How to maximise a tiny house by learning from hotel interiors
The multi-use kitchen peninsula in Jennifer Sheahan's Rathmines home. Picture: Moya Nolan
The hospitality sector has rebounded spectacularly after a rough few years. Many hotels have re-invented themselves to attract more customers and make up for that loss of revenue, with impressive results.
There is plenty that we can learn from recent trends in this sector, especially for small homes, as many hotels have to work hard to maximise the utility of the space they have available.
I find the area of hospitality design fascinating and so I have attended several talks and lectures on this topic over the past few months. Here are some of the most relevant learnings I have found which I hope will inspire you when designing your own small home.
Hotels are champions of creating multi-purpose spaces. This has become even more necessary in the past couple of years as hotels need to work harder to attract more customers. The most recent trend is for hotels to re-invent themselves as more of a neighbourhood destination, and not just places for travellers to stay for a few nights.
Many hotels are now places where locals come to dine, relax, work, exercise, or be entertained.
This might mean that a space where people can meet to drink coffee and have work meetings during the day can easily be transformed into an event space, a performance venue, a yoga studio, or a casual bar in the evening. An amazing example of this is a hotel lobby designed by hotel interior designer Fabien Roque which serves as a check-in area in the mornings, a communal workspace throughout the day, and a cocktail bar in the evenings.
In your own home, it’s a good idea to think about the activities of the people living in your home on a typical day. For example, perhaps you work from home, don’t have a spare room, but also love entertaining large groups — you could think about re-purposing your dining table as a work-from-home zone that could be transformed into an entertainment area through varied lighting and clever storage such as bench seating that makes it easy to clear your workspace when necessary.
A rising trend in hospitality design is the use of modular furniture. Modular furniture is furniture that can be moved around easily and re-configured into various lay-outs.
This allows hotels to re-design spaces for different purposes throughout the day. Modular furniture is also a brilliant solution for small homes.
In the living room, a modular or sectional couch will allow you to adjust your living space to various uses — for example, some evenings you might want to stretch out full length to watch a movie, whereas other evenings you may like to have individual chairs arranged facing each other so that you can have chats with your friends over a bottle of wine.
One of the most inspiring hotels for small space design ideas is Yotel. They put a lot of effort into creating comfortable rooms that give you everything you need in very tiny spaces. One of the ways they do this is by using multi-functional furniture. For example, in one unit, they have a mini-fridge, a suitcase stand, shelves, and hangers for your clothes.
In the area surrounding the television, they have very narrow shelves with grooves in them so that you can safely put items on them without them slipping off, and multiple charging points for your electronic devices. Their bedside lockers contain drawers for your clothing, a safe, and a pull-out table and fold-away chair that you can use when needed.
And finally, they have genius remote-controlled beds that have been inspired by first-class airplane cabins, which extend out flat when you’re sleeping but also can be folded up to be used as a couch.
If your home has limited space it’s always a good idea to think through every item of furniture and consider whether it could have an additional use. Some examples from my own home are that in my living room, I have a large ottoman, which serves as a coffee table, and a leg rest, and has storage underneath.
My kitchen peninsula was made slightly deeper so that I was able to fit bookshelves on the back of it.
And finally, the lid of my desk lifts to reveal a keyboard, so that my home office transforms into a music room at the end of the working day. Murphy beds and sofa beds are also useful examples of multi-use furniture, especially in a spare bedroom.
For hotels to transform a space for a variety of uses, it needs to not only alter the lay-out but also the mood of the space. Hotels achieve this very effectively by using a mix of lighting at various points throughout the day.
During the day time, there is typically brighter lighting suitable for working spaces, whereas in the evening there is diffused low lighting that is more conducive to cocktails and relaxation.
They may also have specialist uplighting or spotlighting for events and exhibitions. In Fabien Roque’s multi-purpose hotel lobby, there is a button which when pressed lowers a chandelier for evening glamour. To achieve this effect in your own home, you can use dimmer light switches, add accent lighting in the form of lamps, or you could even think about swapping out different lampshades that will infuse the space with colours and lighting for a variety of moods.
