40 Minimalist Apartment Ideas for a Chic and Serene Space

Creating a minimalist apartment comes down to keeping a space clutter-free and incorporating design details that match up with minimalism.

Maybe you've always loved the look of simple, streamlined spaces or you've been a diehard minimalist for years—if either is the case, a minimalist apartment will probably appeal to you.

Although minimalism is a defined design style, there are countless ways to make this look materialize in your rental or owned apartment—it's not all white couches and quiet color palettes.

Below, you'll find a list of inspiring minimalist apartment ideas you'll want to transpose onto your own living space.

How to Create a Minimalist Apartment

Minimalism as an interior design style focuses on paring everything back until you have just the essentials. It involves quieter color palettes, simple shapes, and less stuff.

Here are a few components of minimalism to keep in mind when you're decorating your apartment:

• Focus on simplicity, functionality, and a "less is more" approach.
• Keep bright colors, busy patterns, and the number of colors you use to a minimum.
• If you live in a rental apartment, find out what you're allowed to change and adjust. For example, you might be allowed to paint, change out the hardware, or swap out some furniture that's been provided.

Now that you're all caught up on what minimalism means in a design sense, you can bookmark the following ideas for your home.

Make Small Rooms Minimal

In tiny spaces, like powder rooms, minimalism serves its purpose well. These spots can typically feel cramped and cluttered with the wrong decor and details.

A quiet but unique peel-and-stick wallpaper, a pretty framed mirror, and one piece of art are all it takes to elevate a boring bathroom without making it feel like a museum or display case of decor.

Select One Standout Piece

When a room is all white or full of muted neutral colors, you might worry about it all blending into a space that feels one-dimensional.

This can be solved with a few textured layers and one piece that stands out from the rest. In a living room, a bolder coffee table can define the area and offer perspective.

Bring in a Pretty Bed Frame

If you're moving into an unfurnished apartment, you have plenty of opportunities to bring minimal pieces into the space.

It's amazing what a Scandi or Japandi-inspired bed frame can do for a bedroom. With this in place, you won't need much else to make it feel fully decorated. An art piece and a plant are perfect counterparts.

Let Accent Pieces Do the Work

Don't overthink it too much when you're trying to make a minimal apartment feel decorated and personalized. Accent pieces can do most of the work for you, relieving you from feeling like you have to go on a shopping spree for new decor.

The addition of a large accent chair and a few pieces lined up on the shelf in this space create a fantastic atmosphere but it by no means feels cluttered or maximalist.

Streamline Decorative Objects

You don't have to eliminate all your favorite things just because you love minimalism. Less clutter adds to a minimalist apartment, but it deserves a little personality, too.

Consider curation when decorating cupboards, cabinets, and display cases. Try to stick with a theme and create stylish little niches that make you smile and contribute to your overall aesthetic.

Embrace Woven Textures

If you're partial to the coastal grandmother aesthetic or like your minimalism a little softer than the brusque rooms seen elsewhere, you can make your own space feel gentler with woven elements.

These natural textures add a nature-inspired no to a room and clear up any sterile feelings that might come from an all-white home. This could be through a few perfectly placed storage baskets, a woven vase or lamp, or even a bedside table with a textured component.

Add Small Touches of Contrast

Contrast is a cool way to create visual interest and to a space that can err on sparse, whether it's through the fan-favorite black and white or another duo of colors.

This is a great design trick for adding definition to minimal spaces that feel barer than others. For instance, black-rimmed picture frames and a sole lamp here aren't a lot in literal terms (it's only three objects), but because of the contrast, it looks much more exciting.

Opt for Earthy Hues

Prefer the deeper, richer tones of neutrals? That fits perfectly into a minimal scheme. Consider chocolate brown, mossy green, sand, and charcoal gray to give an earthy edge.

Choose a Focal Point

With a minimalist room, you'll want to pick one element that commands the room or stands out and allow the others to complement it.

For instance, this room doesn't go overboard with maps all across the walls or anywhere else around the space. Instead, it has a focal point on the wall that's then complemented by a black lamp and supported with a muted gray couch.

Combine Black and White

Black and white are the epitome of minimalism. They're essential in the world of neutral colors. While you might think a room could feel cold and impersonal without color, it's still possible to create warmth and coziness.

Choose a variety of pilows, throws, and furniture pieces with rounded edges or softer shapes to lighten things.

Maintain the Color Palette

You might be tempted by that trendy bright pink rug or a collection or colorful taper candles, but if it doesn't match the mood, give it a little more thought.

There's nothing wrong with your design tastes evolving and changing, but if it's minimalism you're after, consider how certain decor items will fit into your room before purchasing.

Minimize Color

On the note of color palette, a few hues are of course welcome in a minimal apartment.

Think about the best way to infuse them into your specific room and try to limit it to only a couple pieces. This could be a large stone or decorative object, throw pillows, or an accent chair.

Choose Neutral Shades

Minimalism is admittedly harder to stick to if you're a fan of bright neon yellow or a rainbow of different blues. Keep quantities tight and stick with colors that are neutral.

This room feels balanced and subtle but still has a colorful bedspread. Because of its subdued tone, it doesn't crash the tranquil and pared-down feeling the space exudes.

Opt for Bright White

A surefire way to make an apartment feel minimal is likely what you'd assume—stick to a bright white color palette. It's ideal for making each room feel spacious.

From the couch to the rug to the wall paint, when items seamlessly blend into one another it helps you stick to the idea of clean, pared-back essentials since it looks like there's less in the room.

Use Cohesive Shades

To keep visual consistency in your minimalist apartment, you'll want to keep the same color and tone throughout in your accent pieces.

For example, if you've settled on a particular type of wood, stick with all light beech or deeper maple. If you pick a brown or blue, try to keep the same tone or shade so one item or piece of furniture doesn't stick out.

Style With Intention

A minimalist apartment doesn't need to be void of personality. It's about choosing the right areas and spaces to focus on.

Rather than decking out a whole room with colorful furniture and accent pieces, select one corner to infuse a little bit of color and texture. It'll retain the pared-down feel but it won't feel blank if there are cozy furnishings, artwork, and a lick of paint present.

Keep Workspaces Clear

A quick way to a turn a minimalist apartment into one that isn't is through piles of clutter—which quickly happens in offices and work areas.

When designing your space, think about functionality so you can keep it clean and best suited for your needs. Once you choose pieces that are stylistically minimal, you can build a space that holds your supplies while still appearing simple and streamlined.

Create Complementary Niches

To maintain the flow of a room, you'll want each corner, niche, and room to flow into one another. A minimal kitchen might feel sharply cut off by a dining niche or area that's bright and blocky.

Keep the minimalist aesthetic alive in each aspect of a space to create an apartment that feels cohesive.

Consider Storage

The "rules" of minimalism are hard to abide by when an apartment is short on storage. If possible, try to add extra shelves and hidden storage areas to keep spaces feeling clean.

Open shelves can keep the open airiness of a minimal space intact, and so can simple baskets and under-counter storage containers.

Simplify Your Theme

You can still have themes and specific design ideas for certain spaces in a minimal apartment, it's just a matter of simplifying them.

This can be done by choosing a few select prints or art pieces and a handful of decorative objects that match rather than showcasing a full collection of decor or completely filling shelves or tabletops.

Pick Minimal Statement Pieces

This room is designed without any wild patterns, funky shapes, or neon colors to speak of. Instead, it has a mix of neutral chairs, each in a cool silhouette, a bold (but simple color-wise) chandelier), and a piece of wall art that's colorful but not overwhelmingly maximalist.

Pick Furniture That Flexes

A minimal wardrobe, dresser, or desk are a few items of furniture that will last the test of time. While something more ornate or bold is fun, it's much easier to get sick of in a matter of months.

Not only does a simple staple like this fit neatly into a minimalist room, but it'll move with you through life phases and however many apartments you dwell in.

Declutter the Entryway

The entryway of an apartment can feel cluttered and far from minimal. Many apartments lack ample storage space and the entry area takes the brunt of it.

To alleviate the chaotic feeling, decorate with sleek and compact furniture items and white or lighter colors. These will blend into the surrounding room, so even if shoes are kicked off and coats are piled up it'll still stay serene.

Go for Light and Airy

Minimalism pairs nicely with light and airy design styles. Choose materials and fabrics, like linen and chiffon, to keep the energy moving around the room and avoid any dark and heavy aesthetics.

Apartments can often feel cramped and tiny, so choosing elements to make your room feel more spacious can make a big difference in how you feel living in it.

Layer Up White Accents

With the right textures and materials, you can layer up on this color beloved by minimalists.

This could be white art layered on white walls or a bed with a few plush cushions and blankets stacked up. Altogether a whole room can embrace this look, which gives it dimension without relying on tons of colors.

Add a Pop of Pattern

If you're not afraid of a little pattern here and there, try bringing it in through a rug. It adds some color to a space and makes builder-grade apartments feel more like home.

Save for a matching accent pillow or two, leave it at this. That's what'll retain the minimalist aesthetic and prevent you from marching into a different style.

Streamline Minimal Kitchens

One space in an apartment that gets visually and physically cluttered quickly is the kitchen. With limited counter space, it's almost inevitable. Luckily, with the right details and functional design, it can maintain a minimalist appearance.

Swap out the spice jars and containers that your seasonings come in for shakers and vessels that look sleek. Clean up utensil drawers with a chic holder and minimize the number of items you have out (and if you really use them).

Maximize Space With Mirrors

Minimalism is already a useful design style to stick to if you're living in a smaller space, but to complement the work that bright, white, pared down spaces offer, mirrors can help.

Whether you can properly install them or have to use adhesive hooks, one, two, or even three mirrors on the wall will move light around a room and give the illusion that your apartment is bigger than it is.

Simplify the Bathroom

Apartment bathrooms can get cluttered fast, so it's the perfect room to embrace minimalism.

Trying to balance all the soaps, shampoos, cleaning supplies, and towels in one space is tough. Make the most of shelving units and be mindful about what you bring in. Try to store extra essentials in another room if there isn't space here.

Incorporate Pops of Black

Black is a remarkably powerful shade even in small doses. In a minimal, all-white space it can define edges, spice up a wall, and set a perimeter.

With only a few flicks of a midnight tone onto the blank canvas of a room, black can transform the space. Consider art, lamps with black wires or stands, and bed frames.

Energize With Plants

It's true that minimal spaces can easily toe the line between pared down and sterile. One way to prevent a room in an apartment from feeling cold is through plants.

A burst of greenery from a fringed mini palm tree, a big and tall fiddle leaf fig, or the sharp leaves of a snake plant can make an ultra-minimal space feel more vibrant.

Leave Empty Space

In an apartment, it can be tempting to want to quickly fill the space. Bare rooms are a little uncomfortable and feel like the opposite of a home.

But before you try to fill every possible corner and inch of floor space, give yourself (and the room) some breathing space. Minimalism appreciates the essential, so according to this rule, there's no need to fill every wall or corner.

Choose Metallic Fixtures

You can retain the look of minimalism even if metallic is present. As long as you don't go overboard with gold everything, an apartment can still look clean and pristine.

Bring these in through chairs, lights, faucets, or containers. A candle holder in gold can brighten up a simple coffee table in seconds.

Favor One Piece of Art

We love a good gallery wall, but a lot can be said with just one piece of art, too. In minimalist-inspired rooms, try to settle on just one piece or two that mean something to you.

Don't forget rooms like the bathroom either. One framed print can make a space feel more homey but you won't need to clutter the walls or purchase extra decor for this spot.

Swap the Hardware

If your landlord or landlady is open to you changing your space or you own your apartment, consider swapping out hardware in the kitchen.

It's a small edit, but it can instantly change the look of a cooking space, especially if the current knobs, pulls, or handles feel too ornate or distracting.

Be Judicious with Storage

Not every furniture item is equal in a minimalist apartment.

"Storage needs to be evaluated when looking at furniture pieces," says designer Linda Hayslett. "Each piece will need to have more than one duty."

And at the same time, those pieces doing double duty should still appear sleek, Hayslett notes. For example, an ottoman needs to have storage in it, but not look clunky.

Swap Out Bathroom Fixtures

Just like in the kitchen, changing out builder-grade fixtures with minimalist options make a big impact.

A standard frameless mirror, sink faucet and handles, cabinet handles, and towel racks become far more of a style statement when you select shapes and colors that could be categorized as minimalist.

Add Purposeful Accessories

Accessories should be purposeful, not excessive or random, Hayslett notes. "Accessories are all seen as artwork," she shares.

"When placing a vase or displaying an item, the piece should be something that can make the space feel like a living piece of work that can be touch and felt."

Create a Calming Mix

You're likely not going to find bright neon hues and bold patterns in a minimalist apartment.

"Minimalist palettes are normally neutral or monotone," Hayslett states. "Keep the colors either similar or in the same family, as being minimal means creating an easy, calming look for the brain and visually when you walk into a room."

Say Goodbye to Excess

If you're a minimalist, the items you choose to keep in your space should be useful and meaningful. If you must keep extras on hand, hide them out of site, designer Elaine Burns advises.

"I find that smaller decor pieces can add up and create the feeling of clutter, so having a collection of baskets, drawers, or cabinets to store away similar items (think candles or vases) is a win-win," she says. "Items are organized by category and tucked away for a calm, clear room."