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- Use Vertical Space. When you’re dealing with a small room, think vertical. You might not have much floor space, but by using the walls right up to the ceiling, you use the space you have more efficiently while drawing the eye upwards, making the room seem larger.
- Choose Furniture With Legs. Give your furniture a lift with legs to create an airy, open feel in the bedroom. Not every piece needs to be legged, but try to have at least one piece with some height, whether it’s your nightstands, dresser, or bed.
- Match Window Treatments to the Walls. While large bedrooms can make great use of drapes or blinds that contrast with the walls, it’s better to match your walls and window treatments in a small bedroom.
- Use Sconces by the Bed. Instead of taking up space on your nightstand with bedside lamps, install sconces above and slightly to the side of your headboard.
- Make Your Bedroom Look Bigger Using Paint
- Make Your Bedroom Look Bigger with Furniture
- Make Your Bedroom Look Bigger with Decor
1) Paint your walls light colors
The reason this works is simply because lighter colors will reflect the light, making it seem brighter and roomier. Darker paint absorbs light, which will feel smaller and more constricting. In this bedroom, the walls are painted a light, lively blue color, making this small room feel much larger. When thinking about your bedroom design, try to stay away from dark colors.
2) Monochromatic paint
Coordination is an important feature of any room design and the best place to start is with your paint. Use monochromatic paint colors throughout the room to create fluidity and space. Painting the room with different or opposite colors will segment off portions of the room when viewing, making it feel smaller. This small room uses shades of blue to coordinate the flow of color.
3) Paint the trim a slightly lighter color
Another simple optical illusion, by painting the trim a slightly lighter color than the walls, your eye perceives depth. Incorporating this simple trick in your small bedroom design will make it feel like the walls are farther away, giving you a roomier feeling bedroom. Notice the white trim around the doorframe and ceiling pictured here offsets the blue with a lighter, white color.
5) Use space-saving furniture
Not all small bedroom design ideas are optical illusions. Obviously, the less furniture that you have in your bedroom, the bigger it will look. A simple solution would be raising your bed with risers and then storing your clothes beneath. You can also purchase beds with built in storage beneath, like the bed pictured here. But, don’t stop there, get creative with the rest of your small room design ideas. Utilize folding desks and chairs and store them when you aren’t using them.
6) Avoid excessive furniture
You don’t always need two bedside tables, especially in a small room. This tip is relatively simple on paper, but somewhat harder in practice. It is always nice to have extra things to make your life easier, but if space is an issue, less furniture will make your room seem much bigger. By keeping the bed on the floor and using only one small table as the only piece of furniture, this small bedroom looks much bigger.
7) Get creative
Instead of a full size bed, try using a futon, which doubles as a couch during the day. If you really want to hide away, try installing a pullman bed. These will maximize floor space when you aren’t sleeping. If you are looking for some nice small bedroom design ideas for lounging that don’t take up floor space, try a hammock. Another great idea for small rooms with multiple children is the bunk bed—the ones pictured here even have built-in shelving.
12) Stay out of middle zone
Leave space above hanging art to give the illusion of a taller wall. However, if you have shelves or other storage, keep it closer to the ceiling to draw the eye upwards. The easiest way to do this is by breaking your wall into thirds, instead of halves. The hanging art should live closer to the lower third and any shelves or storage closer to the upper third. Each has a heightening effect. This bedroom image uses the low shelf and low hanging photo, leaving much more space above.
13) Mirrors are the ultimate illusion
If you have a bare wall or door in your bedroom, add some mirrors to make it look bigger. Mirrors not only reflect light, but a cleverly angled mirror will also create depth or height. Optimally, you would want your mirrors to go floor-to-ceiling. The most common use of this would be mirrored closet doors, but those aren’t always part of every small bedroom design. The mirror in the room pictured here is placed near the window, giving an even wider sense of space for a small room.
14) Color code everything
Be sure to color coordinate your decorations throughout the room. Something as simple as grouping books of like colors together will create a sense of unity throughout. Try to match your pillows with your wall art. This creates coherence, which is a necessity in a small room. The color-coded design in this small bedroom provides any easy flow. The mix of yellows and blues can be seen all throughout.
The interplay of light and dark shades from one color palette will add novelty and dimension. When designing a small room, the key is to avoid bulkiness and clutter while enhancing light and space. With thoughtful planning and these design ideas, you can help your teen make their small room look bigger.
Keep Furniture Close to the Ground- Pick a Slender Bed Frame
- Choose Pieces with Thin Legs
- Lisa Fazzani
- Choose a light color palette. Painting the walls in pale, light-reflective colors is one of the easiest ways of increasing the sense of space in a small bedroom.
- Pick pale tones to stretch floor space. As with wall colors, using pale-colored flooring and soft, muted tones will boost the sense of space in a small bedroom and can also be effective at how to make a small living room look bigger too.
- Match windows treatments to walls. Try another visual trick that interior stylists often use to make a small bedroom look bigger and opt for curtains, drapes, and blinds in the same color as the bedroom walls.
- Opt for a low-slung bed. When it comes to the bed, keeping it closer to the ground, creates more breathing space above, which can help make the ceiling appear higher and the bedroom bigger.
- Clear Clutter. There's nothing that makes a small space feel more cramped than having too much stuff. Work out ways to get collections out of view, organized behind doors, table skirts, or on shelves.
- Keep Pathways Clear. When furniture and accessories block the view into a room, it will look cramped. By moving furniture out and away from walkways, you'll open up the space and make it feel larger.
- Choose Soft, Light Colors. Whereas dark, warm colors make space feel cozy and intimate, light, cool colors make space feel open and airy. For optimum effect, select soft tones of blue and green.
- Use a Neutral Color Scheme. Choose colors that are in the same family, and use tone-on-tone woven upholstery fabrics, textured wall finishes, and tonal drapery fabrics.
Apr 22, 2024 · 1. Use Light Colors. Using medium colors for your room can make it seem smaller, but using light colors such as white, pastel pink, green, or anything that’s not dark can add more depth or make it seem bigger than how it looked before. This one will trick visitors or your friends!
Mar 9, 2023 · Luckily, there are some space-saving hacks to make a small bedroom look bigger, giving the illusion of more room. These can help to maximize your space, and make your bedroom more...
