Top 17 'Square-Footage-Swindling' Cleaning Tips to do for renters making their first tiny apartment feel huge. - Goh Ling Yong
Welcome to your first apartment! It’s a magical, liberating, and… surprisingly small space, isn't it? That feeling of "cozy" can quickly morph into "cramped" when your entire life is suddenly contained within a few hundred square feet. You start playing a daily game of Tetris with your furniture, and "clutter" becomes your newest, most unwelcome roommate.
Let's be real: when you're living in a tiny apartment, traditional cleaning advice doesn't always cut it. You're not just fighting grime; you're fighting for every precious inch of visual space. The goal isn't just to be clean, but to create an illusion—to swindle your way into feeling like you have more square footage than your lease claims. It’s about turning your cleaning routine into a powerful design tool.
Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe that smart habits can transform any space. That's why we’ve compiled the ultimate list of 17 "square-footage-swindling" cleaning tips. These aren't your average chores; they are strategic moves designed specifically for renters in small spaces. Get ready to reclaim your apartment and make it feel impossibly, wonderfully huge.
1. Embrace the 'One-In, One-Out' Rule Religiously
This is less of a cleaning tip and more of a foundational principle for small-space sanity. The concept is simple: for every new item that comes into your apartment, a similar item must go out. Buy a new pair of jeans? An old pair gets donated. Get a new coffee mug as a gift? It’s time to say goodbye to that chipped one in the back of the cabinet.
This rule single-handedly prevents the slow, creeping accumulation of "stuff" that shrinks your living space. It forces you to be a ruthless curator of your own belongings. In a tiny apartment, you don't have the luxury of becoming a storage unit for things you might use someday. By making this a non-negotiable habit, you keep your closets, drawers, and shelves from overflowing, maintaining a sense of order and breathing room.
2. Master the Art of Vertical Cleaning
Gravity is your best friend and worst enemy when it comes to dust. Professional cleaners know the secret: always clean from top to bottom. Start by dusting the highest surfaces in a room—the tops of bookshelves, ceiling fan blades, and picture frames. This allows all the dust and debris to fall downward. Then, move to mid-level surfaces like tables and countertops before finally cleaning the floors.
This method is incredibly efficient, ensuring you don't have to re-clean surfaces you just wiped down. More importantly for small spaces, it draws the eye upward. When you consciously clean your highest shelves and the corners where the wall meets the ceiling, you’re not just removing cobwebs; you’re subconsciously making the room feel taller and more expansive.
3. Make Your Windows Absolutely Invisible
Your windows are portals to the outside world, and in a small apartment, they are your best source of space-expanding natural light. Dirty, streaky, or hazy windows act like a filter, dimming the light and visually stopping the eye at the glass. The goal is to make them so clean it looks like there’s nothing there.
Ditch the paper towels, which leave lint behind. The secret weapon is a simple solution of one part white vinegar to one part water in a spray bottle, paired with a high-quality squeegee. Wipe with the squeegee from top to bottom, cleaning the blade after each pass. The result is a streak-free shine that lets in maximum light, connecting your indoor space with the outdoors and making it feel infinitely larger.
4. Befriend Your Baseboards
Baseboards are the unsung heroes of a clean room. We rarely look directly at them, but our brains register their condition. When baseboards are covered in dust and scuff marks, they create a blurry, undefined line where the walls meet the floor. This makes the entire room feel grimy and smaller.
Cleaning them is easier than you think. First, run a vacuum brush attachment along the top edge to get rid of dust. Then, use a magic eraser or a cloth with a bit of warm, soapy water to wipe away scuffs and dirt. Clean, bright baseboards create sharp, crisp lines that clearly define the perimeter of your room, giving it a polished, well-maintained look that feels structured and spacious.
5. Declutter Surfaces Daily (The 10-Minute Tidy)
Horizontal surfaces are clutter magnets. The kitchen counter, the coffee table, the single chair in the corner—they beckon for mail, keys, and random items. In a large house, a messy counter is a minor issue. In a tiny apartment, a cluttered surface can make the entire room feel chaotic and suffocating.
Implement a non-negotiable "10-Minute Tidy" every single evening before you wind down. Set a timer and blitz through the apartment, putting everything back in its designated home. Clear the counters, stack the mail neatly, fold the throw blanket, and fluff the pillows. A clean, clear surface is like a deep breath for a small room, creating an immediate and dramatic sense of openness.
6. Unleash the Power of a Cohesive Scent
Our sense of smell is powerfully linked to our perception of space. A jumble of competing scents—last night’s dinner, a strong floral candle, and a citrus bathroom spray—can feel overwhelming and chaotic in a small area. Instead, aim for a single, consistent, and light scent profile throughout your apartment.
Choose a fresh, clean fragrance like linen, a subtle citrus, or a light herbal scent like eucalyptus. Use it across your cleaning products, a reed diffuser, or a room spray. A unified scent makes the different areas of your small apartment (kitchen, living area, etc.) feel connected and cohesive, rather than like separate, cramped zones. It tricks the brain into perceiving the apartment as one larger, harmonious space.
7. Deep Clean Your Floors to Reflect Light
Just like windows, your floors play a huge role in how light moves through your apartment. Grimy tile, dull hardwood, or a dingy rug will absorb light, making the entire space feel darker and smaller. The goal is to make your floors clean enough to reflect light.
For hard surfaces, use a cleaner that’s appropriate for the material and designed to leave a streak-free shine. For carpets and rugs, regular vacuuming is key, but a periodic deep clean or shampoo can restore their brightness and texture. A bright, clean floor bounces natural and artificial light around the room, making it feel brighter, cleaner, and significantly more open.
8. The 'Everything Has a Home' Philosophy
This is the golden rule of organization, and it's absolutely critical for renters making a tiny apartment feel huge. Clutter is simply a result of items that don't have a designated storage spot. When you don't know where something goes, it ends up on the counter, the table, or the floor.
Take the time to assign a specific "home" for every single thing you own. Use drawer dividers for your cutlery and your socks. Get small bins for your medicine cabinet. Install a hook for your keys right by the door. When everything has a logical and easy-to-access home, cleaning up becomes a simple matter of returning things to where they belong, preventing clutter from ever taking root.
9. Attack the 'Clutter Hotspots' First
Every apartment has them. It's that one spot where clutter seems to spontaneously generate. It could be the entryway table, the corner of the kitchen counter, your nightstand, or "the chair" that becomes a secondary closet. Identifying these hotspots is the first step to conquering them.
Make these hotspots the primary target of your daily 10-Minute Tidy. By keeping these specific, high-traffic areas clear, you prevent the clutter from spreading and overwhelming the rest of your space. It's a strategic move that provides the biggest visual return for the least amount of effort, keeping the entire apartment feeling more under control.
10. Clean Your Mirrors and Reflective Surfaces
Mirrors are the oldest trick in the book for making a small space feel larger, but a dirty mirror does the opposite. Smudges, dust, and streaks negate the space-enhancing effect and just make the room look neglected. The same goes for other reflective surfaces like stainless steel appliances, glass tabletops, or glossy cabinet fronts.
Keep a microfiber cloth and a good glass cleaner handy for quick touch-ups. Wiping down your mirrors and reflective surfaces should be part of your weekly cleaning routine. A crystal-clear mirror doesn't just reflect the room back on itself, creating an illusion of depth; it also bounces light around, making the entire apartment feel brighter and more alive.
11. Organize Your Cords and Cables
In our digital age, the "spaghetti monster" of tangled cords behind the TV or under the desk can create a surprising amount of visual clutter. A nest of black wires against a light-colored wall looks messy and chaotic, drawing the eye to the disorganization and making the area feel cramped.
Taming this digital clutter is a game-changer. Use velcro cable ties, cord organizers that stick to the back of your desk, or a sleek cable management box to bundle and hide wires. This simple act creates clean lines and a sense of intention. It’s a detail that, as I've learned from my work with Goh Ling Yong's design principles, contributes massively to a feeling of calm and order.
12. Scale Down and Organize Your Cleaning Supplies
It's ironic, but a cabinet overflowing with dozens of cleaning bottles can become a source of clutter itself. You don't need a specific cleaner for every single surface in your tiny apartment. Simplify your arsenal to a few multi-tasking powerhouses.
A good all-purpose cleaner, a glass cleaner (which can also be your vinegar solution), a disinfectant, and a degreaser for the kitchen will handle 95% of your needs. Store them together in a portable caddy under the sink. This not only frees up valuable cabinet space but also makes your cleaning routine faster and more efficient, as you won't have to hunt for the right bottle.
13. Don't Forget to Clean Inside Cabinets and Drawers
Out of sight should not mean out of mind. While guests may not see the inside of your kitchen drawers, you experience that chaos every time you open them. An overstuffed, disorganized cabinet creates a low-level stress and a subconscious feeling of being "full to bursting," which translates to how you perceive your whole apartment.
Once a season, take everything out of a set of cabinets or drawers. Wipe down the inside, throw away expired items, and put everything back in an organized way using dividers, small bins, or stackable containers. Knowing that even your hidden spaces are orderly and have room to spare creates a genuine feeling of spaciousness.
14. Wash Your Curtains and Blinds
Curtains and blinds are silent accumulators of dust, odors, and airborne grime. Over time, this buildup can make them look dingy, block precious sunlight, and contribute to a stuffy feeling in the room. You'd be shocked at how much brighter a room feels after a simple curtain washing.
Check the care label on your curtains; many are machine washable on a gentle cycle. For blinds, a thorough wipe-down with a damp cloth or a specialized blind-cleaning tool can work wonders. Clean window treatments look crisp and fresh, and they allow more light to filter through, enhancing the airy, open feel you're striving for.
15. Implement 'The Landing Strip' for Your Entryway
The first few steps inside your apartment set the tone for the entire space. If this area is a jumble of shoes, mail, and bags, that chaos will feel like it's bleeding into the rest of your home. Create a designated, organized "landing strip" right by the door.
This could be a small console table, a wall-mounted shelf with hooks, and a neat shoe tray. This gives you a specific place to drop your keys, sort your mail immediately (recycle junk mail!), and store the shoes you wear most often. It contains the clutter of daily comings and goings to one manageable zone, keeping your main living area pristine and open.
16. Let Your Furniture Breathe and Clean Underneath
A common mistake in small apartments is to push every piece of furniture tightly against the walls. While it seems like this maximizes floor space, it can actually make a room feel boxy and cramped. Pulling your sofa or chairs even a few inches away from the wall creates shadows and a sense of airiness that tricks the eye into seeing more depth.
Furthermore, make it a point to clean under your furniture regularly. Dust bunnies and lost items that accumulate underneath create a sense of hidden mess. Keeping these areas clean ensures better air quality and reinforces the feeling that every part of your apartment—even the unseen parts—is clean, open, and cared for.
17. Curate and Clean Your Decor
In a small space, decorative items can quickly become clutter. A collection of ten tiny knick-knacks on a shelf creates more visual noise than one or two larger, more impactful pieces. Be a ruthless editor of your decor. Choose items that you truly love and that add to the atmosphere of your home.
Once you’ve curated your collection, keep it immaculate. A layer of dust on your picture frames or decorative objects makes them look like forgotten clutter rather than intentional design choices. A quick dusting as part of your weekly routine keeps your decor looking fresh and purposeful, contributing to the overall clean and spacious aesthetic.
Cleaning your first tiny apartment is so much more than a chore. It’s an act of empowerment. It’s you, taking control of your environment and actively shaping it into a place that feels open, calm, and spacious, regardless of its actual dimensions. By turning these 17 tips into habits, you'll be performing a little bit of magic every day, swindling more "space" and creating a home you truly love to live in.
What's your go-to cleaning hack for making a small space feel bigger? Share your secrets in the comments below! We'd love to hear them.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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