7 ways to make a small home feel spacious

When your dream home is financially out of reach, sometimes you need to start with something smaller. But that’s okay!

There are plenty of ways to maximise small living spaces in your home. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you realise you don’t need more stuff or more room. You just need to think creatively!

We’ve highlighted 5 ways to make your compact home feel bigger.

1. Use a neutral colour palette

Instead of choosing vibrant colours for your walls, floors and upholstery, opt for more neutral colours like whites, creams, beige, and pastels.

These shades will help make the room feel lighter and brighter. Therefore, creating the illusion of a more expansive room.

2. Select furniture wisely

Furniture that isn’t scale-appropriate will only emphasise the snugness.

We suggest choosing furniture that:

• Consume less space - e.g. slim, leggy chairs and narrow tables. The eye is fooled into thinking the space is larger when it can see under, through and around these pieces.
• Serve multiple purposes - e.g. a couch that folds out into a guest bed.
• Are light in colour - e.g. a cream or beige dining table.

3. Emphasise the vertical

A room’s space is much more than its horizontal dimensions. In smaller rooms, encouraging the eye to move above and below eye level gives the illusion of a tall ceiling.

Some ways you can emphasise the vertical include:

• Installing floor to ceiling draperies that hang just below ceiling beams
• Showcasing floor to ceiling bookshelves
• Displaying artworks above eye level
• Adding mirrors to instantly double the appearance of a room

4. Adjust the walls and doors

If your home features closed-in rooms, knocking down some walls to create an open-plan could be an option (just double check with your builder first!).

Alternatively, you might swap the walls for curtains for a lighter way to divide rooms, while also adding some ambience.

Review all your internal doors as well. Could they be swapped for sliding doors that don’t take up as much wall space? Or do you even need the door at all?

5. Declutter the space

Face it, if you’re trying to squeeze a lot of furniture and ‘stuff’ into a small living area, it will always feel squishy. Bite the bullet and start decluttering.

Do you really need two coffee tables? Are you actually going to use that dusty second-hand treadmill in the corner?

Also consider how easy or difficult it is to navigate around your home. You might need to reassess the placement of furniture and either move or remove it.

Can people easily walk around from Point A to Point B without tripping over or bumping into something? If something is too bulky, get rid of it and review Number 2 above.

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