If you have a small house or small rooms in an average-sized home, you can still make the most out of them. The idea is to maximize the room’s limited space without making it feel cramped. You want to flaunt your style without making the room feel cluttered. But is it possible to redesign a small space? Yes, you can use interior design tips for small rooms to make your small spaces as stylish as their larger counterparts.
While the focus when working with less square footage is different from working with ample space, the general rules of interior design apply; you require interior design ingenuity and a good eye with regard to what works and what doesn’t. One benefit of compact spaces is the accessibility of everything needed and ease of maintenance. Let’s look at several interior design tips for small rooms to help you overhaul your tight space.
Add a Feature Wall
Everyone wants a cozy lounge, but if the space is small, you might feel anxious about adding dark colors because the room might get dark. If you’re in such a situation, you can pick one of your walls to be the feature wall, preferably behind the sofa, and install a leather wallcovering or wallpaper with a dull color like brown or black.
Add Color and Pattern to Your Small Entryway
Your home entryway might be narrow with little natural light, so it’s vital that you add color and pattern to bring warmth and light to the space. For instance, you can add a minimalistic art piece. You can also hire a flooring service to change the tile floor on the entryway and install something more inviting and warm, like wood. Remember your entryway is your first attempt at creating an excellent first impression on your guests, so you don’t want it to feel cocooned. It should be harmonious and have a continuous flow to the rest of the house.
Brighten Up Your Room with Plants and Flowers
One of the top interior design tips for small rooms to help you brighten up your space is adding plants and flowers. However, you shouldn’t add too many to avoid overcrowding your small space. Also, if you cannot keep up with the responsibility of maintaining plants and flowers, including pruning and watering them, get artificial ones; they look like the real thing, but you don’t have to worry about maintaining them or attracting pests to your home.
Divide Your Space
If your small space is one flowing room, you can divide it into various sections without making it feel too tight. One of the best ways to do this is using sheers or rice paper room dividers. For the doors, you can install slide-out doors, which can help provide privacy in areas like your bedroom without making these areas feel small. Also, all these options allow light to shine throughout your entire space, which helps make it feel as airy as possible. Dividers also have a dramatic design effect which helps add flair and flamboyance to your space.
Get Folding Furniture Pieces
You might need a desk and dining table in your small room but do you need them all the time? Consider getting furniture that you can fold when not in use to help you free up floor space. For instance, you can get folding chairs, stacking stools, and tilt-top tables; you can quickly push them out of the way when you need more space or want to clean your small room. Also, you can get folding doors for rooms like the kitchen and bedroom, they help conceal the door for a more open space, and the door doesn’t occupy as much space as it usually would.
Get Multifunctional Furniture Pieces
One of the top interior design tips for small rooms to help you save on space is getting multifunctional furniture pieces. For instance, you can get ottomans with integrated storage to help you store your fleece blankets and books. Also, you can get a sofa bed that you can transform into a bed when you have guests over or a standard sofa with under-seat storage space large enough to fit duvets, pillows, linens, etc.
Get Plenty of Light into Your Small Room
One of the best interior design tips for small rooms to help you open up the room is getting plenty of light into the small space. Natural light can make your small space seem bigger, especially when you have curtains that you can open all the way. Moreover, a lush garden in front of your space will only help add to the sense of light and space. Also, when getting your windows treated, ensure the window treatment company doesn’t use a thick layer that ambient light is blocked from your compact space.
Get Rid of Clutter
Another of the top interior design tips for small rooms to help you free up space is getting rid of clutter. This means cutting down on the number of items you have in your space. If you look around, you’ll realize there’re many things you can do without because they simply don’t serve a purpose. Decluttering helps you have more space in your small space for ease of movement and maintaining functionality. This applies to all visible areas in your space, like countertops and floors. You might find that your space has been floored with decorative stone, which should be exposed; less is more with regard to designing a small space. If you struggle with decluttering, check online for resources to help you do it.
Make Use of Mirrors
If you want to create an illusion of space, one of the top interior design tips for small rooms is using mirrors. Apart from small spaces, mirrors are perfect for all other room sizes and virtually double the size of any space. How? Mirrors add light to a space, and they reflect both artificial and natural lighting, which gives an illusion of more square footage. Mirrors are also practical on their own; they don’t have to be used to add space; you can have only one to be a statement piece in your small bedroom or lounge. If you want to use them to add space, get one gigantic mirror or arrange several small ones throughout your space. You can even choose one of your walls to be a gallery wall occupied by mirrors of different designs.
Mount Your TV and Sound Bar
A media console is one of the largest space occupants in small lounges. As a result, one of the best interior design tips for small rooms with appliances like a smart TV and soundbar is to mount these appliances. Mounting your smart TV and soundbar is relatively easy; you just need a stud finder and drill. Use the stud finder to find your drilling points and mark them, then drill in your mounting plates. Now your small lounge or bedroom should appear to have more space with your appliances mounted and your media console gone.
Opt for Everything to Be Built-In
If you need plenty of space, one of the top interior design tips for small rooms is getting everything built in. For instance, you can get a murphy bed; it’s built into the wall, and after sleeping, you can fold it into the wall, creating space for doing other things like meditating or yoga which is virtually impossible in a small room.
Painting and Color Design
When it comes to interior designing a small room, the focus should be simplicity. Visual uniformity among various decorations such as art printing and wallpapers helps maintain a sense of class in your space without making it feel too tight or cocooned. The details on your decorations and furnishings should be simple to balance each other.
One of the best ways you can use to ensure there is a balance of colors. Keep in mind that bold colors work well in small rooms, just as they do in large rooms, including blacks and blues. When you combine bold colors with good accent colors on your decorations and furnishings, you can create an illusion of more space while still maintaining a sense of class.
Rethink Your Small Kitchen
When you have a small kitchen, the natural predisposition is that you need to add as much storage as possible, including overhead cabinetry. Instead of overhead cabinetry, go for a freestanding pantry. Pull-out or slim pantries can also maximize space in a compact kitchen without making it feel too tight or cocooned.
You can also invest in open shelves to create an illusion of more space. Moreover, having open shelves doesn’t mean you have less space, and you can even display decorative pieces on these shelves and ensure you use the full height of your space.
When it comes to small kitchens, people always assume they can have an island, but this isn’t always the case. You can hire a professional to design and build you a slim-line island to give you more countertop surfaces for prepping food. For appliances, ensure they’re built in; for instance, get an induction hob with an in-built extractor instead of a stove.
Skip The Sectional Sofa Idea
It’s easy to want to fill all the free usable floor space in your space with furniture. However, when you have a compact space, doing this will make it start to look and feel overcrowded. One of the most common pieces in living rooms is sectional sofas. They’re appealing and comfortable to sit on but can feel bulky in a small space. Instead, you should get two small sofas to sit on opposite sides of the room and a small coffee table between them. This creates an illusion of more space because the sofas are separated.
Take Advantage of Your Vertical Space
Taking advantage of your vertical space means playing around with taller elements and installing things like art pieces and shelves on your walls. This helps add vertical depth in addition to the openness you’ve worked to create in your hardwood flooring. If you have a piece that you don’t want to get rid of but occupies a lot of space, for instance, a massive ceramic vase, you can install a shelf on the wall and place it there or use copper wires to suspend it. Also, when hanging drapery such as valances, install the suspension rod roughly two inches below your ceiling to create an illusion of extra height in your space.
Use Large Rugs
Beautifying a small room is mainly tricking the eye into seeing more than there is. One of the best ways to do this is by using massive rugs in your small space. They help give your room a sense of grandeur, albeit some can cover the whole room, which isn’t the intention. So let the size of your small room guide you, and if you can’t size it with your eyes, get a tape measure and measure the length and width to find out the size of rug you need. On top of the rug, you can place a table to act as the room’s focal point and armchairs to add depth.
Use Integrated Wall Lighting Beside the Bed
If your small room is your bedroom, one of the best design tips is using integrated wall lighting instead of bedside lamps. Why? Because when you have beside lamps, you need small tables to place the lights which occupy a lot of space. Integrated wall lighting beside your bed saves on space and offers a more cohesive look to your room. Also, with such a wide variety of wall lighting options, including plug-ins and wired, you should find something you like.
In conclusion, when considering interior design tips for small rooms, work with your intuition; don’t attempt to use something that doesn’t feel right. Ultimately your goal is to maximize your limited space as much as possible while showing it off at its best.
