Small Spaces
Stick with clean, slender lines. Resist the urge to decorate your compact kitchen with fussy design elements and decor that will crowd it and add unnecessary visual bulk. Instead, stick with features with clean, simple lines that are visually lightweight and don’t consume too much floor space. This design trick takes shape in several ways in this small yet stylish kitchen. Note the slim breakfast bar, floating shelves and leggy bar stools; the use of finger pulls instead of bulky handles; and the simple industrial-style exposed bulbs, which draw the eye up to the ceiling, adding to the illusion of space.
Create the illusion of space with horizontal and vertical lines. This striking kitchen is a study in how to enlarge a space visually by introducing vertical and horizontal lines. As you can see looking at the striped cupboard doors and panels in this compact cooking zone, vertical lines draw the eye upward and add height to a small room, while horizontal lines add depth and make narrow spaces appear wider and roomier.
Fill your space with light. Flooding your room with natural light will go a long way toward making a small area look more spacious. However, if you’re restricted when it comes to window placement and size, the next best thing is to come up with a lighting plan that will brighten up and help visually enlarge your space, while transforming it into a more functional work zone, too. This airy, cheerful kitchen is lucky enough to boast four different light sources: a generously sized window, which allows an abundance of natural light to filter into the room; a ceiling light that provides ambient lighting; a long wall-mounted fixture that illuminates the area from above and draws attention to the sunny feature wall that it’s affixed to; and undercabinet lights that ensure the countertop is well lit and showcase the suspended style of the overhead cabinets, which adds to the room’s sense of spaciousness.
Opt for an all-white palette. Choosing an all-white color scheme will make your compact kitchen look light, airy and more spacious than it is in reality. If an all-white palette isn’t up your decorating alley, or you desire a scheme that offers more visual drama, opt for white walls or overhead cabinets, and try base cupboards made from wood or dressed in a dark, dramatic tone. Using white up top will enlarge the space visually, while the darker tone down below will anchor the room without making it feel closed in.
Alternatively, you might like to consider a soft neutral or pastel palette. Barely-there hues such as powder blue, mint, cream or dove gray are ideal for use in small spaces, as they add a hint of color and interest without being too overwhelming or heavy like bolder, more saturated tones, which can weigh down a compact room.
Our extra bedroom had always been used as an office, but we changed it to better suit my needs. More specifically, we got rid of the closet and repurposed that space as my work zone. This photo shows my bench seat, which is in the space where the closet previously stood. The cabinets contain my business items and give me easy access to daily supplies. Eliminating the closet and its doors gave the room a more spacious feel and helped it feel more like an office than a converted bedroom. My desk slides on a rail and wheels so I can easily access the cabinet bay beneath the bench.
Include lots of lighting. Natural light goes a long way toward making a living room look bigger, but artificial lighting helps too. Include plenty of light sources to create a big and bright look during the day and a more selective and cozy glow at night. Include lights with dimmers when possible, and try to use lighting from at least three categories (such as floor and table lamps, hanging fixtures, recessed ceiling fixtures or wall sconces).
Draw the eye. Here’s a clever trick: Sometimes the best way to make a room seem deeper is by drawing the eye completely outside of it. This living room doesn’t include any feature wall treatments, but the eye can’t help but land on the fun wallpaper print in the adjacent bedroom. Placing that feature wall where it could be seen from the living room cleverly adds some interest to both rooms while making the living space feel less confined.
Use a generous area rug. Area rugs can be great for defining a specific zone as separate from its surroundings, such as anchoring a seating group in an open-concept space. However, to make a small living room look bigger, you don’t want to break it up but rather highlight a long stretch of floor. Use a generous rug that comes close to the borders of the room to add richness and draw the eye in different directions.
Make use of large mirrors. Adding mirrors can seriously fool the eye into thinking the room is twice as large, especially if you use one big enough to appear almost like a door or window into another space. Look to floor mirrors, oversize wall mirrors or even stretches of mirror tile to create the illusion to maximum effect.
Skip the coffee table entirely. Want to be truly bold? Skip the coffee table and rely on side tables and ledges for setting down drinks and other items. Leaving out the table in the center of a seating group instantly makes a living room look and feel much more spacious. Besides, often all you really need is one good footstool anyway.
Include multiple focal points. Ultimately, you shouldn’t be scared to include some pieces that add drama and personality to your living room, even if they break up the walls and don’t create a perfectly seamless and minimalist optical illusion. Including multiple medium-strength focal points instead of just one singular feature (or none at all) encourages the eye to move around the room so you take it in completely.
Layer a feature wall. Speaking of playing with depth, if you want to add an interesting feature wall, consider doing it on a wall with a window and layering the dramatic treatment behind a light curtain. The wallpaper feature in this room looks a bit farther away because it’s tucked behind the simple white drapes, and that makes the room seem deeper. It also gives a visual break that keeps the paper from appearing too busy.
Include hits of dramatic black. Just because you’re using a lot of light colors doesn’t mean you can’t add a little drama. Introduce small elements of black to give your living room a strong sense of contrast and therefore interest. Black-and-white patterns especially add just the right hint of black to energize a small room without shrinking it, as do black-and-white photos or art pieces. Adding some contrast actually creates an interplay of depths, with different pieces advancing and receding, and this can trick your eye into seeing the room as a bit bigger.
How to Make Your Living Room Look Bigger 1. Use plenty of light colors. You’ve probably read that painting your walls white or another light shade (like soft gray or subtle taupe) can help a room look bigger, and that’s definitely true. But you can make this effect even more powerful by using similarly airy shades for other furnishings as well. The living room shown here includes a white rug, white sofa, white media unit and white coffee table (among other things), which together help create a seamless and breezy look.
A statement ceiling will also amplify the height of a kitchen that has diminutive dimensions, while doubling as a showstopping focal point. Take design cues from this compact cooking zone and paint your ceiling a bright hue (steer clear of moody colors, like black and dark gray, which will visually lower the roof and make the room appear more intimate). Alternatively, you might like to lift the look of your ceiling with wallpaper or a mirrored surface, or try a recessed ceiling with LED lighting.
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