In your ideal home space is probably not a problem, but not all of us are living in the house of our dreams just yet! That’s why it’s useful to know how to create the illusion of space, turning that tiny little box room or study into an environment you feel happy spending time in. This week we’ll give you our top decorating tips for doing just that.
Keep things light
Try to keep a smaller space as bright as possible by painting your walls with light colours and avoiding dark floorboards or carpets. Dark colours absorb light and make you feel closed in, where light colours reflect the light in the room, making it feel airy and giving the impression of openness and space. Light blues, greens, creams and greys are great choices.
Use stripes!
Every woman knows that the careful use of stripes in clothing can make you appear taller and slimmer, and you can utilise the same approach in your room, by painting stripes on your floor to give the illusion of depth. This trick works with your walls to add the appearance of height too, but don’t try both together unless you want your room to look like a boiled sweet!
Use your ceilings
We rarely think too deeply about how our ceilings are decorated, but in a small space every surface counts. Adding a bolder colour to the ceiling, or stencilling in some conversation pieces (stars look great) will help to draw the eyes upward and further enhance the illusion of spaciousness.
Ditch the overhead lights
Wall uplighters spread around the room work much better in a cramped environment than a single overhead light source, because they give the eyes more focal points to dance around. The bonus is that is also allows you much more control of the ambience too – switch individual lights on and off to adjust the atmosphere from bright and vibrant, to calm and relaxed.
Use colour cleverly
What do you do if you want to give the illusion of height to a room but don’t want to turn the ceiling into a feature? That’s easy: just add a little colour to the very top of your walls to draw the eyes upwards and give the impression of height. You can be as creative as you like with this decorating tip – go for anything from a single block of colour to a softer more organic ‘splash’ effect.
Follow these top decorating tips and you can convert your tiny room from an oppressive and stuffy space into a more open and inviting area that’s a pleasure to use.