10 Genius Design Tips To Make Your Small Space Look Bigger

UPDATE: This story was originally published on August 22.

Flipping through home design catalogs—or getting lost in a decor Pinning spree—might just be more addictive than a particularly dramatic hour of Bravo programming. The daydreaming factor is an instant-high—suddenly your house has room for that double-wide, stainless-steel refrigerator and there's a huge plot of land out back to decorate with pretty paper lanterns.

The lows, though, are pretty scary: As soon as the interior-decor pornography session is over, you snap back to reality and it hits you: In NYC, you're trading square-footage for location, location, location. Never ones to admit defeat, we've tapped the co-founder and CEO of go-to interior style site Apartment Therapy, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, to give us design eye-candy alongside practical advice for apartments scaled for the Big (or not so big) Apple. From luxe loft beds to high impact items that don't over-clutter, these small-space design tips lead by example. About that backyard? If you take our, err, therapy session, you won't miss the bug bites and, err, nosy neighbors.