ᐅ Furnishing a Studio Apartment with IKEA Furniture

Hello, I recently moved into a one-room apartment and now I have the problem that I only have some furniture from IKEA. That means I have two Malm dressers with four wide drawers each in white, a nightstand, and that’s about it. The rest of the furniture was either picked up second-hand or bought new. Overall, it looks rather uncozy. The total size of the apartment is 35m² (375 sq ft). When you enter, you first stand in a narrow hallway that turns a corner. Immediately on the left by the entrance is the bathroom. If you continue around the corner, further down on the left is the kitchen, and straight ahead is the living and sleeping area. In the hallway there is a wardrobe, a coat cabinet, and a Malm dresser along the wall. In one corner there is also a separate coat rack for the daily jackets and such. Underneath are my shoes, which I don’t really like because they are scattered disorderly on the floor inside a cabinet, and I always have to move them around when cleaning. I vacuum completely every other day because there is a lot of dust on the laminate floor. In the Malm dressers, I keep all sorts of miscellaneous items that I should finally sort through, as I haven’t used some of it for over two years, but that’s not the main issue.

In the kitchen, I have a small table with two chairs, a trash bin with a liner holder, and something like a nightstand. The kitchen itself is also a mix of mismatched pieces but it comes with the rental apartment. There is a top-loading washing machine and a freestanding stove. I want to gradually change the kitchen. By that I mean, eventually buy and install a fitted kitchen (from IKEA because I don’t have 7,000 € to spend on one from another furniture store). It’s also only a small kitchen with 7.40m² (80 sq ft). Additionally, I want to install a bar along the wall and a tall kitchen cabinet first, to create more space to move around and store the small items in the large cabinet.

My question now is how I can arrange the large living and sleeping area to make it cozy. The bed is 1.40 x 2.00m (55 x 79 inches) and the sofa (with a sleeping function) is 1.90m (75 inches) long. I would say you could just focus on the couch and sell the bed instead, but I don’t really want that. I want to keep both a real bed and a sofa. Otherwise, it doesn’t feel right to me. Since the other Malm dresser is still there with the stereo on top, I would like to have a replacement for that. Maybe a shelving cabinet? And since I also have a corner desk in the room that should remain, the question is whether anything can be changed at all. In the hallway, you could maybe put one large closet instead of separate cabinets and dressers, right? I don’t want this to seem like a silly question and obviously photos would help to judge. But I don’t want to post pictures of my apartment here.

The walnut-white wardrobe in the hallway is going to stay where it is for now, even though it’s not from IKEA. I would appreciate any advice on this.

Happy Father’s Day to you all, whether male or female!