Designer Tricks That Will Make Any Space Look More Open

Paint can make your room feel cramped or cozy, despite the square footage being the same. Professional decorators have been trained in ways to make the rooms you have work to your needs. That can mean making a ceiling feel lower and not so towering, or opening up a room to feel larger. Here are the designer tricks that will make any space look more open.

Light colored ceiling

Dark rooms can feel cramped but that doesn’t mean that dark colors are off limits, just not on the ceiling. Use a light colored ceiling to give the room some breathing space. Make sure your color, even white, has a neutral hue. You don’t want the ceiling to feel like it’s tinted dark or bright.

Floors that are light

Dark colors on the floor seem to make the walls encroach on the room. By adding a light floor, whether it’s tile, carpet or wood, you’ll set a border on the room. Your brain reads this as a sectioned off border that will feel bigger than the room actually is.

Same color

By painting your walls and trim the same color, your eye doesn’t stop at the trim and reads the walls as larger. The contiguous color with matching trim creates a seamless wall that your will swear is bigger.

Matchy-matchy

Matching your furniture and walls to the same color will make the size of the room seem larger. Again, the colors being the same read mentally as a continuous space where there are no breaks. The furniture will seem to disappear into the walls, giving you more floor space. Remember, the colors don’t have to be exactly the same. If they are similar or even in the same color family, you’ll get the benefits.

Don’t shy away from dark

Most homeowners assume small rooms must be painted light colors. That’s not the case. By painting a room a dark color makes the walls seem to recede into themselves covering up the actual size of the room. If you add light furniture, you’re sure to show a fun style that feels like the room is larger than it seems.

Utilize built-ins

Using bookshelves or media units that are seemingly built in to the wall will make the piece look unified. But built ins are costly and hard to manage! Don’t worry. Just paint your walls and shelves the same color to make a faux built-in unit. It will look just as luxurious and rich as a built-in unit.

Not sure how color will help your room? Try our color visualizer or talk to our pros for a free in-home estimate.