Things We Like: San Francisco Micro Living

Post by Kyle St. Romain.

How small is too small when it comes to the size of your apartment? Sure a one bedroom would be nice and a three bedroom would be even better, but you could probably get by just fine as a single adult with a studio. What about a micro studio?

Popular in urban centers like London and Tokyo, so-called micro studio apartments have developed to meet the needs of cost conscious, single adults who want to live in the city. While micro studios aren’t the epitome of luxury living, they provide all (or most of) the creature comforts an urban explorer needs.

Embracing the trend towards smaller, more affordable urban apartments, San Francisco city officials recently passed an ordinance that allows the development of what will be some of the smallest micro studios in the world. At 220 square feet these new micro studios will feature a bathroom, closet, and integrated living space that serves as the kitchen/dining room/bedroom/living room (though not all at the same time as the bed has to be folded up before the dining table can be used). To meet code, each unit must have at least 150 square feet of integrated living space, a bathroom and a closet. Space will be tight! The plan calls for an initial 375 test units to be built before finalizing the ordinance.

As you can imagine, furnishing such a small space requires a lot of careful planning. A while back, I wrote an article on maximizing bedroom space in a small apartment, and many of those tips are equally applicable to micro apartments—you just need to scale down the furniture even more.

The bed is the first thing you’ll need to plan for in a micro apartment, since even a twin-sized bed can take up just under 21 square feet, or 15 percent of your total living space. A Murphy bed is a given to help maximize your space in a micro apartment. The dining table is also another space hog. However one clever combination of sleeping/dining area had the Murphy bed fold onto a support table, which doubled as a dining table when the Murphy bed was folded up. I thought it was a pretty smart use of space.

If you want to read more about San Fran’s micro apartments click here.

Could you make it in a micro studio? Maybe they could be marketed as a luxurious alternative to Alcatraz. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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