Solutions for Small Spaces that Make Your Room Feel Bigger
Are you looking for solutions for small spaces? Whether you’re looking to buy, sell, or simply wanting to make some home improvement upgrades around your existing house, small spaces can be somewhat unattractive to the untrained eye.
However, once you learn a few tricks and tips on how to make your small space work for you, you’ll love your tiny space more than you ever imagined possible! Here are a few solutions for small spaces that can enhance your space and save yourself the stress of feeling cluttered.
Start with Color
The color you use in your small space can have a big impact! Before you choose the color scheme, make sure you chose both a light and a dark color that go well together. By doing this, you can create a contrast that will make your space feel instantly bigger. Using colors like white and deep green, light grey and royal blue, or a pale beige and chocolate brown will create depth and give the illusion of a larger room.
You can use color in several different ways to make your room feel larger. You can create an accent wall by painting three of your four walls lighter and one of your four walls the darker color. Choose the best wall to accent by thinking about how you will use the space. If you are wanting to accent a wall in your living room, the best wall to accent would likely be the wall behind the main sofa or the wall with a large fireplace.
Big, textured items like sofas or fireplaces are examples of pieces that people’s eyes are instantly drawn to when they enter a room, making them a good choice for an accent wall.
Another way to make your room seem larger is to use color vertically. If you have a small kitchen, this is a great way to make it feel much larger. Try painting the lower cabinets one color and the upper cabinets another, while keeping the wall in between them the lighter color. This will give contrast to your room and draw the eye up.
Buy Only Functional Furniture
While it may seem like you need a sofa, two end tables, two lamps, a coffee table, an ottoman, and a chair in your living room for it to be complete, in a small space this will cramp the area and make it look extremely cluttered. Think about what you really need in your room before you make any purchases.
That bulky sofa that’s on sale may look beautiful at the store, but is it functional for your space? In small spaces it’s best to avoid an accent piece of large furniture but rather use color and other interesting items as conversation pieces.
Functional furniture can be hugely important in a small space to keep everything nice and organized. If you have a small bedroom with limited room for furniture, buy a bed with storage drawers underneath. This will eliminate the need for a big, bulky dresser and leave more room for other functional pieces.
If you have a tiny living space, investigate buying sleek, C-shaped end tables that slide under the sofa and double as a small desk for you to check emails on your laptop from the comfort of your couch. If your den feels cramped, an all-in-one bench with shoe storage drawer’s underneath and a coat rack on top can be a great solution to keep the ground clean and decluttered. This is one of the easiest ways to generate a small space solution!
Use Simple and Large Décor
A common misconception to decorating small spaces is that you shouldn’t use large décor to decorate your space. In fact, the opposite is true. In a small space, you want to keep the décor to a minimum, as to not overcrowd the space. A great way to do this, but to also have your space look chic, is to only have a few large pieces of décor.
A big, unconventional looking lighting fixture is a great way to frame the room while also drawing the eye upwards. Another design element that works well in small spaces is using one large piece of art as wall décor instead of several pieces which can make the room look crowded. You can use a large piece of home décor for this or you can make it more personal by hanging a photograph of you and your family. In a small bedroom, make the bed the focal point of the room.
Invest in a great mattress and a fun headboard and use minimal décor to decorate the rest. A headboard on a large bed placed in the center of one wall of the room can make the space feel quite large even though the bed may take up quite a bit of room.
Do Not Cover the Floor with Furniture
Another way to create the sense of spaciousness in a room is to keep furniture off the floor as much as possible. A good way to do this is to buy furniture with exposed legs as opposed to furniture that sits directly on the floor. If you have a small study, instead of buying a desk with drawers on each side and a covered front, opt for a desk with a few simple drawers along the width of it, instead of the height and four exposed legs.
Choosing furniture with lots of open space creates a sense of airiness in the room. Just being able to see more floor space will make the room feel much larger. In any case, if possible, lift your furniture up off the ground to keep the floor visible and help to create the appearance your small space is larger.
Do Not Buy a Rug
This seems like another one of those things that doesn’t make sense. However, the more you think about it, the more genius you realize it is! In small spaces where you are already playing Tetris trying to make the furniture fit, you shouldn’t feel the need to use a rug.
The more interesting items, colors, and furniture you have drawing the eye upward, the less anyone will even notice a rug. Similarly to lifting your furniture up off the floor, not buying a rug plays a similar role in enlarging the space. The more floor space that is visible, the larger the room feels.
A rug typically breaks up the floor of a room when there is a lot of it and adds a nice design element. In this case, however, when trying to utilize every possible inch of a small space, breaking up the room isn’t necessary and can make the room more cluttered.
Leave a Pathway
This one can be a bit tricky in a small space, however it makes a big difference. If possible, leave a bare pathway in your room. Moving the furniture to one side of the room can help create a natural pathway in your space. This is important because it carves out a section of the room that is easily accessible, making the room feel spacious and accessible.
It is also important to try and leave a small pathway around the edge of the room. It seems natural for us to put all our furniture up against the walls, however this tends to make the room seem smaller as there are no “exit routes”. Squeezing around furniture is no fun, so if possible, leave pathways in and around the room to make for an organized layout.
Use Optical Illusions to Create Space
An interior designer is the ultimate expert on all things design, so you can trust them when it comes to industry tricks! An interior designer is never afraid of small spaces, and views them as a fun challenge. There are some hacks that you’ve heard of time and time again for a reason…they work! For small spaces, creating illusions is crucial in making the room feel large.
The first thing you should do to make your room feel instantly larger is to hang long curtains all the way at the top of your wall to your floor. This may seem silly, or like it wouldn’t look right, but it is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It will instantly give the illusion of a much taller ceiling.
Another interior design trick is to paint the crown molding attached to your ceiling the same color as the ceiling. This will give your room the look of having a coffered ceiling, and the added texture will draw the eye to it.
A great interior design hack is to hang wall décor low to the ground. Place wall décor on the lower half of the room and leave the top half nearly blank. This makes the walls look much taller than they are.
Another good eye teaser is placing a large mirror on the wall or buying mirrored furniture. Since mirrors reflect light and space, this will help to open the room. A modern interior design trick you can use is buying clear furniture. Glass or clear acrylic furniture makes the eye see through and beyond the furniture, therefore giving a room the illusion that it is larger than it really is.
And finally, the last illusion you can try is to use sheer fabrics and curtains to give the room an airy feel. This will allow more light in and cause the room to look bigger.
Use Light to Your Advantage
Light is a hugely important factor in influencing how a room is perceived. This is especially true in a smaller space. The more light comes into the room, the bigger it feels. Giving your room lots of light can be accomplished in a couple of ways. You can let light come in naturally through the windows if your room is positioned to get a lot of natural light.
If you’re working with limited natural light, you can use the mirror tip above to position your mirror on a wall opposite the window. The mirror will then reflect the natural light bringing more of it into your space. If your room gets little to no natural light, don’t worry!
There are several lighting options that mimic the look of natural light. If you’re lacking sunlight, try adding a large brightly lit lighting fixture in the center of your ceiling to spread light evenly throughout the entire room. If you have no overhead fixtures already in place, you can get two big, bright standing lamps and place them in opposite corners, helping to light the entire room.
Use Texture to Excite the Eye
Using different textures in the same color in your small space can give the illusion of a larger room. For a small bedroom, try buying a plain comforter and pillow sham set and draping a textured blanket of the same color over top. To go even further with this, you can match the color of the lamp shades on your side tables to your comforter and get a nice textured lamp shade.
The introduction of different textures of the same color gives the eyes a lot to look at and digest. Additionally, by keeping everything the same color it doesn’t overwhelm the senses. An easy way to do this in a small kitchen is to match the color of the floors to either the upper or lower cabinets and backsplash, however, making all three of the surfaces different textures.
Keep the Room Simple
The last and arguably the most important tip when designing your small room is to keep things simple in your space. The more items you have, the more cluttered it looks. If you’re not comfortable letting go of some of your stuff, invest in furniture that doubles as storage.
Don’t overdo the design, décor, or number of furnishings you have in your room. Consider only what you need and leave the rest. Having a minimal number of things floating around your space will not only keep it organized but will also be less of a headache for you to keep clean. The tidier and more organized your space is, the more you’ll want to spend time in it!
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