4 ways to make your living area feel more spacious
The next best thing to having more spacious interiors is looking like you have more spacious interiors. Here are four ways to visually grow your interior without a major renovation. Already have generous spaces? These tips can make them seem even grander.
1. Colour matters
Essentially, light tones make a space look brighter, bigger and more inviting, while dark colours tend to make a room seem smaller. Taking things further, you can paint your architectural detailing – windows, ceiling moldings, skirting – in a lighter tone than your wall finish.
This will make the walls seem to step back from the detailing, implying further spacial depth.
Not sure about so much paleness?
Small elements such as colourful lighting, cushions or throws can bring the colour back into your decor.
2. Furniture choices
Choose pieces that suit the scale of your room. A sumptuous sofa with rolled arms and a high back may look impressive in a sprawling showroom, but back home in your own modest entertainer's space, it just might swamp your floor and cramp your lifestyle.
And of course a spacious feel is about the entire room, not just the floor area. Tall elements, be it a chair with a high back or a towering floor lamp, can make your ceilings seem lower and your room feel smaller.
A smaller lounge chair can still offer the same back, seat and arm comfort without eating up that valuable floor space. Plus being able to see through a piece of furniture, be it a glass table or a wicker chair, also adds to the sense of lightness and floor space.
Cantilevering a table off a wall also leaves more uninterrupted floor space on show, again making your floor seem more expansive.
Another short cut to spaciousness, is let your furniture take on double duty. A sofa that folds out as a guest bed, a storage chest that doubles as a side table, are two examples of your furniture working harder.
3. Lighting and mirrors
In the pursuit of larger looking spaces, light, natural light in particular, is your friend. Introducing a skylight, larger windows, or even just keeping your drapes pulled back or choosing sheers are some ways to flood your interior with natural light and make your space seem larger and more inviting.
In terms of artificial lighting, it is a good idea to have multiple light sources that can create moods and illuminate nooks and corners to make the room seem larger, wider or even taller. Long hanging pendants can draw attention to a room's height, for example, and by extension the volume of the room.
Then there are light reflectors – mirrors! There is no other single more effective weapon in the war on close spaces than the humble looking glass. Mirrors literally double the size of your room at a glance, and they also double the light sources.
Plus, tinted mirrors can perform the same function while also adding a mood element.
4. Lastly – let's get organised!
How you arrange your space greatly impacts how roomy it feels. Place larger furniture pieces to the side of the room so they don't interrupt sight lines. Similarly, arrange your tables, chairs and other elements in such a way that they facilitate easy movement through the room.
If you want to create areas within a greater space, delineate these with rug and lighting arrangements rather than hefty furniture or formwork.
Story by: Trendsideas
Home kitchen bathroom commercial design
Treading lightly
Homely, inviting – and lived in
Light-filled and harmonious
