How To Make A Small Room Look Bigger

Learn eight tips or tricks of the eye on how to make a small room look bigger. These easy changes can make a huge impact to your room!

Our home was built in the late 90’s and has a few rooms that are on the smaller size. As much as I would love to bust out a few walls here or there, that’s just not a practical or economical solution. So instead, I’ve learned ways a few tricks of the eye to make these small rooms look bigger.

I’ve had multiple requests from you to talk about this small room challenge. So I hope these eight tips will help you create some bigger looking rooms in your home too!

How To Make A Small Room Look Bigger:

Light Colors and Contrast

Create an optical illusion of a large room by using light colors. Light and bright walls are more reflective, making a space feel more open and airy. If you contrast that with a dark color you will also add some fantastic contrast. This will create a room that feels larger with more depth!

Our kitchen is on the small size but by remodeling it with light, white tile and a dark gray cabinet color I was able to give the illusion of space with more depth. Extending the cabinets to the ceiling also helped draw the eye upward and gave the feeling of a higher ceiling.

Connect Flooring

Continuous flooring throughout the home helps connect the rooms together, thus giving the appearance of a larger room.

Our kitchen used to have hard wood floors in the dining room and then laminate in the kitchen. This break in the flooring chopped up the rooms even though they were connected. So by replacing the flooring, your eye is automatically drawn to the full length of both rooms – instantly giving the feel of a more spacious kitchen and dining room.

Focus on Ceiling

The more you can draw your eye up, the bigger the room is going to look. So there are a number of ways you can accomplish this in a home. Installing crown molding, hanging your curtains from ceiling to the floor, or even painting the ceiling can create this effect.

Add Natural Light

The power of natural light is amazing! It can immediately make a super small room feel so much bigger.

Our hall bathroom is a fabulous example of this simple fact. Before this space felt so tiny and cave-like. But once the skylight was installed, the room felt like it’s 8 foot ceiling was now like 20 feet high!

Hang Mirrors

Including a mirror in your home can instantly make a small room look bigger because it reflect both light and space. To really capture the full effect, try placing a mirror near a window to reflect the outdoors.

Our dining room wall is the perfect place to hang a mirror. There are two windows opposite the mirror so the mirror reflects a ton of light making this rather small dining area feel bigger. Shop some of my favorite mirrors below:

Use Rugs to Define

If you have the incorrect size of a rug in your room, it can actually make your space feel smaller. And that is not the goal here! So make sure you have the correct size for your room by following this guide HERE. Below are some of my favorite style of rugs…

Maximize Storage

To give a room the appearance of more space, storage is a must. Baskets, storage ottomans and even wall hooks are all great ways of blending function and storage into a room. And just by simply giving items a designated home and removing the clutter, your room will actually have more space and feel more spacious.

Reduce Clutter

There’s nothing that makes a small space feel cramped more than having too much stuff. So keeping a tidy room is key to helping a small room look bigger. With things neatly arranged and out of sight, the space that is in view will feel orderly and more open.

Keeping the floors and kitchen counters as clear as possible is one of the most important ways to maintain a sense of spaciousness.