Thanks to the recent housing price hike and the growing popularity of city living, more people than ever are compromising on the size of their home in order to live in the location they desire.
But while the estate agents do a convincing job of marketing less than ample sized properties as 'cosy', once you're installed with all your worldly goods, without careful interior design choices, it can begin to feel like the walls are closing in on you.
Of course, there are lots of things you can do to save space, such as ruthlessly chucking out your clutter and junk or being savvy with storage solutions. But there are also a number of crafty tricks you can try, using colour, light and layout, to create the optical illusion of a much bigger space, in an instant.
We asked top interior designer, Shaun Clarkson of Shaun Clarkson ID, the creative brain behind many of London's most iconic bars and restaurants, to share his top tricks for creating the illusion of space...