Living Space Renovation: Physical Space

I am renovating the place where I live so it fits my needs: writing code, doing DIY work, cooking, playing Beat Saber, and sleeping.

Problem

The apartment I live in is small, so I need to improve space utilization before it can satisfy all of my needs.

It is a partitioned one-bedroom, one-living-room, one-kitchen, one-bathroom apartment. The landlord counts it as 35 square meters, but the bedroom I actually use is probably only around 12 square meters, and the living room is probably around 8 square meters. My renovation is therefore centered on these two rooms. The diagram below shows the layout before the renovation.

Optimization Plan v2.0

2026/03/22 Update

Problem

After the previous renovation, the space could satisfy my need for VR gaming, but I noticed two new problems:

1. The bedroom has a 1.9m x 0.7m bay window, which I was only using for drying clothes.
2. As I learned to cook more food, I also bought more kitchen tools, and the life table no longer had enough room. So I needed to improve space utilization further.

Plan

The tentative plan is:

1. Put a cushion on the bay window so it can be used for lying in the sun or meditating.
2. Put a table in an unused area of the living room for cookware and pots.

The change is shown below.

I am also considering adding electric curtains to the bay window.

Result

After this improvement, more unused space is put to work, and each area keeps a simple, mostly single-purpose function.

Outlook

I may remove or sell some redundant items, so I can keep my attention and energy more focused.

Optimization Plan v1.0

Problem

1. The living-room area on the left side of the diagram had very low utilization. It was mostly used for miscellaneous items and moving boxes.
2. The bedroom was too crowded. When playing Beat Saber on Quest 3, my hands would often hit the cabinet or the desk. Since the original master-bedroom bed is a 2m bed and the cabinet is a huge household cabinet, both are hard to replace, so I needed another optimization plan.

Plan

Compress the box-storage area in the living room, move the DIY desk from the bedroom to the living room, and free up space in the bedroom, as shown below.

Result

1. I no longer hit my hands while playing Beat Saber.
2. The DIY area and the 3D printer are both in the living room now. Both can produce some air pollution, and they are now isolated from the bedroom.

Outlook

I can consider adding an exhaust fan to the living room to reduce air pollution.

I can also move more equipment into the living room, such as the 5950X server and the Home Assistant Raspberry Pi, which do not require direct interaction.