Renee from Vancouver's Profile

I shared a 1 bedroom with my best friend for a few years. If I could do it all over again, I would put a loft bed in the bedroom and make the room more dual purpose (whatever that second purpose may be). Then, if you can section on off a spot for a small bed in the living room, that would be ideal. Just curtain it off from the rest of the room. (I don't like day beds much.) But it needs to be far away from the kitchen to work. Kitchens and sleeping areas should not to be too close to one another. It's okay if the bed can be seen in the daytime. You just don't want it too accessible to visitors, so the curtain is important.

Take a couple of rooms each to decorate rather than getting too fussy about mine and hers. You are going to have to share the space. My roommate and I used to take turns sleeping in the living room vs. the bedroom. Whoever wanted to go to sleep first got the bedroom. All of our clothes were in the bedroom.

Other furniture: look for small or narrow furnishings. Don't accept any overstuffed hand me downs! Also, armless chairs and couches will help open up the space visually and give you more options for how you position them.

You might want to install a wall of floor to ceiling shelves along one wall and put a computer on one of the shelves as another space saver. I don't think you need a full desk area unless one of you works from home. You could even use laptop tables instead of a desk.

I love trend watching, and the best trend to be a part of is the one you started. Like when you move to a crummy neighborhood that eventually becomes trendy! Six years later, I now live in hipster central! Or when the messy hair look is in and you have no problem achieving it!

By the way, pallet furniture is the holy grail of DIY. The guy across the street parks his flatbed truck piled high with pallets in front of my place EVERY day.