You hopped on the color train and splashed all your walls with a lovely eye-opening dark blue. You thought it’d look good, and it does. It just makes the rest of your things look hideous and your room as tiny as a cubicle.
Scratching your head? Wondering what to do?
Don’t start sobbing just yet. There are several ways you can salvage your walls. And if you didn’t play color-color with your walls but are looking for ideas for making your room look bigger, we’ve got you. Let’s cruise through 15 ideas to turn your room into a stadium.
1. Stick to a Color Scheme
Color can make or break a room. So always make sure the tones in your room match the same color palette. Plus, maintaining one color scheme creates a flow throughout a room and makes it look more cohesive.
How can you do that?
Start by thinking of your room as one cohesive unit. To make something look put together, you have to eliminate color clashes. That’s what you’re going to do in your room. But sticking to one color scheme doesn’t mean you have to only use neutral colors.
You can make your room as vivid as you want. Just make sure you stick to a tonal palette, i.e., never use cool-toned colors with warmer-toned ones. For example, beige with steel gray or blue with rust.
2. Use Light Colors to Lift the Space
Despite what you’re thinking, dark colors can make your room look taller or bigger, but you have to use lots of tricks to get there. An easy way to get the height and width you want is by painting your walls a light shade or using lighter furniture.
For example, you could use beige, gray, or painted furniture, breezy, light-colored curtains, and bright walls in a room with dark hardwood flooring to make it look lighter. Remember: warm colors make rooms feel intimate and cozy, while cool colors make them feel open and airy.
Also, try to make your wall and furniture have the same tonal color scheme. Why? Furniture that matches the wall color tends to blend with the space, giving a flow to the room that makes it look bigger.
3. Mix Textures
Minimalistic and all-pale spaces look sterile and lifeless. Plus, they’re a pain to keep clean, especially if you have a busy life, and many of us do. But if you’re a fan of the space-enhancing qualities of white spaces, you can get the same effect by using textures.
Textured materials include matt, shiny, or limed flooring, velvet or woven cushions, textured wall finishes, leather armchairs, fluffy rugs, stucco walls, and rustic wood or metal pieces. All of these can bring life to your all-pale space while making it look visually interesting.
4. Invest in Mirrors
Mirrors are your best buddies when you’re trying to make your room look big. They bounce the light from your windows or lamps and reflect everything, creating the illusion of a space that’s bigger than it is.
Plus, they’re a surefire way to add brightness to the darkest of rooms. But if you want to do that, make your mirrors as big as possible. There’s no room for dainty mirrors here.
So, go for a large framed mirror or an oversized framed one on a wall. Not only will it give a room-enlarging effect, but it’ll also add style and create an open feeling in the room. You could also top a coffee table or center table with a beveled plate mirror. That’ll give the same effect.
5. Layer Your Lighting
Any and every room will look larger if it’s well-lit by natural or article lighting. If you’re looking to make your room look bigger, throw out heavy draperies and open the windows to let the sunlight dance in your space. And if you’ve installed mirrors, the light will go further.
However, during night-time, make sure you have task lighting for working and recessed lighting to create atmosphere.
6. Think “Light” with Furniture
The keyword is “light” here. If you want to create an impression of airiness in your room, throw out your bulky or dark furniture and go light. That means getting furniture with thin frames, glass, light upholstery fabrics, and tapered legs.
Why tapered legs? Because furniture that sits on the floor is solely dedicated to making your room look smaller. It stops your eye at a certain point, giving the impression your space is smaller than it is.
7. Choose Neutral Statement Pieces
If you want to make an L-shaped sofa the statement piece of your living room, make it neutral-colored — that means beige, light gray, white, etc. The neutral tone will lighten your pace, making it feel airy.
Plus, you can always use cushions with buttons, fluting, embroidery, and other intricacies to brighten up the space without overpowering your theme. You can also use bold-colored and patterned throws to add a pop of color to your space.
8. Go for Light and Airy Drapes
Heavy drapes block light and create drama and moodiness, while light drapes create a brighter and lighter feel in your space. If you’re looking to make your room look bigger, never get the royal blue velvet curtains you’re dying to get. Instead, go for lighter-colored blue sheer curtains.
If you’re going for Roman shades or blinds, use light colors because shades are flat and don’t have enough movement to give your room a light feel while looking darker.
9. Maximize Height with Vertical Shelves
If your room is not very wide, you could draw attention to its height to make it look bigger. You could do that by installing floor-to-ceiling vertical shelving that allows you to display all your gorgeous hardcovers and decoration pieces.
10. “Compact” Is the Keyword with Furniture
Ever seen those giant beds or sofas? They make any kind of room look smaller. The lesson to learn here is that big, clunky furniture is going to make any room look smaller. So, look for compact pieces when you’re looking to create a big-space illusion.
For instance, you could use ottomans, sofa beds, curved chairs, or something antique. Also, try to match the scale of your furniture with your room’s dimensions. It shouldn’t be too big or too small.
11. Darken Your Floor and Keep Your Walls and Ceiling Light
One of the best ways to make your room look bigger without really changing much about it is to pay attention to the flooring. If your flooring is darker, go for lighter paint on the walls. That’ll make your room look brighter, lighter, and bigger.
12. Make Your Floors Reflective and Shiny
If your walls are matt and untextured and you’re doing a complete remodel, change your flooring and make it reflective and shiny. The shiny finish will reflect light, giving the illusion that the space is bigger than it is.
Plus, if you invest in mirrors, the space will look even bigger because the light will reflect from the floors to the mirrors and back again.
13. Utilize Glass
See-through materials let light pass through them, tricking your eyes into thinking something is farther away than it actually is. For instance, if you have frosted or wooden doors in a room, replace them with clear glass ones to make the space look bigger.
Similarly, you can use glass tables with a wooden or metal base in your living room or bedroom to make the space look brighter, more dramatic, and airy.
14. Invest in One Statement Art Piece
Instead of placing a few dozen images on the walls that contrast with each other, buy one large frame and scatter a few smaller ones around it. Don’t put more than five frames on a wall. It’ll only make it look overcrowded.
The same goes for decoration pieces. Go for one larger or gorgeous statement piece and put a few smaller ones beside it.
15. Use Wallpaper to Soften Corners
If you’re a fan of wallpaper and like bold prints, use wallpaper to make your room look bigger and more cohesive. But only use continuous wallpaper, such as with flower print or geometric designs, and use it all over your room, making sure you cover the ceiling and all the walls.
You might think whole-room wallpaper may look terrible, and if done badly, it can. But if you’re a risk taker and want to try something new, you could go for a lighter patterned wallpaper and plaster it all over your ceiling and walls to soften your space’s corners.