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published by KatieDid Design
How To Make Your Rooms Appear Larger
by Kathleen M. Peters, www.KatieDidDesign.com
All of us have at least one room
that is, shall we say, a little smaller than we’d like. For some of us, our
whole house fits this description! Anyway, we can all take advantage of various
design concepts that fool the eye and make our rooms seem larger.
The first and foremost guideline is to use
light colors. Light colors reflect light, while dark colors absorb light,
making the room look and feel smaller. This means to use dark colors sparingly.
If your colors are already dark, try to move the darker colors to a ‘background’
role while maximizing your neutral white or ivory. Here are some examples.
For walls, paint the main portions a light shade of one of your colors, and
use the dark colors in a border or painted trim. Instead of doing your entire
window treatments of dark green, combine the green and ivory equally. For
your fabrics, go for prints that use light backgrounds. In the bedroom, use
your darker colors for valance, tiebacks, table scarves, accent pillows,
and bedskirts; and make the more prominent draperies, comforter, shams, tableskirts,
and sheets in your lighter colors.
There’s another trick that has to do with
color. Paint your wall trim and moldings a lighter color than your walls.
For example, if your like neutral linen-colored walls, paint your trim a
tinted ivory. This follows standard 3D rules - lighter objects appear closer
while darker or shadowed objects appear further away. When you paint your
moldings a lighter color, the wall appears further back - thus making your
room appear bigger.
Here’s another very effective strategy to
apply to your furniture arranging. Set some of your larger furniture pieces
at a diagonal. This works because the longest straight line in any given
room is it’s diagonal. When you place your furniture at an angle, it leads
the eye along the longer distance, rather than the shorter wall. As an added
bonus, you often get some additional storage space behind the piece in the
corner, too!
You don’t have to place the furniture at an
exact 45-degree angle; often a lesser angle looks best if you can balance
the look with another furniture piece. Here are some ideas...
Pull one end of your sofa about 3 feet away
from the wall and angled toward your focal point and center of the room.
Place an armoire, armchair, or other larger furniture piece near the end
that is against the wall, to help balance the look.
Angle your bed so that it is coming out of
a corner. Usually one of the corners opposite the door is best. This also
gives you more available wall space for dressers and bedside tables. If you
have a corner that your furniture looks lost in, bring it out at an angle.
This will help soften the edges of your room and guide the eye around.
This last design technique may sound contradictory,
but it works.... Upscale your furnishings! Yes, choose larger. The trick
to making this work is to choose fewer also. In other words, instead of choosing
a smaller sofa, loveseat, chair, coffee table, and end tables to crowd into
your living room, cut back and upscale. Choose a larger set, but use only
the sofa, chair, and one end table. Instead off covering the walls with all
your pictures, choose a few of the larger pieces or arrangements and arrange
them to compliment your furniture placement. Instead of choosing an ordinary
window treatment, dramatize your window with floor-to-ceiling draperies that
extend beyond the window to make it appear larger. The result will draw pull
the attention toward the large furnishings, and away from the actual small
size of the room.
Try some of these, I guarantee that they'll help!
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This article Copyright 1999-2004 - Kathleen Peters, KatieDid Design. Reproduced with permission.
Kathleen Peters - 'Katie' - is a custom window treatment and bedding designer, and owner of KatieDid Design, her online shop. She is also the editor-in-chief of Decor, Decorating, and Design, a free bi-monthly ezine filled with articles, tips, and guidelines to help with your home decorating.
http://www.KatieDidDesign.com
http://www.DecorDecoratingAndDesign.com
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