A Stunning D.C. Studio Apartment Ikea Makeover You Gotta See

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Grid View

Expand

• Images courtesy of Ikea
• BEFORE
• This nook seemed like the natural place in the apartment for a bed, but the Ikea home tour team amazingly found a new home for the bed and turned this corner into an entertaining space. A large piece of artwork hung almost to the edge of the wall captures
• BEFORE
• The new dining area features the TORSBY table, PJATTERYD picture, and HAVLOP lamp shade.
• The Ikea Home Tour Squad turned an awkward, shallow closet into more usable storage space. The closet unit is a mashup of PRAGEL countertop and STOLMEN drawer units.
• BEFORE
• The KALLAX shelving unit is by the window and features baskets for all of Mansaray's odds and ends. Along the entry wall, the television is now on a stand that can be moved so you can watch from the bed or the sofa area.
• Underneath the TV are STALL shoe cabinets for Mansaray's impressive shoe collection.
• Mansaray's shoes! Spencer's small space tip: Use multi-function furniture. "Always consider furniture pieces that serve as many functions as possible. One of my favorites is the STALL shoe cabinet from IKEA. It stores roughly 16 pairs o
• BEFORE
• Spencer's small space tip: Create storage. "When you lack storage space, use furniture or find solutions to create extra storage space – like a bed with built-in storage under the mattress. This option is just like having an extra closet –
• BEFORE
• The tall storage units on each side of the bed are PAX units with STOCKHOLM doors. The lights above the bed are TIVED wall/clamp spotlights. And Mansaray's collection of art and souvenirs is on display in a GALANT wall cabinet above the bed. Spenc
• The whole apartment is a cheerful mix of colors and patterns, which Mansaray loves. The units above the sofa are BESTA units with BESTA VARA doors. The lights above the sofa are MINUT. The tables in the entertaining area are IKEA PS, and VITTSJO laptop st
• Rugs to help divide the apartment's living areas. The sofa area incorporates an ORSTED rug while a LAPPLJUNG RUTA rug is under the bed. In a lot of small studios, it seems like the bed is always on display, but the Ikea Home Tour Squad managed to create d
• These 2 KIVIK one-seaters were combined to make a couch for this small space. "I didn’t have a couch before," Mansaray said. Now Mansaray has seating for her guests, and when we met her minutes after the reveal, she was already planning a get-together to

Being part of the Ikea Home Tour Squad has to be one of the more awesome jobs out there. The team of Ikea store designers are on a cross-country journey to make America more beautiful one room at a time, and this month, they stopped right here in Washington. Non-profit exec Namatie Mansaray had just moved into a small studio apartment in Petworth this spring, and she was running low on storage space — a situation so many Washingtonians can relate to, right? Enter the Ikea Home Tour Squad, who assessed Mansaray's Pinterest boards, synthesized her love of patterns, gold, African prints, and The Mindy Project, and analyzed Mansaray's shoe situation. "I have a ton of shoes," she confirmed.

And within a couple days, the Ikea Home Tour Squad shopped at the College Park Ikea and completely transformed Mansaray's apartment. She was blown away. "Everything will fit. All my explosion of crap will fit into this space," she told Racked DC. "This is like a dream come true." Click to tour her dreamy new apartment courtesy of Ikea, and bonus, Ikea Home Tour Squad member Elizabeth Spencer from the IKEA Woodbridge store shares tips about how you can add more storage to your own small space.

Here are two more small-space solutions for Racked readers from Spencer.

Try a sofa bed. "A sofa bed can provide extra space and even extra storage. Most Ikea sofa beds with chaises are a great example because they have built-in storage space under the chaise — perfect for storing any extra pillows and comforters."

Hide the home office. "A secretary desk is great for when you can't have a separate office space. They keep everything concealed with their drop-down leaf so no one has to know that's where you do all of your office work."

And see the videos of the buildout of the space — furniture assembly not in real time — and Mansaray's adorable reaction.

·Ikea Home Tour [YouTube]
· Ikea [Official Site]
· Ikea Created a Whole Collection for Your Tiny Apartment [Racked]