It is not easy to make small-sized housing comfortable with its crampedness and low ceilings. In such conditions, the question of how to increase the space in a small room is always relevant. The following describes the techniques that allow you to transform a small space and avoid mistakes when decorating a small living room, bedroom, or kitchen.
About the principles of conversion
Making a room bigger is simple enough; To do this, it is not at all necessary to start a redevelopment with the movement of the walls. It is about creating an optical illusion that will help our perception to feel the space more voluminous than it actually is.
The method allows you to visually expand the boundaries of a modest room area. Underestimated by many rules for choosing a color palette, furniture and accessories will help to make it light and bright, to visually raise the ceilings.
Sometimes, for the design of standard city apartments, it is advised to choose emphasized styles that are outwardly simple: minimalism, Scandinavian, high-tech. The problem is that such areas of the Russian mentality seem to be deprived of the usual comfort and homeliness.
In fact, the interior of a small apartment does not have to be decorated in an emphasized minimalist style. Design can be any. In order not to make the small room even smaller, the main thing in the process is to use visual tricks.
It is important for the owners who are pondering the problem of how to expand the space of a small room to understand that the solution consists of several components, and every little thing is of great importance.
The importance of zoning
In order to correctly manage the space of a small apartment, you can not do without zoning, and the less square meters, the more thoroughly it needs to be thought out. Designers advise caution to remodel a small apartment into a studio: the modest size will become more noticeable, and it will be more difficult to arrange furniture.
The allocation of zones in the room avoids the feeling of clutter and contributes to psychological comfort. Highlight areas, and at the same time to organize the space will help furniture, as well as folding or sliding doors. They add variety to the interior, make it more comfortable and original.
The right palette
The classic property of light shades visually enlarge objects and increase the space guides the color palette. Experts who understand how to visually enlarge a room using the color of the walls suggest choosing white and light cold shades as the base color.
The remaining colors are selected so that they are in harmony with the background. To make space perceived as light, airy, a wide variety of shades should be abandoned. It is also worth avoiding large filling areas, bright colors.
Walls, floor, ceiling
White walls combined with the same ceiling create a laconic background that elegantly shades any other colors. Other shades are less preferred, as they will limit the choice of decor and furniture. On a simple white background, any furniture looks advantageous, especially dark contrasting objects.
White walls are perfectly combined with any shades of wood, so the choice of color for flooring is not difficult. Of course, in a small room, the light shade of the floor will be the best option, but you can use more saturated and whitened tones.
Stripes in the decor: how to increase the volume
Wall decoration can play a decisive role in the visual expansion of the interior. The most successful, from the point of view of expanding the space, wallpaper pattern on the walls is stripes. Their feature and advantage are that the gaze glides along straight lines without lingering.
The rest of the drawings, it does not matter, large or small, do not have this ability, because, in one way or another, they attract attention to themselves (and to the walls). Patterned wallpaper should be as discreet as possible.
The stripes can have any width and direction, but when choosing a shade, you need to remember which colors increase the space in the room. You can glue the whole room with wallpaper with a non-contrast and light strip. If the strip is more saturated or contrasting, you should limit yourself to one or two accent walls, and make the rest of the walls neutral.
Vertical and horizontal stripes differently affect the perception of the proportions of the room. Thanks to the vertical pattern, the ceiling seems visually higher. Horizontal stripes have the ability to increase the width of the room.
Using Mirror Surfaces
An old proven way to expand the boundaries of space is the use of glare and reflective surfaces. Mirrors create the depth so necessary for a small room, reflect and scatter light. Mirrors of different sizes and shapes are welcomed in the interior design; the original frame will turn a functional object into an interesting decorative element.
Glossy surfaces also have an enhanced ability to reflect light, so glossy facades and mirror inserts on furniture, doors with glass inserts, glossy mosaics on a kitchen apron work to increase space.
Furniture selection
Knowing what color of the walls increases the space, you can easily pick up suitable pieces of furniture; it is important to maintain balance. The ideal solution would be to choose light, large items that are close in color to the decoration of the walls. Merging with the background, they will not attract attention, and the room will look more spacious.
In a small room, it is difficult to find a place for standard furnishings; sometimes a couple of centimeters is not enough for an ideal solution. If you order basic furniture in exact dimensions, you will be able to arrange it perfectly. To increase the space will play a coffee table with a glass top, a display cabinet, chairs made of transparent plastic.
A simple, albeit somewhat unexpected, the way is to use a cabinet or bookshelves under the ceiling. Such furniture looks impressive and, paradoxically, makes the room look bigger.
Curtain selection
Windows are given special attention. The smaller the room, the more it needs high-quality natural light. On the other hand, the abundance of textiles attracts excessive attention, and the lush decor overlaps the window and does not benefit the small volume. Therefore, for curtains, it is preferable to choose light, translucent fabrics of light colors that expand the space of the room.
The pattern on the fabric plays the same role as on the wallpaper. Bright vertical stripes will make the living room or bedroom visually higher. The same effect will help to achieve a cornice mounted on the ceiling or on the wall close to the ceiling. Roman curtains or blinds can be a substitute for classic curtains of a simple cut.
Choice of fixtures
Thinking about how to expand the space in a small room, many owners miss the possibilities of lighting. And the matter is not only in the power of the light flux – large chandeliers and lamps with transparent shades are not suitable for a small room.
The proper lighting of a small room should be varied. The solution for a small room will be lighting with light shade or matte shade. A sconce on the walls, a cozy floor lamp, and possibly spotlights, will complement it. Part of the world can be directed upwards – a trick that helps visually raise the ceiling.
Briefly about the main thing
To increase space, various techniques work that affect our perception. There are many ways to visually make a living room, kitchen, bathroom, or nursery. All of them are based on choosing the right color palette, materials, and furniture.
In order to make the small room look more spacious, light colors are chosen for wall and ceiling decoration. In some styles (Scandinavian, minimalism), preference is given to white. The flooring is usually slightly darker than the rest of the finish: this way the balance of colors is achieved, and the furniture looks more advantageous.
To decorate a small room, preference should be given to a striped pattern. It is also useful to use mirror and glare surfaces. Curtains are preferable to light, simple cut, possibly striped.
The room will look more spacious if you furnish it with light wood furniture. A useful addition will be objects made of glass and transparent plastic. Properly organized lighting will help to improve the perception of the interior. It should be varied, with additional sconces, lamps, and lights.
