ideas for victorian workers terrace?

[tinyterrace]

Just about to move into a standard victorian workers terrace cottage - 2 up, 2 down with a galley kitchen and bathroom on the back.

Don't have much furniture so starting from scratch.

Any experience/ tips on how to how to decorate/ furnish such a tiny space?

Think about storage before deciding on furniture downstairs. For me the main issue living in one of these small terraces was where to put the family's coats/bags/shoes/umbrellas/pram and then all the cleaning bits and pieces, so that they were accessible daily but not an unsightly big mess.

Storage for everything as it began to look cluttered very easily if things were left out.

I used to flip houses and these kind of terraces were my main type. I got ektorp sofa and chairs, table and dining chairs, chest of drawers from IKEA and beds from Next. I kept one lot in a rental and they survived three lots of students well, and you often see IKEA furniture in much more expensive houses. Choose some interesting accessories, get some posters on board online, shop around for a few interesting lights or shades - done.

+1 on the storage solutions!

I think with these terraces light is super important to get right, it's so easy to have it feeling dingy inside, so researching what paint colours work with north facing rooms or east facing rooms or whatever :)

Also sometimes it's quite hard to get furniture in the smaller houses so keep that in mind (we have had to get a flat pack armchair for our back room as it would not fit down our thin corridor -.-)

Less is more in with terraced housing. You want small neat furniture, and as little as you can get away with. They end up looking cluttered so easily.

storage is a must.
Sofa in a box will be a winner if your door is small. (I had to get rid of my old sofa 😔)
Make a floor plan to scale and draw your furniture to see what will fit.

I have one of those. You need to hunt out sofas that give maximum sitting space but with narrow arms. Also quite a low back of the frame to they can be turned in the corridor.

Look at wall-mounting the tv, having the empty floor underneath helps the room look larger.

And again, storage, storage, storage!

Sorry this post is so long!!

I live in one of these houses. We had a cupboard under the stairs and a large cupboard in my child's room (I suspect has been used as a wardrobe in the past) we use for storage. A large cupboard in the bathroom for linen storage and we built in drawers from IKEA pax system for toiletries etc. They're huge! It's the old boiler tank cupboard so very large. We have shower over bath.
We use the small front room as our living room with a 2 seater sofa from DFS and snuggle chair. Built in shelving and cupboards either side of the fireplace. Very high ceilings so the space doesn't feel that small. Don't be afraid to use darker colours if that's your thing either! We have Steam Engine by Crown and it's a very dark green. Very cosy, we love it! Keep woodwork white.
Front bedroom is our room and we have wardrobes either side of the fireplace then our bed against it (ours have all been blocked up previously). We also have a chest of drawers each, a blanket box under the window (because I have too many shoes) and plenty of room to move around. The bedrooms in these houses are actually really spacey if you're is over the entry like ours. Child's room has bed, bookcases, wardrobe and chest of drawers and lots of floor space for a billion toys and toy boxes.
Dining room has a sideboard, ottoman bench, dining table and chairs in the middle and small desk area over by the window. Our kitchen is very tiny so we have our fridge in the dining room, it's all open plan. When he had a new kitchen fitted we had full cupboards/worktop on one side for crockery/glasses/ then a slimmer version on the other side but still manage to keep all our pots/pans/food storage in there.
We have coats and shoes hung up/stored at the bottom of the stairs and in under stairs cupboard. The only downside is we don't close the stairs door and it can get drafty in the winter.
We have a furniture mixture of IKEA, next and vintage/preloved from eBay. Make use of wall space with shelving!

Where are the stairs? Running up between the two rooms, or along the boundary wall?

Oh yes, ottoman everything! Sofa with storage chaise lounge, ottoman bed, ottoman footstool etc 😂 we are also going for 3.5metres worth of built in wardrobe in the master bedroom as a necessity

Keep floors clear - eg have wall lamps rather than floor lamps.

Be realistic about what you need to store, and choose storage that’ll hold what you need, where you need it. Do you actually need 18 saucepans/ a bread maker/a yoghurt maker / 5000 Tupperware boxes? - by the time you pay to store them the cost savings become negligible.
Where are you going to put coats/shoes/bags? you need to get everyone in the habit of putting stuff away immediately - small houses get chaotically messy quickly (that could just be us, though!).
Multifunctional really helps, in furniture but also general homeware, even small things like cleaning products, etc.

It's often possible to remove the window to get large furniture in.

Just to add, think small when you're looking at furniture. Small footprints, shallower sofas etc, maybe on legs so you have an impression of lightness at low level. Don't fill the rooms up too much - less is more!

Our hallway was very narrow.
DFS came out to measure and make sure they'd be able to deliver before I bought. It might have cost something, can't remember. But they skilfully managed to get quite a large sofa in.

Spend as much as you can on door frames, mouldings, cornice etc to highlight the Victorian era. If that’s looking amazing you can get away with cheaper furniture.

As PP said you don’t have to limit yourself to narrow furniture if you look for a company that hoists furniture up temporarily removing sash windows.

We had to get furniture upstairs by temporarily removing a bit of the outcrop of upstairs landing.
Built in alcove cupboards so much practical space
Under stairs we lined with shelves its tight but I now have loads of storage
If your front room is very visible from street consider making it the dining room rather than chill out room.
Covid has shown us we were right to keep a separate dining and living room
Use those ikea beds with loads of storage underneath and shelves built into headboards
Declutter rather than buying huge storage
Mirrors everywhere I have big long ones on wall in hallway bathroom dining room and living g room feels so much more spacious
You can buy nice vintage fireplaces on ebay