Short answer: budget 0.5–1.0 m² of floor footprint in closed storage per person, which for a two-person flat means 1–2 m² total. An 80 × 40 × 80 cm cabinet holds about 256 litres; a 60 × 24 × 182 cm tall narrow unit holds 262 litres in a third of the floor space. The narrow one wins on almost every small-flat metric — litres per square metre of floor is the number worth optimising, and tall beats wide by roughly 2:1.
Shop the pieces in this guide
Small flats do not suffer from a lack of storage; they suffer from storage in the wrong shape. A wide low sideboard holds the same volume as a tall narrow cabinet but eats three times the wall, and wall is the thing you are actually short of.
Volume per footprint
| Cabinet | Footprint | Volume | Litres per m² |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 × 40 × 80 cm | 0.32 m² | 256 L | 800 |
| 60 × 24 × 182 cm | 0.14 m² | 262 L | 1,870 |
| 152 × 40 × 80 cm | 0.61 m² | 486 L | 800 |
| 40 × 40 × 63 cm (drawer unit) | 0.16 m² | 101 L | 630 |
| 80 × 23.5 × 123 cm | 0.19 m² | 231 L | 1,215 |
Tall narrow is the efficiency champion because it stacks volume vertically where rent is free. Two 60 × 24 cm units side by side in a 120 cm gap give 524 L in 0.28 m² — nearly double a single wide cabinet for less floor.
How much volume does a person actually use?
A rough allocation that holds up in practice: 150 L per person for clothes outside the wardrobe, 80–120 L for paperwork, cables and the drawer of shame, 60 L for cleaning products and bulk shopping, 40 L for seasonal items. Two adults in a 45 m² flat need roughly 700–900 L of general storage beyond the kitchen and wardrobe — which is three tall narrow units, or five wide ones.
Depth: the 24 cm revolution
The single most useful small-flat dimension is 24 cm deep, because that is shallow enough to fit behind a door swing, in a hallway, or beside a fridge, while still taking A4 folders (21 cm) and standard storage boxes. Standard cabinets at 40 cm deep stick out into the room by 16 cm for no gain in usefulness. If a hallway is 100 cm wide, a 24 cm unit leaves 76 cm of passage — under the 90 cm comfort figure but workable; a 40 cm unit leaves 60 cm and turns the corridor into a slalom.
Where to put it, and what breaks
Go high before wide: a 180–200 cm tall unit uses wall you were not using and puts the rarely-touched stuff at the top. Anchor anything over 120 cm to the wall — a loaded tall cabinet is a tipping hazard, and in rented flats a single L-bracket into a stud is a 5-minute job with no lasting damage. Check the plinth: legs or a recessed base let you level it on an uneven old floor, which matters more than it sounds in pre-1950 buildings where a 1 cm slope over 2 m is normal.
The one rule that keeps a small flat tidy
Closed storage is not about capacity, it is about what you can hide. Open shelving in a small flat looks curated for about eleven days and chaotic forever after. If you must go open, keep it to 20% of total storage and put the visually quiet things there — books, baskets, ceramics. Everything with a logo, a cable or a colour scheme goes behind a door.
Keep reading
More dimension guides are in the collection, and the full index is on the furnolio journal.
0 Kommentare