HACKS TO MAKE SMALL ROOM BIGGER
Looking for more ideas on how to make a tiny room in your home look and feel bigger?
Ask any interior designer and they’ll tell you the same: The wrong layout and furnishings can make an already cramped space appear even smaller. Along with appropriately scaled furniture items, a little trompe-l’oeil (visual illusion in art) goes a long way when outfitting a pint-sized space.
- You don’t need to renovate or knock down walls to make a small room feel bigger—just incorporate these smart design moves to visually expand your space.
- No matter how many design tips you try, if every corner is full of furniture, papers, and knick-knacks, your small space will always feel cramped.
- Once you have the room pared down to the essentials, let these design tips visually expand the room’s square footage.
INCORPORATE REFLECTIVE ITEMS!
You’ve probably heard before that mirrors bounce light around the room, particularly when placed across from a window. This helps a small room, particularly one with few windows or little natural light, feel bright and open.
- Consider installing a large mirror along one wall to visually expand the limits of the room. If placed strategically, a tall rectangular mirror can even give the illusion of a room beyond the room. And in a cramped kitchen, consider placing a mirror behind the sink to give the impression of a window.
- If you don’t have room for a mirror, try other reflective materials to create a similar effect! Anything from light-bouncing backsplash tiles to metallic decor will help create that dimension that all well-designed spaces bring.
EXPOSTED FURNITURE WITH LEGS!
One of the most important elements of a balanced design is the distribution of weight, and in smaller rooms, choosing pieces with lighter silhouettes helps open up the space. To achieve this is by selecting focal pieces with legs to create the feeling of more floor room. For example, even if your couch is on a solid base, adding a legged coffee table and legged accent chairs would create more balance, making the look feel light and airy.
- In bedrooms, we like to play with this idea between beds and nightstands. Because so many beds are on a solid base, contrasting them with a legged nightstand is pretty fool-proof.
- Opting for furnitu`re with legs showingopens up a small space. Compared to large furniture pieces that rest directly on the floor without legs showing, which can appear too big and bulky for a small space, furniture with legs showing draws the eye upward and creates the illusion of more light and space in a small room.
- Chairs, sofas, and beds with skirts can feel boxy. But if you opt for furniture with exposed legs.
GROUNDING THE SPACE WITH LIGHT & NEUTRAL TONES!
Lighting the colour palette of your space will do more than you think. Anything from replacing dark curtains with light and bright ones to switching out a few textiles with softer colours will lengthen your visual plane, creating a spacious feeling.
If you’ve ever remodelled, you know how much some new white paint can do, but it’s about more than just a fresh coat — light and neutral tones make rooms look bigger, too!
ADDING SUBSTANTIAL PIECES!
Substantial pieces give a space a focal point, giving the eye a place to rest, which is especially important if you want to make a room feel bigger. This might sound strange, but there’s something about large, substantial pieces in a small space that bring it to life and make it feel larger.
Whether it’s replacing a gallery wall with one large scale art piece or switching up your coffee table styling to incorporate two more significant sized pieces rather than five little things, this trick can elevate nearly any room.
CHOOSE PIECES THAT DON’T TAKE UP VISUAL SPACE!
Transparent pieces, like a glass coffee table or clear acrylic chairs, take up physical space, but their see-through designs don’t demand visual space. Similarly, furniture that’s the same colour as the walls in the room can help the pieces blend in so they don’t demand visual attention. Incorporating these types of elements into a room prevents the space from feeling cluttered with furniture and things.
HANG CEILING-TO-FLOOR CURTAINS!
If you’re decorating a small bedroom or living room, opt for long, flowy curtains rather than blinds or roller shades. To maximize the ceiling height, make sure the curtain rod is set up near the ceiling (rather than on top of the window frame) and buy panels long enough to either just reach the floor or that billow onto the floor about two or three inches.
- Stay away from window treatmentsthat are bulky, heavy, and ornate. They may look pretty but drapes, valances, cornices, and curtains made of heavy material subdue too much natural light.
- Use the window(s) in a small room to bring light into every corner.
- Along with light-coloured walls, the sunlight will make the room seem larger.
- Consider slatted window blinds, very sheer lace curtains, or, bamboo shades.
- Slatted blinds provide privacy when closed and bamboo shades offer semi-privacy when closed (but also allow sun to filter through the woven material).
DISPLAY LARGE-SCALE ART!
If you have a small room and want to hang wall decor, opt for one large piece of art or a wall accent instead of a gallery wall of smaller items. If you really want a gallery wall with smaller pieces, limit it to the one wall and go simple large-scale on the other walls in the room. And it’s okay to leave some walls blank to prevent the room from feeling cluttered and overwhelming.
USE RUGS TO DEFINE THE SPACES!
Area rugs help rooms feel finished and pulled together. But they can also create the illusion of more square footage.
DECLUTTER, DECLUTTER, DECLUTTER!!!
We try to make a habit of decluttering cabinets, closets, and any other rooms that start feeling too “full” every 6 months (typically around Daylight Savings Time) to prevent our home from being overcrowded. Even a large room that is cluttered will feel small.
- Too much clutter overpowers the square foot and will make the room look smaller.
- Reducing the clutter has a positive impact on the visual size of the room.
- There’s nothing that makes a small space feel more cramped than having too much stuff.
- Work out ways to get collections out of view, organized behind doors, table skirts, or on shelves.
With things neatly arranged and out of sight, the space that is in view will feel orderly and open.
ADD STRIPS!
Stripes—both vertical and horizontal—can create the illusion of more space. Vertical stripes help to draw the eye upward and horizontal stripes help to make a room seem wider. Be sure to select colours that go with the rest of your finishes and fabrics in the room. Click here to learn the best tips for using painter’s tape.
Here, are some more tips for making a small room look bigger:
- Take advantage of natural light as much as you can, which will open up your space.
- Go for fabrics and rugs in small prints or plain colours. Unified colours will visually expand a small room.
- Buy multi-functional furniture, such as ottomans, which can be used as both a coffee table and extra seating, all at once.
- Consider adding floor-to-ceiling or wall-to-wall bookcases. This trick will expand how high your ceilings look, plus it’s a great way to add storage.
- Furniture that can be folded, stacked, or wheeled away is your friend. Simply push it out of the way when it’s not in use.
- Don’t fill up every exposed shelf in a room. Leaving some empty space will give your small space an airy look.
- Installing either a built-in desk that takes up the entire length of a room or expansive countertops in your kitchen, will create the illusion of a long room.
- Buy some of your furniture in the same colour as your walls, that way it simply blends in and will widen your space.
- Don’t automatically place your furniture against walls. Sometimes placing a piece at an angle or surrounded by open space, will make a room look bigger.
- Opt for a dining table that can be made smaller or larger with removable or drop leaves to make the most of the space that you do have.
- Make your room appear larger by painting the walls, trim, and detailing in different shades of one colour, such as off-white.
- Make your ceiling pop painting it in a bright colour, which will drive the eye upward, and create the illusion of high ceilings.
- Colour coordinate your knickknacks and books, which will make your space look streamlined.
- Instead of overhead fixtures, which draw the eye to one spot, add several lighting elements in a small room.
- Consider buying furniture that will fill an entire room, like a large bed that takes up an entire bedroom, and then building custom shelving around it. Half of the battle of making a small space work is thinking outside of the box.
CONCLUSION
Small rooms are cosy and efficient, but can often feel cramped and difficult to keep organized. Luckily there are many ways to make a small room look bigger.
Consider any of the above tricks in your home and share with by commenting or DM us.