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April 17, 2019

Furniture

Why extendable furniture is a great investment

Whether you’re the parent of a growing family, an avid book-lover or the hostess with the most-est (or perhaps all of the above), there’s a good chance that if you were granted three wishes you would expend one of them on more space in your home. Space isn’t only the final frontier, it’s an increasingly expensive luxury. Research shows that the average area of a new build house in the UK is now at an all-time low. Small wonder, then (pun definitely intended) that the internet abounds in tips and tricks to maximise the storage space in your house and help make your rooms feel bigger.

Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me…

One pitfall for house or flat-hunters is that it’s easy to forget you don’t just have to fit everything in, you then have to be able to live with it. Yes, you can just about accommodate a three piece suite in the living room, and there’s a cupboard where you can store the ironing board, but if that’s the only configuration the size of the room permits, you’re going to have difficulties when it comes to pressing the wrinkles out of your favourite top. And even if you avoid that trap, only the most ardent followers of Marie Kondo can hope to escape the steady increase of their belongings over time. Storage hacks come into their own here, to help get the clutter under control. However, keeping your surfaces clear is only half the story if your rooms are still too crowded with furniture.

Enough room to swing a cat

To maximise the space you’ve got and create an illusion of having even more, extendable furniture has to be the way forward – view more. An expanding dining table is often aggressively marketed at Christmas as the solution to that difficult choice between fitting in your mother-in-law or a dish of sprouts at the main meal, but extendable furniture can do a lot more for you than that. As well as giving you room to move, it also offers flexibility to adapt your living space to your daily changing needs – if you can fit your table into more spaces, you have more options for changing the layout of your room to suit the occasion (or just because you fancy a change.) And while dining tables are the classic mainstay of extendable furniture ranges, it doesn’t stop there. There is an increasing selection of seating options available, not to mention beds and desks, that will cunningly stack, fold or nest out of the way when not in use, and all without sacrificing comfort to space. So with a little careful planning and research to help you find the options that are right for you, you can have a home that allows you to be expansive and hospitable but still kick back and relax in your own space once the guests have gone. (Swinging of actual cats is not advised.)

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