Making a Small Room Look Spacious

We don't all get to have luxuriously large rooms. Sometimes we end up with spaces that are small. Never fear, we can make that room look more spacious. Read on to find out the multitude of ways to trick the eye into making a room look larger.

Go Vertical

Thinking vertical in a small space through how you use your walls, ceiling or anything that draws your eyes upward will make the room seem larger. At the same time you will use less of your limited floor space. Consider arranging your art into a collage in a vertical layout or a gallery wall where you arrange one piece above another. Either way you are moving higher up your wall and drawing the eye up. Lean a tall art piece on top of a shelf, the mantel or a shelf. Painting a tiny room with stripes or using striped wallpaper will also move the eye upward.

Other ways to move the eye upward are with a tall floor lamp or plant, a ladder for magazines or throws, or an eye catching ceiling fixture. If you have room, a nice bookcase (preferably one that is open on the sides and the back), floating shelves or built in shelves bring vertical interest to the room and provide much needed storage. Beware of over filling the shelves or you will defeat your hard work to bring space to the room. Other tall furniture pieces can provide the height, like a tall headboard for a bedroom.

Let In Natural Light

Natural light is a free and one of the best resources to make a room feel larger. The easiest way to bring in natural light is to remove any curtains or blinds you have on the room's windows. Bare windows allows for more connections between inside and outside space making the room seem more spacious. If you must have curtains, keep them open when possible and set the curtain panels wider apart to not impede the streaming of the light through the windows.

Add Mirrors

To amplify the natural light in the room, hang a mirror across from a window so that the mirror can reflect the light. Bringing more mirrors in the room allow the light to bounce around the room. A mirror at the end of a hallway, on a landing or in a room directly across from the door can provide an illusion of a longer or larger room. Avoid a fully mirrored wall or closet door as this will date your room. If your aesthetic is glam then mirrored furniture will provide the same trick.

Remove Visual Barriers

If you are so lucky to have crown molding in the small room, painting the molding the same color as the walls and/or ceiling will eliminate the visual horizontal boundary in the small room. Make sure your furniture arrangement isn't blocking the view into a room or impacting traffic flow. Blocking the view into the room makes a room look crowded and small.

Solid furnishings and decor are also visual barriers. Purchasing furniture with exposed legs allows for the furniture to not be seen by the eye as part of the floor and creates the illusion of a more airy and open room. Purchasing furniture with glass tops or lucite furniture also removes visual barriers from your eye line giving the perception of things being farther away.

Edit

When short on space, limit what you keep in your room and remember that everything in your room needs to have a purpose or more than one purpose. For a coffee table, think about using an ottoman or chest so you can store items inside of it. Instead of an accent table, use a small chest for storage.

Keep decor items to a minimum as the eye needs a place to rest and that only happens with some empty spaces. A storage basket for extra throws or pillows can be a colorful decor item and serves a purpose. A colorful tray or dish to hold keys, matches or phones can also do time as a piece of decor.

Go Big

Large or "normal" size furniture in a small room is fine. Oversize furniture or multiple pieces of small pieces instead of one or two bigger pieces are the sin in a small space.

Add Color

Dark, warm colors make a room feel intimate and cozy. Lighter paint color will provide extra light to a room, especially if the room has no or few windows or hardly any natural light. Lighter tones for furniture, rugs and artwork and rugs is also important. Dark tones absorb light which make the space look smaller. Light paint color doesn't necessarily mean white, pastel or more neutral colors will work well in a small area. Soft, muted tones of green or blue, cool colors, will work even better. Blue and green help marry the room to the outdoors.

Aiming for a monochromatic look, keeping things more neutral, muted or sticking with a limited color palette will give the perception of a bigger room. Bold, busy wallpaper or many colors in one space will render a more cluttered look.

Save your bold or printed wall paper for larger spaces in your home unless you aren't worried about airiness and want to make a large impact like in a small powder room.

To Drape or Not To Drape

As mentioned earlier in this post, you can go without drapes. If you want to hang drapes, though, another option is hang the drapes close to the ceiling to draw the eye upward in the room.

Using the right techniques, your small space can be stylish and roomy. You can do it!