Are you up for the small living room challenge? A tiny living room can easily look cramped and untidy. So, what do you do to organize and maximize the limited space?
An expert designer can make an excellent living out of deception—not with his business but with his art. He can make a tiny room appear much more spacious with a few tricks. But what about you?
Small Living Room Ideas To Make It Look Spacious
These are the same strategies you may apply in your home to help make the most of a relatively small living room. The idea is to turn a cramped area into one perceived as quite agreeable.
How do you make a limited area appear spacious? To begin, you want to decorate to maximize light and space.
Be mindful of your use of color, scale, and weight. When manipulated correctly, each of these may make a profound difference.
Forgo Blinds
Be bold – new ideas can be more effective than traditional ones. Traditional applications in a living room aren’t always the ideal solution for limited space.
For instance, you can forgo blinds as a window treatment for the benefit of long-flowing drapes. They emphasize the vertical space and draw attention, thereby expanding the area of the room.
And that’s a good thing because it doesn’t matter what size a living room is; it needs to be able to serve as a space for entertaining and allow people to relax comfortably.
Add Mirrors
You’ve likely heard before that mirrors will make a room seem larger. But really think about it.
Consider how strategically placing mirrors of different sizes in specific places will provide the illusion of depth. When done exceptionally well, these mirrors won’t be noticed immediately.
A popular technique for small living rooms is to hang a large mirror in a central position. This creates a focal point.
If you wish to reflect light to create a pleasant ambiance, place a mirror behind a light source (e.g., a candle or lamp). To create the effect of an additional window in the room, position a mirror across from a window.
It will reflect the view and essentially appear to be one at first glance.
Take Advantage of the High Ceiling
To create the illusion of increased space, you need to understand diameter. A room has a vertical and a horizontal dimension. You can exploit a high ceiling by decorating the extra space to draw attention upward.
One way to achieve this is to have floor-to-ceiling drapery. They are stylish and contribute to the feeling of spaciousness. You can additionally use the vertical space by filling it with an array of mid to small-size art.
It’s a method that will make the room appear larger than it is because it directs the viewer to look beyond the eye-level horizontal space that may appear cramped. It’s all about creating a high focal point, leaving the space below size-ambiguous, to the room’s benefit.
The Neutrals
Popularly, neutral colors are used exclusively to achieve this goal of space illusion. You will find neutrals carefully placed on walls, the floor, the ceiling, and even furniture upholstery.
A range of off-whites or beiges can expand an area as if to push back walls. The reflections of the soft hues subtly light a room.
The neutral selections can ‘enlarge’ a room while imparting certain sophistication. The dull hues are believed to calm and relax the room’s inhabitants.
Low Visual Weight Furniture
Interestingly, your furniture can contribute much to maximizing space. Besides choosing pieces that may be smaller than average, look for those with low visual weight. This means that the perceived heft of an object is slight.
Depending on its size, color, and design, a piece of furniture may successfully appear more lightweight than it is. Since heavier-looking pieces will cramp a space, the lighter ones free it up.
It is important to choose smaller furniture that does not overpower a room. For instance, you don’t want a single chair to dominate the space. It all needs to appear comfortably relative. A sofa with thin arms and a tight back is better than a bulky one.
You may choose to go without a couch even if the space is too tight. Instead, you could introduce a loveseat or a coffee table with two armless chairs.
Also, when choosing furniture, try to pick pale colors over dark ones. Select furnishings that have legs rather than those with large, inelegant appearances.
Instead of wooden coffee or end tables, choose them in glass. They take up less visual space. Anything that does not obstruct much of the view behind it helps to make an area appear to be open.
If you implement these ideas, you will successfully create the illusion of a living room that appears much roomier than it actually is.
