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Sometimes, you’ve just got a room that is too small. It’s hard to make it look bigger, and it doesn’t seem like anything you do helps make it look more attractive.
And sometimes, it’s the entire apartment that’s small.
Don’t worry though! Here’s the definitive way to make a smaller room look bigger, and a tiny apartment look like it’s got all the room in the world.
To begin with, let’s dismiss a common myth. You don’t need small things in a small space to make it feel bigger. Teeny tiny wall art next to little furniture and an even smaller rugs does not a large room make. What you need to do, is go bigger. Just for one piece, your statement piece. It’ll pull the room together, and help create the illusion of space by tricking the mind.
Using statement pieces in a small room makes it seem larger.
Another great tip to make smaller rooms seem larger is to keep it relatively minimalist. As the room below shows, with all clutter out of the way, benches seem larger, creating the feeling of added space.
Minimalist Kitchen.
With that in mind, it’s always a good idea to have concealed or floating storage. Either of these two options will make the space feel larger as they keep clutter away, and in the case of floating storage, makes the walls seem like they go higher due to the addition of space beneath the cabinets, etc.
Floating Cabinet.
If you want to fit as much into a smaller room (or apartment) as possible, then it’s worth looking at dividing the space through the furniture, rather than walls or curtains, as it allows as much uninterrupted space at eye-level as possible. This creates the illusion that the room is wider or longer, as is seen in the photo below. However, if you do want to use a ‘proper’ divider, then anything that has holes in it is advised, because it similarly tricks the mind into thinking the room is wider/longer than it is, by allowing you to see more.
A mostly transparent divider allows this smaller room to feel larger as the mind assumes it has to be bigger to fit all that furniture into the room.
It’s important to remember that mirrors are your friend. Placed strategically, you can use it to bounce light around the room, and by reflecting whatever is already in the room, it seems as though the room has no end.
A large mirror makes this room look like it goes for much further than it does.
And most importantly, if you want to create more closet space – and who doesn’t? – then you can use the age-old hack of a fake wall. Less spy-movie, and more industrial-smarts, the fake wall trick works by hanging a curtain about 1.5m in from the wall you have your closet in, from wall to wall. You can hide your clothes – or anything you want, really – behind it, and if you choose a curtain that is mildly transparent (enough that light can pass through, but thick enough that you can’t see anything through it clearly), you’ll allow light into the apartment, which makes it seem larger as well.
Creating a fake wall for your cupboard might just be the space-saving hack you’ve been missing.
If you stick to these ideas – and the many others that are online – you’ll have a livable room or apartment in no time. It might be small, but with some artful arranging and planning, you can make it feel larger than you could imagine.
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