6 Tips and Tricks to Make Your Living Room Appear Larger

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You can’t, in essence, add square footage to your small living room without the need for contractors and a large expense. However, you can enlist some smart tips and tricks to make your living room appear larger.

Furniture Choices

Most people don’t really think about it, but if your living room furniture has arms on them, they actually take up space in your small area. Some couches and chairs have particularly boxy or bulky arms that make your living room shrink in size to the eye. Choose living room furniture with sleek and slim arms or even no arms at all. Slipper style chairs and sofas are upholstered pieces that don’t have arms and they are still beautiful and modern in appearance. Keep in mind, if you or your family members like to lie on the sofa arm and watch television, this may not be a good option for you.

Choose Straight Lines

If you include furniture in a smaller space that is fanciful and overly decorated, it will make your room appear even smaller. Choose streamlined furniture with simple and sleek silhouettes to open up your space. Straight lines of furniture have a clean appearance and they can also fit into small spaces much easier than furniture with curved lines. With this in mind, use square or rectangular furniture in your living room. If this doesn’t exactly fit your style, you can lean towards a bit more curved or decorative furniture and still get the most bang for your buck. You can choose just one piece of decorative and curved furniture as an accent piece and choose straight lines for the rest. For example, a large mirror with an ornate frame looks great when added to streamlined furniture.

Choose the Right Size Rug

If you get a rug that is too small for a room, it will give your entire area a disjointed and choppy appearance. This is a common mistake that people make in interior decorating. A rule of thumb is that for every room with a rug you should have 10 to 20 inches of floor between the edges of the rug and the walls. You can purchase a customized rug to fit this description, or make certain that the rug never stops before the furniture legs. You should always have all the legs of your major upholstered living room furniture sitting on the rug, or at least the front legs. It should not be a problem to find a proper size rug when purchasing on NW Rugs website. You can consider using two area rugs and arrange your furniture to make two separate areas on each one. This may save some cost in purchasing a large rug and it is a great way to divide areas in an open concept floor plan in your home.

Hide that Clutter

The main thing that makes a room look smaller is clutter. It will make your room feel much smaller each time you accumulate another item. The best idea to keep this from happening is to have ample storage space in hidden areas. You can find a large variety of coffee tables with doors or shelves, hollow benches with removable tops or side tables with drawers to tuck away items. Many people use storage baskets in a living room to corral any things that accumulate and make your living room space look small.

Bring on the Big Mirror

You may not realize it, but huge mirrors can make your space appear almost twice the actual size. A large mirror works the best, but even a smaller size can have an impact on the perceived size of your living room. The best area to put a mirror on the wall for this tip is across from a window if at all possible. This allows the natural light to be reflected, making your living room appear larger. Try this tip with a large mirror for the illusion of depth and space and maybe go all out with a highly decorative or unique frame for a statement piece.

Fake Them Out with a High Ceiling

You can’t really change the height of your living room ceiling, or can you? Not actually, but you can create an optical illusion that makes your ceiling look higher and thus makes your space look bigger. This technique is quite simple for anyone to master. You first paint your ceiling either white or a super pale color that is close to white. Use the same color to paint from the top down on the walls to a quarter to a sixth of your walls. You might start with a smaller portion and then increase to your taste. This trick makes your ceiling look much higher. Paint the remainder of your walls down to the floor in a different color that is darker than the ceiling and upper wall color. If you aren’t a fan of two colors next to each other on the wall, you can cover the area where they meet with a piece of molding, such as a chair rail. Just don’t choose one that is too large or bulky or it will ruin your paint treatment and cut the wall off, thus making it look choppy. These tips and tricks are used very often in the professional interior decorating world. If you need help with these items, we are here to help you with years of experience in the field.