Netflix’s new show Hack My Home features four design experts who bring jaw-dropping, space-saving solutions to cluttered family homes. Season one dropped last week, and it did not disappoint: From a secret trap door hidden inside a dining room table to a bed that lowers smoothly out of the ceiling, this team’s hacks are one of a kind.
If you’re fawning over the show’s transformations like us and want to channel its creativity, you’re in luck. Just in case you don’t have four design experts knocking on your door, we talked to all four Hack My Home hosts and compiled a list of their top tips for ways you can start hacking your own space.
Get the Most out of Your Furniture
Some of the show’s most impressive hacks utilized multifunctional furniture—think bathroom mirrors that spin to reveal extra shelf storage, or ottomans that store four dining chairs each. Mikel Welch, the show’s design expert, says that finding furniture with two to three additional uses can help homeowners maximize space and minimize clutter.
“Take a look at furniture that has multiple purposes,” says Welch. “Can that dining table or can that ottoman also convert into additional storage, where maybe you hide all the kids’ board games, and the things that you don’t want your neighbors to see when they walk into your house?”
If the furniture items you want aren’t ideal for storage, it’s also smart to look for items that can fold or even recess into larger pieces, says Welch. Watch episode four for a genius homeschool hack, where the team fashions wooden chairs to slide into desks and become practically invisible—or episode eight, where a hidden, 13-square-foot island is miraculously pulled from a kitchen counter.
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Be Inventive with Storage Solutions
If Hack My Home taught us anything, it’s that storage can go just about anywhere, no matter how small the space. Engineer and roboticist Jessica Banks, who specializes in “shape-shifting” furniture, shared some easy ways to clear up more space for storage: First, think about what doors you could do without, and try turning them into sliding panels, or replacing them with fabric.
“I love to get rid of doors,” Banks said. “Doors and closets end up taking up a lot of space, and you can put in blinds or curtains.”
What about the doors that need to stay? Banks has a solution for that, too. She suggests installing slim storage solutions on the back of doors—even the backs of kitchen or bathroom cabinet doors will do for small items.
There’s a lot of room to get creative here, as unconventional items can serve as storage, too. Banks shared an example of a hack from her own home: She uses an old library ladder as a bookshelf.
See Your Space in 3D
Especially when dealing with smaller spaces, it can be difficult to envision where additional furniture or storage solutions might fit. “Renovation ninja” Ati Williams, a licensed general contractor and former HGTV host, says that letting go of your floor plan might be the ticket to home hack success.
“People shouldn’t just look at their floor plan, but should always look at things in terms of 3D, as opposed to 2D,” says Williams. “Think about how you use not just the floors, but the walls, and the ceilings, and everything.”
Instead of adding to already heavily occupied floor space, try hanging storage solutions from the ceiling, or having them double as wall decor. The team hacked some high-tech vertical storage on the show, including a remote-controlled soffit that lowers in one family’s kitchen, storing small appliances on the ceiling.
Though this hack might be a bit too difficult to pull off for the average DIYer, reimagining the dimensions of your home might lead to a just-as-genius storage hack that could very well reinvent your room.
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Follow Your Home’s Natural Flow
When first embarking on a home hack project, Banks says she thinks about how the space is currently being used, and uses that flow to inform changes and improvements. She says that just as our space influences how we live, how we live influences our space—and that understanding that relationship can lead to truly intuitive home redesigns.
“First, look around and get all the data—look at the spaces and the areas in your home, or your office, or whatever, and see what is unused, see what has collected clutter,” Banks says. “That will help you to reflect on your own behaviors within your space, and then be able to take action about physically changing the space itself.”
Making your home fully functional means catering to your daily habits. To make changes that truly make sense, and that will make your day-to-day easier, take note of where your things pile up and target those areas first.
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Make Your Rooms Work for You
Perhaps the most impressive hacks on the show completely transformed the functions of rooms. In one episode, a teenager’s bedroom is seamlessly transformed into a music studio, and in another, a dining room table is modified to include two hidden computer monitors, allowing a couple to work from home together. Architect and interior designer Brooks Atwood says that this flexibility reflects how most people live their lives naturally.
“Now, the way that we live, no one uses the room exactly as it is 24/7,” says Atwood. “You’re only sleeping in your bed for eight hours, so you don’t need it the rest of the time.”
He suggests hacking solutions that allow your bed or other large pieces of furniture to virtually disappear, whether they fold up onto the wall, transform into a sofa or play area, or easily move to make room for a home office or workout space. Making this transition from one mode to another as easy as possible for yourself—even if that doesn’t involve mechanized technology or the help of pros—has the potential to drastically change the way you make use of your space.
Be Authentic
A quick bonus tip from Brooks: Staying true to yourself and your own sense of style doesn’t just matter in how you design your home, but also in how you carry yourself. Each of the four Hack My Home pros brings a unique personality and passion to the show, and their chemistry together is palpable. Atwood says that he hopes people take inspiration from the Hack My Home cast’s originality and the visible joy they channel in each and every episode.
“People are loving the authenticity of us being ourselves,” says Atwood. “We’re all a little bit weird and quirky and nerdy and fabulous, all at the same time. If you just embrace who you are and love that, then you can be yourself in your own full authenticity.”
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