Not every home is graced with spacious bedrooms, and many have small bedrooms where there is hardly enough space to fit a larger bed and a bedside table. Interior designers have a ton of design tricks up their sleeves and know well how to make a small bedroom appear bigger and you can perform plenty of these tricks in your own home.
READ: 9 effective ways to make a small living room look and feel bigger
1. Make walls appear higher
Using walls as an optical illusion is often done in a room with low ceilings. Hanging a curtain rail higher, installing floor-to-ceiling cabinets, or painting vertical stripes on a wall or walls all lead the eye upwards to visually lift a low ceiling. These same tricks can be used to make any small room feel bigger than it is. It is also a trick frequently used in tiny courtyards or tight spaces to make the space feel bigger.
Vertical stripes work well in any room that you want to make visually larger or the ceiling higher. Consider using vinyl wallpaper in a tight bathroom or a compact entrance hall. Vertical stripes in bold contrasts will not fool the eye into thinking the space is larger but will also provide an eye-catching feature.
2. Use streamlined furniture
Everyone knows how much space a piece of furniture can hog. Pieces such as bedside tables in the bedroom, a seating bench in a bathroom, or even a cabinet or chest of drawers in a room. Large pieces of furniture take up large areas of floor space - floor space that could be put to far better use to make a small room feel less cramped.
Furniture that is streamlined in its dimensions will take up far less space and still be practical. Think narrow, tall bedside cabinets and cupboards, a slim chest of drawers or a wardrobe. And if you cannot buy what you need, take up DIY and discover how easy it is to make custom furniture for your home.
Storage is essential in every room, more so in a bedroom or bathroom, so it makes sense to opt for storage that will not take up a lot of floor space but will still provide plenty of storage space. Tall and narrow is the perfect solution, even if a bedside cabinet is slightly higher than the bed. And a tall, narrow bathroom storage cabinet will still give you enough storage, plus, if you DIY it, you can combine drawers, shelves and closed cupboard storage.
READ: Make a small bathroom appear bigger with these tips
3. Emphasize profiles and details
If you are not into vertical stripes either painted or wallpaper, there are other ways to work around this. Think about a bedroom, for example, the bed is a central feature in a bedroom and adding onto this is easy. Look for a headboard that has a higher profile than one that sits just above the bed or use a wall gallery to build up the height above a headboard. Either one of these will lead the eye upwards rather than focusing on the size of the room.
There are many ways to introduce elements that will add interest to a small room which also helps to make the space appear larger than it is. Think wall panels with moulding detail in tall panels that will draw the eye and add character and architectural detailing.
Mirror panels placed on either side of the bed or headboard are another easy way to give height to a bedroom and it is also excellent for bouncing light around the room, adding visual interest, and making a small bedroom look bigger.
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