PROMOTION
Whether you live in a chic but compact apartment, a tiny flat or smaller-than-ideal house – you possibly battle the daily challenge of space. With small houses comes the constant struggle to keep your home looking clutter-free, which can be difficult when you consider things like storage, kids and large furniture to name a few.
You’ll undoubtedly have to make some compromises when it comes to decorating, and also your general lifestyle choices, fitting everything into your home that you need without it feeling too cramped.
If this is your current situation, then worry not: help is at hand. If you really feel the need to stretch out in your small space and give the appearance of bigger rooms, there are a few hacks that can help.
They won’t magically double your living room in size, but the tips below do offer a few changes which can make the area look and feel larger, without moving any walls! It’s all about playing around with colour, furniture arranging and knowing some secret hacks.
Let’s get your space looking less cramped…
1. Chooser Soft, Light Hues
Whereas dark, warm colours make a space feel cosy and intimate, light, cool colours make a space feel open and airy. If you want to make your house look larger, try to opt for light, neutral hues, like shades of white, yellow, and tan. You can play around with more exciting paint colours for the home too, but make sure you select them in muted shades, like soft tones of blues and greens.
2. Keep Furniture Minimum
By this, we don’t mean avoid having more than one key piece of furniture in a room, but ideally to use just a few classic, simple pieces of furniture or accessories in place of several smaller ones. The more you have, the more it would make a small space look cluttered.
A fine example of this is within the bathroom. Bathrooms are meant to look airy and spacious. To embrace the open space look, look at a clean white tradition bath which is of a small size. Bathroom retailer Bathdisc has an extensive collection online. By keeping the bath clutter free without any chunky cabinets or drawers around it gives the room a more spacious feel, appearing more calm and comfortable.
3. Consider Your Window Treatments
If you banish away any big, heavy, light-sucking curtains, you’ll notice your rooms will instantly appear bigger. And this doesn’t mean you can’t have curtains at all. If you wish to keep some form of curtains, start by swapping in floor-to-ceiling curtains with a subtle vertical stripe. The vertical stripe will suddenly make your room and window look taller.
Then, ensure you hang them from a pole that’s long enough so that they can be pulled right back past the window frame, making your window will feel wider, too.
4. Don’t Forget About The Floor
We all know that white walls reflect light and make a space feel larger. Which is why so many homes will have plain white walls. But there is another wall people forget: the floor. By picking flooring that also gives the illusion of light and space will instantly make a room feel larger.
Opting for a floor finish in a light colour is the most obvious way to go. You can either create this by striping and painting existing floorboards white or lay down a cream/white carpet or large-scale rug. Another route to go down is to choose a lime-washed look for engineered wood boards, laminate or vinyl.
If you really want to incorporate patterns, then a more interesting effect is to use diagonal lines on the floor to trick the eye into seeing the room as longer and wider than it is. A huge diagonal line rug would work wonders, or even laying floor tiles diagonally on the floor.
5. Keep Furniture Away From The Walls
While it may seem counterintuitive, moving furniture away from the walls and corners of your rooms can actually make the space look larger. Think about it: your stuff needs space!
By laying out your room with ‘floating furniture’ (furniture which doesn’t lean on any walls) even just a few inches from the wall keep corners clear and open. It also avoids piling things up in the corner of the room, on top of a chair or cabinet.
6. Look Into Clear Accessories
When it comes to making obstacles, rooms and spaces look larger to the eye, one of the key secrets is to utilise clear, see-through objects. This can mean sheer curtains, clear accent pieces, plastic clear chairs, glass-topped tables, and bathroom glass panels. By utilising anything see-through, sheer or clear, it will create the impression that a room is larger than its actual square footage.
7. Add Storage Furniture To Your Space
The worst thing you can ever do to make rooms look smaller is to fill with clutter. Clutter is the enemy of small spaces, making them look even more crammed in. Be clever with your furniture choices and choose furniture with built-in storage. Ottomans are great for bedrooms and lounges, and never underestimate the power of under-the-bed pull out drawers!
Look at large coffee tables which come in block shapes, where they have built-in drawers. The more you keep an eye out for furniture which has hidden storage, the more you’ll see it everywhere.
Follow the design tricks above, and watch your space seem larger in no time.
