With house prices and rents rising and apartment living becoming more commonplace, smaller living spaces are now sought-after. Their reduced cost and ongoing footprint is attractive to money-conscious consumers, but there are often sacrifices to be made in terms of decoration and comfort.
There is also a challenge in furnishing a decorating a small space. Many people struggle with the size of their living spaces and look for clever ways to decorate in order to create a feeling of openness and grandeur.
Below are five ways that you can make your small sectors seem more spacious, no smoke or mirrors necessary.
Image via futuristarchitecture.com
Sofa, So Good
When decorating and furnishing small rooms, there’s a strange paradox at play.
Larger ‘focus’ furniture can actually help your room appear smaller. In order to achieve this effect, opt for the use of one larger piece, such as leather lounge suites from Berkowitz. These bigger pieces of furniture help to command a focus a small space, without overwhelming and cramping it with multiple items.
Full Of Purpose
Multi-use items, or items which combine their functions help you to save on space.
Choose furniture which serves multiple purposes (such as a bed with inbuilt storage) or storage which is built into walls or other ‘invisible’ spaces. By doing so, you will free up extra room visually, while also simplifying the layout of your room by removing furniture.
It’s All White
Colours also help to define the size of your space.
When choosing a colour, it’s important to understand how your colour choice will impact the available light. Darker colours absorb light, which creates a darkening effect, while also making spaces feel smaller and cosier. Lighter colours reflect light, making spaces feel larger and more spacious. With this in mind, if you’re looking to make a small room appear larger, head to the lighter end of the spectrum. Whites, bone, ivory and cashmere all help to open up a room and create a feeling of harmonious openness.
Art Attack
Your choices of decor and wall hangings can (perhaps unsurprisingly) also impact how a room feels. The size of your chosen decorator objects (such as vases and trinkets) can either overwhelm or make a room feel cluttered. If you’re trying to open up a small space, make sure the items you’re decorating with are of a decent size. Choosing fewer larger objects is often a better choice than multiple smaller objects. You can make a statement with less, making the room feel less cluttered, and more coherent.
Magic Carpet Ride
What goes on underfoot is as important as what goes on the walls and shelves.
Carpet and flooring choices have the ability to close up a room or to open it into a unique space, so it’s important to consider their overall effect if you’re updating your home’s flooring.
As with walls, lighted coloured carpet or painted floorboards create an illusion of space. Whitewashed floorboards can not only update the look of your house, but they also help to soften the lines of the floor, making spaces appear to flow from one into another and have an overall larger appearance.
Rugs are another great way to create a sense of space.
By using rugs, you can create smaller enclaves within rooms, and group objects into purpose-driven spaces. As an example, a rug paired with a reading chair, a lamp, and a stack of books makes a smart looking reading nook. It also gives your home a sophisticated, interesting look, while creating a broken-up and overall larger appearance.
Smaller homes and apartments are becoming a more common reality of modern living, but there are ways to create an illusion of space and expansiveness – if you’re savvy. By opting for smart furniture, decorating with colour theory in mind, and choosing focus pieces, you can create a small but elegant space worthy of the pages of a magazine.