You could be buying artworks by an as yet undiscovered 'next big thing' at a fraction of the price of its future worth. Plus, students tend to be restricted by budget and space, so most of their work is small-scale. Ceramic artist Ranjena Gohil is pictured above at her final year show, her beautiful ceramic ornaments and wall art were selling for a fraction of the price they would fetch in a private gallery.

If you're looking for some art work for your home, graduate final year art shows, where students often sell-off their work, are a great place to start.

I bought this lovely Blue Tit adorned milk bottle by the ceramic artist Jon Williams from a Christmas show at the Royal College of Art for less than £30.

A mix of alphabet letters can send a very striking message about the owner of a home or room. They are also very 'in' this season and there is no excuse, you can squeeze a few words into the weeniest of spaces. 

Shed some more light and be witty at the same time with a collection of vintage industrial letter lights, perfect for a house party.

Define whose side you're on with these Luxury Love Letters, handmade in Somerset and available in five shades of Irish linen.

Children love to put their name on things, so bedroom signs always go down well. Discovered in Australia, these decorative letters are hand crafted from an acrylic base and topped with Japanese papers before being sealed with a thick resin coating. 

And, these cushions could work well in a teen's room, perhaps spread along the bed to give it a sofa-feel during waking hours?

All of these products could be used in a rental home, to find out more on how to make rental property feel homely read on here

If you've strong ceilings - and you'd need to get an expert in to confirm this - then the on-trend swing seat is the perfect addition to your little living space. They are so comfy too!

These suspended seats work particularly well in a tight space because you can see underneath them and above them. This helps to create an optical illusion of more space, making your room feel larger than it really is. 

Swing seats often work indoors and out too and they will have the same space enhancing effect in your garden. 

And, kids are particular fans of swing seats. How cool is this giraffe seat? Not expensive either. Perfect for those head in the clouds moments.

I've held back for a while, it's nice to keep some things to yourself, but now I've decided to let you in on a little secret. How to find treasures on auction sites such as eBay and classified ad sites such as GumTree. 

By treasures, I mean pieces that look great, will last and will hold, or maybe even increase, their value if you want to resell them in the future. 


Search for products from well-established, high-end design retailers: Liberty of London, Heals, Chaplins, Selfridges, Anthropologie and The Conran Shop, etc. All these stores specialise in expensive and generally well-built homewares and furniture, so if the product is genuine - and that's one thing I can't guarantee - it should be durable and to be able to bought for a fraction of its original price.


Search for products by up and coming designers that have recently been mentioned in the press. I bought a beautiful oak light fitting by Cornish-based designer Tom Raffield for less than a third of what it would have cost new. And, it was new, it was an unwanted gift still in its original packaging. Rory Dobner, Tom Dixon, Orla Keily and Donna Wilson are some of the other names I regularly scour the resale sites for.

Shelves make walls work that bit harder. Everyone has at least one wall in their home that can take a shelf and it doesn't have to be a boring old plank of wood either. It can be a work of art in itself, even a bit tongue in cheek, such as this floating cloud shelf from the always innovative Out There Interiors.

This one's really clever. The bottom book is actually a shelf made to look like a book, stack it with real books and it appears that you have piles of books floating across your wall. It would make a great little bedside perch, or group a few of them across a wall to create a novel feature wall - quite literally! 

Shelves are not just made for holding books either. Free up kitchen work surfaces and the top of the sideboard, coffee table and bedside units  by repositioning plants, vases, photo frames and other decorative clutter on a shelf. Available in a variety of finishes, the individual pull-down shelves on the Riveli shelving system allow you to create your own configuration.  

And, I love this mini balcony fire-escape shelf - it's perfect for kitchen herbs or storing pots of napkins and cutlery. Or keep it by the front door for post and paperwork.

Now read on to discover some great multi-purpose kitchen furniture to look out for here.
I love my Ella's Kitchen Company shelf cabinet!

It's always difficult to know how to seat people when you have lots of guests around. It would help if you had a few folding chairs stored away to bring out at such times, but the problem is you don't want them to be cluttering up your broom cupboard or to have to go to the hassle of hiding them under the bed or sofa to keep things looking tidy when they are not in use. Well these ones solve that dilemma for you, they hang as a work of art on the wall!

All the way from Germany, Ambivalenz's Fläpps folding chairs can simply be lifted down when you're ready to use them. You just open them up and hey presto, you have a seat.

They come in different colours too and there's a stool to match!

And this rather funky shelf system.

Philippe Starck's now infamous Louis Ghost Chair for Kartell haunts hundreds of restaurants, hotels and homes across the world. This transparent classic works so well because you can see through it further into the room beyond. Consequently, clear furniture and home accessories work particularly well in a small room, enhancing that all important feeling of space. And these Palermo chairs from Tesco Direct can be stacked in group of fours, which is perfect if you don't want them crowding your place when not in use. 

This glass-topped coffee table allows you to see the floor below it. Its stylish contemporary base is available in ethically sourced black walnut or oak.

Transparent lighting works just as effectively at creating an illusion of space too.

Like space enhancing tricks? Discover ways to make a small bathroom appear larger here 

When it comes to choosing a good solid chair for sitting at a table or desk go for slimline and see through, rather than chunky and upholstered. 

Remember you need to get as many chairs as possible around that table and you want to avoid making the place looking crowded, so opt for designs that have 'holes' in them.

Furniture that you can see through that takes the eye deeper into the room will make a room feel more spacious. And these rules can be find in several styles of furniture.

Is it an ultra-cool dolls' house or is it a coffee table? Well, actually it's both. A dolls house is one of those bulky, often expensive, toys that take up floor space and have limited play life.  Amy Whitworth designed the QUBIS Haus to have a dual purpose as a coffee table and a dolls house. The ingenuity of the concept combined with the sophisticated architectural quality of the design is what makes it a brilliantly big idea for a tiny space.

With its slots for removable walls and various additional room sets, budding architects can spend hours putting together their individual schemes and then helping the little dolls move in to their new house. 

Magnetic oak blocks click together to make the furniture. Once play time is over, the mini furniture pieces can be removed and the unit is ready to be used as a standard coffee table again. It looks so lovely fully furnished, however, that many people choose to use it as a coffee table whilst the dolls get on with their lives underneath!

Love the coffee table house? See the multifunctional sofa that would work really well alongside it here

If you believe you have spotted a piece of furniture or equipment that is a brilliantly big idea for a tiny space, do tell us about it.

Every week on Don't Cramp Our Style we will be highlighting brilliantly big design ideas for tiny spaces and starting out in pole position is Made.com with it's Lovebird sofa. 

Designer Je-Uk Kim won a competition run by the Design Museum and Made.com to design an innovative and compact two-seater sofa. The Lovebird sofa, inspired by the colour of lovebirds, is the result. 

It's easy to see why it won. Underneath the sofa there's a pull-out coffee table, the inside of which is hollowed out for storage, and a poufe. And, if you put the poufe at the end of the sofa it transforms into a single bed. 

It's the must have piece of furniture for a studio apartment or bedsit and perfect for tiny living rooms too. I reckon you can stretch it to fit more than two bums when you've a crowd around; and there's that extra space on the poufe too. 

It's not cheap at £1,999, but having been displayed as part of the Design Museum's Future is Here exhibition it's well on its way to becoming a design icon and should at least hold its value. I'd go for the orange colourway. 

Do you know of another brilliantly big idea for a tiny space? Perhaps one that can even tip Made.com off the top spot? Do tell