Awkward Layout/Niches at Home? Here Are Practical Design Solutions

Conquer your home’s awkward corners.

Awkward layouts can pose a challenge when it comes to space planning and furniture placement. These typically include diagonally slanting or curving walls, which can create odd corners and ‘dead’ spaces’, unlike in homes with standard square layouts.

Even if your home doesn’t come with an awkward layout, you might still encounter such recessed niches and small, tricky corners.

However, you don’t have to let it become a barrier to designing your home the way you want. Here are different ways you can make them work to your advantage!

For a triangular layout

Owing to its irregular layout, this home in Serangoon has diagonal walls at nearly every turn and narrow, awkward corners. This didn’t faze the owners, who found clever ways around them.

Bounded by walls, the space by the window is effectively a ‘dead’ zone since it’s a rather small area, but the owners made the most of it with a snugly fit shoe cabinet; it can be used for displaying photos and other memorabilia too.

In the living room, the protruding strip of wall is a backing for an upholstered armchair with an ottoman. Since the layout doesn’t allow for an L-shaped couch, this helps with extending the seating space too.

In the kitchen, the section slanting away from the dining area is fitted with cabinets that have a black laminate finish – a clever way to visually separate the areas while keeping it open.

On the topic of triangular kitchens, this resale flat in Woodlands (below) has one too. It’s not necessarily a downside, since this shape facilitates the ‘golden triangle’ – the triangular arrangement of the fridge, hob and sink for the most efficient workflow in the kitchen.

For arrow-shaped corners

The layout of this flat at Bukit Batok West Avenue 5 looks rather like a square – at least, until you get to the arrow-shaped junior bedrooms.

This makes it rather tough to fit furniture in the angular corner – so an alternative is to customise carpentry to slot in the space, like in this home where a triangle study desk was installed.

For a round/oval layout

As much as you might love curves in your home, a layout that curves can be inconvenient when it comes to renovating since furniture and decor might look ill-placed.

Since you’re already investing a significant amount in your renovation, it’d be worth spending a little more to customise carpentry for these areas to maximise every inch of space.

This 161 sqm condo, for example, has an oval edge that affects the master ensuite and bedrooms. The solution? A curving settee against the windows, with the vanity and column washbasin mounted in the middle!

For curved bedrooms

Since their executive apartment has a lot of niches and little nooks, this ID-architect couple included a lot of carpentry to fully utilise the spaces – including in their curved bedroom. This was especially important since they didn’t have a dedicated storeroom space.

As you can see, customised storage seating was built into the curved corner, and the whole nook can be closed off with day/night curtains as necessary.

For a fan-shaped layout

Besides thinking about how to renovate the home to suit the needs of its seven occupants, the owners of this executive apartment had to contend with its fan-shaped layout.

With all the slanted walls, carpentry works were a challenge, especially in areas like the narrow kitchen.

That’s why most of the major changes were in the kitchen, with a few walls hacked to reconfigure the space to make it bigger for the family.

For a sloping ceiling

If you have sloping/slanting ceilings in your home’s layout, the reduced vertical height can result in smaller, occasionally awkward spaces, like in this landed home.

The space in question is a bedroom with two sloping beams/ceiling structures. On one end, the owners installed a built-in wardrobe following the slant of the structure to maximise the storage space.

The entrance to the master bathroom is also concealed in the guise of a wardrobe door for a seamless connection.

For recessed niches in the living room

Make it part of a TV feature wall

In this home, a structural column resulted in an uneven living room wall; if you end up with a recessed niche like so, turn it into your TV feature area. To soften the space, you can even curve the edges of the niche.

Alternatively, you can even out the wall with a feature wall, like in this home, which continues along the edge of the household shelter.

The display shelves cover up the awkward corner where the wall recedes, accentuating the space instead.

Use it as a storage/display area

If you put off by the idea of loose furniture that doesn’t fit perfectly in the recessed niche, try built-in shelves that are customised to your space.

To highlight the display further, you can use a subtle wallpaper that contrasts the surrounding walls.

Another ingenious idea is to build an enclosure for your pets around the niche. That’s exactly what the owners of this 4-room flat did to house their parrots since the space was too small to fit a study table or cabinet.

Another idea we can’t pass up on: the architectural alcove in this maisonette which the owners turned into an architectural alcove, with shelves built into the curved section.

For recessed niches in the bedroom

Install a pull-out mirror

Given the structural features and the resulting niche in this room, the owners could not extend the full-height wardrobes all the way to the end.

Instead, they fit a pull-out mirror – a neat idea to maximise the niche!

If you stay in an older resale flat, chances are that you have a recessed area under the windows. One functional use for that spot is to turn it into a series of low storage cabinets.

Some flats also come with recessed gaps on either side of the window, which you could turn into a charming bookshelf!

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