or both sides of the table — can free up a surprising amount of floor space. A bench tucks fully under the table when not in use, leaving you with clear sightlines across the room rather than the visual clutter of four or six chair backs.

Chapter II

The bedroom

The bedroom is the other room where smart furniture choices can completely transform how the space feels. A cluttered bedroom rarely makes for a restful night's sleep, and yet bedrooms tend to accumulate the most awkward items in the house — suitcases, out-of-season clothes, spare bedding, the ironing board. The best space saving bedroom furniture hides all of that out of sight.

One

Storage beds

Fig. 02 — The Max, our deepest ottoman storage bed, in a south-facing London bedroom.

The biggest trend in space saving bedroom furniture is, without question, the storage bed. Rather than wasting the considerable volume of space underneath your mattress, a well-designed storage bed turns it into a clean, accessible compartment — either via drawers in the base or an ottoman-style lift that opens the entire bed to reveal storage beneath.

See the full range on the storage beds page.

Two

Built-in & under-bed storage

Once you've made the most of the space under the bed, the next move is to think vertically. Alcoves either side of a chimney breast, the space above a doorway, the awkward sloping wall under the eaves — all of these can be turned into useful storage with a built-in wardrobe or shelving unit.

Chapter III

The living room

The living room often works harder than any other room in a smaller home. It's where you relax in the evening, where you host friends, where you watch television, sometimes where you eat, and — if you have a sofa bed — where guests sleep.

One

Sofa beds

Fig. 03 — The Cocoon, photographed in a Marylebone flat at the end of the day.

A sofa bed is one of the most versatile pieces of space saving furniture you can invest in. A good one gives you a genuinely comfortable everyday sofa — the kind you'd happily spend Sunday afternoon on — and a proper, restful guest bed whenever you need it.

Explore the full collection on our sofa beds page.

When it's chaos out there,
it's calm in here.

Browse the full range of space saving furniture — extending dining tables, sofa beds, storage beds, storage sofas, and bespoke pieces made to your exact dimensions.

Browse the range Visit a showroom