KEY POINTS:
When your housing budget is tight, you may need to sacrifice space for the convenience of a shorter commute. Generally houses and sections closer to town are not as big as those further out. Here's how to eke the most living out of a smaller footprint:
1. Now
you see it, now you don't: Rather than dedicating entire rooms to an office, or guest bedroom, or home theatre, one room has to do double (or triple) duty. Use sliding doors, even scaled up to sliding walls, to open or close off areas: a wall of shelves, desk, TV, even a fold-down bed can be opened up for use and closed away between uses, leaving a living room for living.
2. The disappearing en suite: An en suite is a big plus if you have a family (or houseful of flatmates), but doesn't have to be palatial to do the job. Carve a 1m by 3m slice off the master bedroom for one: use a wall of opaque glass, even a sliding glass panel door to share light and give you more space efficiency than a hinged door.
3. Or the disappearing kitchen: If you're not a family of cooks then opening the kitchen to the living rooms gives you more flexible space. If you really are only a microwave-and-coffee household, you can hide the kitchen behind a wall of sleek sliding doors, leaving you more room for playing.
4. Garden transformations: Car-parking is worth big dollars for inner-city properties. If you have to convert your front yard to a parking bay, use attractive paving such as gravel or grassed Gobi blocks and a slide-away gate that resembles a wall so the space can double as an entertaining patio when the cars are banished to the road. Add a cupboard or attractive shed to store folding furniture and the barbecue.
5. Play space: Kiwis love a big backyard for the kids to play. But in plenty of cities around the world, children grow up without it. If all you can afford is a smallish courtyard, fit it with challenging play equipment, a sandpit and a vege garden and walk to the nearest park to let off steam.
6. Life in a cupboard: Unless you work 24/7 at the home office, you may not need an entire dedicated room. Shop around for clever purpose-built armoires with desk, shelving, even space for printer and noticeboard, which shut away to an attractive piece of furniture. Stash files into portable bins (easier to move from room to room than filing cabinets), and be disciplined about throwing out surplus or archival papers.