How do I make a small apartment feel considered rather than cramped?
Fewer, larger objects and three sources of low light. Small rooms are ruined by many small things, not by their square footage.
The instinct in a small apartment is to scale everything down. It is exactly wrong: a room of miniature furniture reads as a doll's house, while one generous sofa and one oversized mirror read as confidence.
The second failure is the ceiling light. A single overhead source flattens a room and announces every boundary. Light below eye level and the walls recede.
The edit
One piece of furniture that is slightly too big
A deep sofa, a full-size dining table, a substantial armchair. Commit to it and let everything else be modest.
Three lamps, no overhead light after dark
Table, floor, and one small picture or shelf light — all on warm bulbs, all around 2700K. This is the cheapest transformation in design.
A very large mirror, leaned rather than hung
Placed opposite or perpendicular to the window. Twice the light, twice the apparent depth.
Curtains hung at the ceiling, wall to wall
The single most effective architectural fix a renter can make. Full-length linen, never a short panel over the frame.
One rug big enough for the front legs of everything
A small rug floating in the middle of a room fragments it. Go one size up from whatever feels right.
The skip
Skip the gallery wall of small frames, skip multiple accent colours, and skip any storage furniture that is visibly storage furniture.
Then remove a third of what is on your surfaces and put it away for a month. Small rooms are made by editing far more than by buying.