The living room is the first area that your family and guests see as they enter your home.
It is also the place where everyone in your home is likely to spend a lot of time as you bond and do different family activities together. Your guest will also spend time here whenever they visit since it is the best place for you to entertain them.
With the living room being the first area, everyone sees when they enter your abode, and the top family and entertainment space in your home, you have to ensure it doesn’t look and feel cramped or cluttered.
Ways to Make Your Living Room More Spacious
Regardless of the size of your living room, there are ways for you to make it look and feel more spacious to ensure it can accommodate the furniture and fixtures you want to place here.
Making your living space bigger also guarantees the comfort and convenience of anyone spending time here.
Below are the seven best tips and tricks for making your living space look and feel bigger:
1. Choose the Right Color Palette
In the case of smaller living rooms, the right color palette is always, light-toned. Whites, creams, light greens, blues, and yellows are the best way to go. Light colors instantly open up a space and make them look bigger and brighter. Dark and heavy colors like navy blue, royal purple, and black can weigh down your living room and make the space look a lot more closed in than it is.
Keep in mind that choosing a cool-toned color scheme doesn’t mean you can’t have a colorful room. All you need to do is make sure that you’re working with different hues of the same scheme.
2. Pull the Furniture Away from the Walls
Pushing the sofa and other furniture against the walls is a traditional way of styling rooms that you will do well to forget.
Although this styling tip can create more floor space in the center of the room, when you pull the furniture pieces (even just one or two) away from the walls, you give the area more fluidity and make it look bigger.
By simply pushing the sofa away from the wall, the space between them will create an illusion of airiness in the room.
Additionally, keeping the chairs away from the walls can create more intimate conversation zones in the living room. This means you and your family won’t have to shout at each other to communicate or stand up to pass the remote control.
3. Match the Curtains and Color
This easy trick is something that escapes many but is extremely effective. When picking your curtains, try your best to match them with the walls to give the illusion of an even bigger space. Curtains that are light in color and close to the shade of the rest of the room don’t take up that much space in a person’s view of the room and so, open up the room a lot more.
4. Allow more Natural Light Inside the Room
Letting sunlight inside your living space allows you to maximize the effects the mirrors bring to this room.
Opt for light curtain fabrics to let more sunlight in. You can even skip window treatments altogether to allow more natural light in, if possible.
The light window treatments or their absence will make your living room appear brighter and larger instantly.
If you choose sheer curtains, hang them slightly above the window and let them fall to the floor to give the room additional height.
5. Decorate the Room with Mirrors
Mirrors are the slickest and easiest way to give your living room so extra dimension and depth. No matter where they’re placed, they always give the illusion of depth and height. So, if you’ve got your hands on a length-wise floor mirror, place it against the wall in one of the corners of your living room and watch the space open right up.
If you’re working with wall mirrors, try gathering different-sized mirrors and arranging them on one wall as opposed to one huge wall mirror. This takes the illusion of spaciousness up a notch.
6. Don’t Underestimate Lighting
Lighting is one of those elements of design that can impact the vibe of your space. When it comes to a smaller living room, it’s important to understand the effect that different kinds of light and light fixtures can have on the appearance of the space.
While it can be tempting to use floor lamps to make the space feel cozy and homely, it’s usually smarter to use wall lamps and wall fixtures for lighting – at least for the most part. As far as you can, avoid taking up floor space with objects, so the room can look as uncluttered as possible.
7. Give the Illusion of Height
Lastly, high ceilings give a room a more spacious look even if it is not huge widthwise.
However, if your ceiling is not high, you can still create this illusion by hanging art pieces or mounting some shelves on the top half section of a wall.
Installing wall lights on the upper part of the wall can create this appearance as well.
The decors and fixtures will draw your visitors’ eyes upward, creating the illusion of height and width.
Mounting your curtain rods higher than your window frames can give a sense of height in the room as well.
Smaller living rooms don’t have to be a disadvantage or a ‘con’ when it comes to your home. Using these tips and tricks, you can easily shape your space to look bigger and brighter.
If you’re looking to kickstart your living room switch-up, but have no idea where to start, all you need to do is get in touch with our team. With our creative ideas and expertise, we’re sure to help you out and get you going in the direction you want.
