Q: My home is a real challenge to decorate. Not only is it compact, but it has almost no corridors so almost every room flows one into another.

This small bungalow is due for major redecoration, not having been touched in almost 15 years, but I am paralyzed because I really don’t know how to begin.

The L-shape living-dining room combination has a north and south solar exposure, so it gets a lot of natural light.


The living room has a nice stone fireplace which is the obvious focal point, and the space should have a television (I’d love an armoire, but I can’t figure out where to put it), as well as a place for many books.

The tiny dining area, or perhaps it should be called a niche, can fit no more than a table with a few chairs and I use it occasionally for working from home.

A small entrance with a half wall on each side separates these two spaces.

Here I would like to put down new slate tile, but I am unsure whether to tile through to the closet or not.

I plan to buy new living room furniture, draperies and new wall-to-wall carpet, and hope to recreate a country look in this small space.

A: Decorating a space in a small home will require some special considerations to make it attractive as well as practical for the way you live.

A small space may require extra storage space, so anywhere you can find that will give you the ability to create shelving or hiding places is always a plus.

A small home generally means that many of the rooms will have multiple functions, so you should always be on the lookout for multi-purpose furniture such as an coffee table that doubles as a book case, or an ottoman that opens to hide magazines, newspapers and other materials.

When making any large investment in a home, there are a few important questions to ask yourself before you go shopping:

How extra durable does the furniture, carpeting and draperies have to be?

If you have children or pets that use these rooms, each of these will be subject to higher-than-normal wear and tear.

All this will help you to determine the type of carpet and upholstery fabric you need, and to some extent, the colour and pattern you might choose.

To start, my best advice would be to look through some decorating magazines for a style that you feel matches what you are after.

Take note of how the look was achieved and interpret that look to suit your personal lifestyle and pocketbook.

Next is the research to discover the variety of materials that can be used in any interior design project and match those to suit your space.

The real challenge in this space will be to create a furniture arrangement that is aesthetically pleasing, yet allows plenty of space for foot traffic to move easily from one room to the next.

Resist the temptation to buy too much furniture and instead focus on some comfortable pieces that will correctly suit this small area.

In the living room, for example, two five-foot (1.5 metre) sofas will give you seating for four without looking crowded in the room, and more importantly, will allow plenty of room for circulation.

In the dining area, a drop-leaf or extendable table can be set up for two, with the possibility of expansion to four, in a pinch.

If you choose comfortable upholstered chairs for the seating there, they can also be used for overflow in the living room.

To maintain a nice flow of space and subsequently make the area appear larger, it will be important to keep flooring materials to a minimum. If you do indeed buy slate for the entrance, it would be best to keep it confined to the entrance area alone.