Tips On Making Small Rooms Seem Bigger

When you live in a small home or an apartment, you are accustomed to smaller spaces. Most of the world’s population lives in cities and the older the area the smaller the abodes. Consider the size of homes in Europe and the UK with an average size circa 90 square meters.

In the world’s largest cities, apartments or condos are generally much smaller than standalone homes found in suburban areas. So does the size of the house dictate how liveable it is? Not as often as you might believe.

Interior design and architecture focus on function as well as aesthetics, meaning features in a room need to be functional, take up a small footprint as well as look good. But these high-value products usually come with an equally high price tag that many consumers can not afford.

One trick you’ll see in use often in smaller homes is the use of pocket doors aka cavity sliders over the usual hinged door. Pocket doors slide into an internal cavity that doubles as a wall. These doors have a much smaller footprint to the traditional hinged door and they’re a great way to grab back some space. The cavity can be between two rooms for example so when the door is recessed, i.e. within the cavity or pocket it’s like an invisible door until you use it! Such a great trick.

In this property talk article, we have some more fun, sneaky tips and tricks you can use to make a small room seem much bigger.

Sneaky Design Tips and Tricks

1.) Use Area Rugs To Your Advantage

Area rugs are great to use to help define a space. An open-plan room can look small without designated use areas or it can seem a lot larger and using rugs provide visual boundaries where there are no physical walls. Rugs also provide soft furnishings that finish the look, enhance comfort, and often also sophistication. Similarly, a large area rug can actually make a small space appear larger.

2.) Let colors help you give depth to a room

Very light colors like white, light gray, and blue, or very dark colors help create contrast in a room which gives it depth and makes it look larger. It may seem tempting, as they are very pretty, but medium paint shades will actually take away the needed depth and will cause a room to look even smaller than it is. Go towards the light or dark; don’t go in between.

3.) Get furniture that is multi-functional

Find baskets that fit the decor of your home that you are going with that you can store things in, invest in furniture that can be used as seating areas, and also open and store things. If you can keep all of your blankets, pillows, and other little knick-knacks out of the way, clutter will be eliminated, which keeps the room looking empty and spacious.

4.) Get a good set of curtains

Invest in some curtains that go above the windows and reach all the way down to the floor. Having curtains that go from the floor to the ceiling will instantly make the ceilings look higher up, meaning your room will instantly look larger. This is a quick way and can be an inexpensive way, if you know where to look, to give a room a major facelift making it look doubly as large as it is.

5.) Use large pieces of furniture instead of small items

If you try to fill a small space with a ton of small decorative pieces trying to fill the room up, then it can actually start looking cluttered, annoying, and even smaller than it is. Instead of having small pieces everywhere in the room, give the room a chance to breathe and have a few larger things here and there that highlight the room. Having a few larger items will also give the illusion that there is more space than there is, which tricks the eye into thinking that the room is bigger than it is.

6.) Hang large art pieces

If your living space is small, but you want something to put on the walls and add a little flare to the room, go for a piece of art or something like a large wall mirror instead of several small pieces bunched together and stick with decorating just one wall of the room. Decorating just one wall instead of all of them will keep your room from feeling cluttered and starting to look like the walls are closing in and getting tight. Large-scale art on one wall of the room will give your eyes a great focal point to look at and will help make the room look larger at the same time.

7.) Show off the legs

At one time, beds and sofas had skirts covering their legs. While this is still a popular look and can look elegant and sophisticated, it can also cause your room to look boxy. Instead of getting furniture with skirts around the legs, opt for furniture with exposed legs. It will give you the illusion of having extra space.

All of these tips will allow a small room to look much bigger than it is. Square footage is what you make of it! So make the most of it and give the illusion that you have more than you do. And remember, less is more!