Small homes are wonderful. They are compact, giving you little stress when it is time to tidy up and get things organized. With these unique advantages, however, come inevitable setbacks.
One is that there is not a lot of space. It limits the amount of furniture and accessories you can have in a room. For people who love DIY-ing their interiors, this poses quite the challenge. This might make you think that smaller is automatically unideal for choosing the size of your home or a room in your house, but we assure you that it is not!
Small spaces can be tricky at first, but they offer a lot of customizability. It just takes a bit of imagination and some legwork to make your small space look big.
Let us guide you through the best and most affordable ways to open up a small room!
Keep the Place Open
Since you do not have a lot of space, don’t shrink your room even further by adding dividers to separate spaces. Leave things open, then get creative with the area.
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Paint the wall with light colors
One simple trick you should know is that light colors are the easiest way to open up a room. They make the room look bigger because they add brightness to it. Light paint shades are more reflective than darker ones, which makes natural light shine better in the room.
While straightforward light paint is a surefire way to clean up a space, you don’t always have to settle for plain walls. Textures can make them more lively while letting you maintain a light color scheme.
You don’t have to dismantle your walls to add some texture to them. For builders on a budget, peel-and-stick shiplap panels are an affordable way to add a rustic feel to your walls. You can also use textured paint rollers to achieve a textured wall effect with just paint.
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Make good use of light
Natural light is a powerful tool to make a small space look big. Let the light in through your windows and have the color of your walls distribute them within the space. If you do not have much natural light in the room, invest in good light fixtures that add both brightness and style to the space. You can also install mirrors to better reflect light in the room.
Minimize the use of heavy drapery, too. For windows, choose sheer curtains or ones made of light material and have a neutral, light color to keep it bright and airy.
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Keep the clutter away
Having an excess of things in one room can make it look more stuffy than it is. Sometimes, all you need to do to fix this is to pack things away neatly into boxes and drawers. Other times, it requires one major decluttering session (or two) to resolve the issue.
When you have too much stuff, clean up by dividing everything into separate bins. Lifestyle website The Spruce recommends having five different categories for decluttering: trash, recycle, repair, pack away (or put back in their proper storage areas), and donate. You can then carry these five bins into every room you are decluttering.
Use Furniture Strategically
Furniture is a tricky thing to manage in a small room because it can make the room look cramped. Here are ways to avoid that.
Go big (and go home)
When searching for furniture for your home, do not hesitate to go for the big ones. Instead of going for several smaller items, choose only a few big pieces to place in the room. This keeps the space open and removes visual distractions that could make the place look even smaller than it is.
Avoid busy prints and loud patterns for your couch, carpet, and other furniture. Instead, opt for neutral shades or just blocks of color to maintain the tidiness of the room. If you want to use prints, use understated ones in small items.
Avoid barriers in the pathways
Consider the positioning of your furniture and decorations. When they are in areas where people have to pass through, they bring attention to the room’s smallness. If you move them out of pathways, on the other hand, the space becomes the focus.
When in doubt, keep in mind that the more space you see on the floor, the bigger the room looks. Small and cramped rooms can look more spacious, thanks to the interaction of light and space, which you can accomplish through a simple, clean design.
