How to make your rooms look bigger
BY READERS DIGEST
1st Jan 2015 Home & Garden
Is your house not quite the mansion you’d like it to be? Don’t worry, there are plenty of tips and tricks to maximise the space you do have available in your home.
Add some colour
- Use bright, light colours for small rooms; they will make the rooms appear more spacious.
- Use paler colours on low ceilings: ceilings appear higher when they are painted in a lighter shade than the walls.
- Use darker colours for high ceilings. If you want to reduce the height of a room visually, opt for a dark-coloured ceiling. The ceiling will also appear lower if you paint the bottom area of the wall in a lighter shade that gradually darkens as it rises towards the ceiling. If you want the ceiling to appear higher, the colour should gradually become lighter as it rises from floor level.
- Opt for lively shades for narrower rooms; using bright colours on the walls makes a room appear wider to the eye.
Style ideas
- Clean lines, minimalist décor and a unifying neutral palette of charcoal, black and white help to make a room feel bigger.
- Keep furniture and artworks sparse but carefully selected for their clean lines and to tone with the unifying colour scheme.
- Painting the walls a cool white and replacing laminate flooring with a sleek charcoal polished concrete product opens up an interior.
- Change frosted window panes in the bathroom with clear glass to maximise light.
- Large expanses of unadorned windows add a sense of limitlessness to interiors.
Storage ideas to maximise space
- There are many storage options available, such as lift-up, slide-out and up-the-wall built-in storage units.
- Open shelves allow you to see everything at a glance in a limited space.
- Have a collection of clear storage boxes on castors so that the contents can be clearly seen. And they usually stack easily, thereby maximising a small space.
- Maximise space discreetly, for example by putting a cupboard in the bathroom that conceals the washing machine.
- Increase the capacity of your wardrobes with rows of hooks inside the doors to hang jewellery and bags.
- Every 6 months review what you’ve amassed and discard anything that hasn’t found a purpose in that time.
- Always keep your living space tidy and clutter-free. It makes it seem bigger than it is and has a calming effect.
