Hi gayleben,

Having a Brit for a mother and husband I spend time in the UK and here at home in Canada – and in a small house! Our home is a 3 bedroom house under 1400 square feet and no basement so I understand lack of storage!

You have asked for opinions and so I am giving you mine – I hope you take these comments as they are meant and that is to hopefully help, as opposed to being critical. I have been working as a registered, professional Interior Designer for almost 30 years now so my apologies in advance if I look at things with too critical an eye. But you asked and it’s what I do! :-)

Starting in your dining room. Think of the placement of pictures and accessories as creating little vignettes. In the dining room the picture over the lamp is in the wrong location but is also too small to stand on its own if it were centered on the wall. Instead I would suggest you create a vignette with the picture over the lamp by lowering it and moving it to the right. The bottom of the print should probably sit below the top of the lamp shade. So you want the lamp, the picture and the items on the sideboard to work together. Having done this, the vertical print to the left of the doors will likely have to be put elsewhere.

Just as a side note, I often like to put a small picture quite low beside a chair in a living room, so that the picture is at the eye level of the person sitting. This would usually be grouped with a table, lamp etc. Again, a pleasant little vignette.

Back to your dining room. The light over the table is too high and perhaps too small – can’t fully see it. Basic formula for determining the size of lamp fixture is to measure the width of the room in feet and multiply by 2. The resulting number is the diameter the light fixture should be in inches. Then the fixture needs to be hung so that it looks grounded with the dining table as opposed to floating in air. It should be 30” – 34” above the top of the table.

In the dining room it also looks as if there is too much furniture – something with a base sticking out, tables of some sort on both side of the room and a TV hanging from the wall! If you must have a TV in here it would be nice if it were more discreet and lower down so people watching don’t get a crick in their necks! Like artwork, TV’s should be at eye level and most people watch TV sitting not standing.

In the living room your fireplace should be a lovely focal point. And again with accessories – try grouping them as opposed to spacing them out evenly. As they are, they look too “placed”. Rule of thumb is to group items in odd numbers vs even. So over the fireplace try placing the 2 matched candles together on one side, the clock on the other side and then find one single item that is lower to sit in the middle. Play with this until you find the most pleasing grouping.

This room needs a shot of colour – something with colour over the fireplace would be good and then colour in some of the cushions. It’s hard to tell but the seating looks as if it is all matched – it gives a more inviting and interesting look to have chairs that do not match the sofa. This way you can add different textures and colour through fabric choices.

It looks as if the furniture is new so something to remember next time, especially when furnishing small rooms – go with a love seat, not a 3 seat sofa. Nobody ever wants to be the third person sitting in the middle anyway, it’s always the last seat taken!

I would also remove the chandelier. This type of ceiling fixture is not really suitable in a living room. Here you want lighting where you are, which is lower. This creates a warmer mood. So floor lamps and table lamps.

Unfortunately the TV fights with the fireplace, but not seeing the whole room it is hard to know if it could go elsewhere.

So a couple of things to keep in mind. What makes places look smaller is high contrast – dark furniture and dark curtains contrasted against light walls and floors. When things are more similar colour tone, it makes areas feel lighter, bigger and more roomy. Less things – less busy looking, again gives a lighter more spacious look.

So I hope this gives you some ideas, along with all of the other good advice you have received. Good luck and happy decorating!