7 Easy Tips on How to Make Small Rooms Look Larger

Last Updated on August 19, 2022 by The Tutor

How to Make Small Rooms Look Larger

make small rooms look larger

It’s quite fascinating how spacious a room can seem when it’s completely empty, compared to it having only one piece of furniture. Each item you place in a room takes up more space than you might think, since the visual effect of being crowded is easily created. Meanwhile, making a fully stuffed room seem larger can be quite challenging. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks that make the room seem visually bigger, even if you have a lot of furniture.

How to Make Small Rooms Look Larger

Learning how to make small rooms look larger is as simple as following these 7 easy and cost effective tips.

  1. Optimize Your Lighting
  2. Don’t Cover the Windows
  3. Decorate with Light Colors
  4. Change Contrasts in the Room
  5. Remove Clutter from the Room
  6. Add Mirrors to the Room
  7. Use Different Textures in the Room

Optimize Your Lighting

Nothing can improve the ambiance of a small home as much as good lighting. Layering your lighting sources is essential for emphasizing the style and the size of your home, but that’s not all you can do. You can also replace your usual light bulbs to those with a varying number of lumens.

Depending on your mood, you can turn on the blue lights and create a soothing ambiance, or you can how to make small rooms look largerturn on the red ones and add some romance to the scene. And, if you add dimmers to the whole system, your home ambiance will truly be under your control.

Every spectacular home also has amazing lighting. Lighting will not only change the look and feel of your home, but it can also make your home more attractive to potential home buyers. We suggest reading this article on how lighting can increase home value.

Playing with lighting might just come in handy on this topic, because knowing how to arrange artificial lighting will bring you one step closer to make  small rooms look larger.

Placing the light sources in the corners of the room makes the edges blurry and creates the effect of a never-ending room. You can also use Christmas lights to create an interesting décor piece, as well as emphasize some stand-out elements of the room.

Prior to experimenting with light, make sure that you are comfortable working with electricity or have an experienced electrician to help you set it all up. You can lean on a reliable electrician to help you install whatever arrangement you had in mind. Don’t forget why your parents always warned you not to play with electricity.

Don’t Cover the Windows

make a small rooms look larger

Leaving the windows uncovered gives the room a feeling of depth, which is a visual illusion you want to take advantage of. Not only do windows make the room seem larger, but they also make it look like it continues outside.

Letting natural light in also helps you feel more relaxed as it gives the room an airy vibe. If you absolutely can’t survive without drapes or blinds, then it’s better to match the walls with window treatments, and you’ll get the best effect by choosing the color white. Gauzy sheer white drapes will also do the trick.

If you are planning a home renovation, consider adding much larger windows than what you have right now.

Decorate with Light Colors

make a small rooms look larger

Dark colors have the ability to absorb more light than they reflect, which gives the feeling of coziness and comfort, but also makes a room seem smaller. Light colors give space to a room because they reflect more light all around the room.

Although dark colors are more design-friendly, you should stick to pale colors such as white, cream, pale grey and baby blue to get the most out of this effect. Millennial pink has been an enormous hit in interior design for the past few years due to its special feature of creating spaciousness.

Change Contrasts in the Room

If you choose light colors, then this doesn’t necessarily mean you are condemned to a monochromatic solution. Although varying different shades of the same color can work fine, you can create an even stronger effect by using contrasts wisely. For example, long vertical stripes prolong everything, while horizontal stripes make things seem shorter.

High contrast walls are an interesting and stylish way to make a statement and to make small rooms look larger. The trick is to paint only one of the walls in a darker color which will also create a natural focal point of the room.

Remove Clutter From the Room

make a small rooms look larger

We often go into someone’s home and immediately get hit with the feeling that you just walked into a flea market. People can be collectors and unfortunately it may end up looking like a cluttered junkyard over time. Every inch of the room does not need to be occupied by something interesting.

Removing the clutter from a room will help to open it up and will make small rooms look larger. If you are having difficulty parting with the things that you have held onto for so long, then invite a third party in to help make the tough decisions for you. Your realtor can also make some great suggestions on what should stay and what should go.

Add Mirrors to the Room

Mirror, mirror on the wall, you make a room seem biggest of them all! Putting mirrors up might be the most convenient and easiest way to visually transform the size of a room. You might have seen in some fun parks or art installation that facing mirrors against one another gives the illusion of a never-ending space with multiple dimensions.

This carnival effect isn’t magic, but it can be easily created simply if you place mirrors in your room on two facing walls. It would be good to have a full-length mirror that catches window light, because it will reflect natural light all around the room.

Use Different Textures in the Room

Besides colors, a great way to visually add space to a room is to use different textures. You don’t have to forget about using prints, but you want your prints to be as large and as few as possible. Small prints crowded with details add to the clutter effect.

A lot of large prints can make the clutter seem even worse, which is why you should aim for simple, solid prints with a subdued touch. A monochromatic design that is rich with texture can seem even more interesting and enlightening than a colorful room.

Summary

Try some of these tricks for yourself and see whether they work for you. Not every solution works great in each room, so you should adjust and manage some things on your own. In the end, your personal touch is the thing that counts most.

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About the Author

Chloe Taylor is a graduated journalist and a regular contributor to Smooth Decorator. She loves everything related to decor, aesthetic and lifestyle topics. She is also passionate about photography. Her biggest dream is to travel the whole world and take some stunning photographs of beautiful places. Beside all this, she enjoys drinking coffee and reading a beautiful book from time to time.