Want your home to look and feel bigger?

Want your home to look and feel bigger? Here are some magical tricks I recommend to my design clients:

1. Expose your floor . Show as much of it as you can. When heavy furniture covers the floor it gives the illusion of a smaller space. Install floating cabinetry on the wall instead of the floor or purchase furniture with thin legs, raised off the floor
2. Furniture-Use see-through furniture wherever you can. Glass table tops and coffee tables, acrylic or lucite chairs and furniture.  Pull furniture away from the wall to create the illusion of spaciousness.
3. Pay attention to what is at eye level- Whatever you see at eye level is how your eye defines the room. Pay attention to what your eye sees as you walk into each room- a tall closet? A big refrigerator? To create the illusion of a bigger room, strategically place open shelving , open walls, or mirrors at eye level , at the first point you see when you open the door to a room. You can also use mirrored cabinet doors to make spaces feel larger
4. Decorate the walls carefully ––Don’t cover your walls with a lot of pictures. One large painting works better than a group of small paintings. If there’s too much going on, it can make the room feel busy and crowded. Arrange your wall pictures in vertical arrangements and use wall paper or paint with vertical lines, to create a taller room
5. Uniform flooring  Keeping to one color and type of floor in the entire home makes the entire home look bigger.
6. Lighter colors– Light and neutral colors expand a room. Opt for light walls , and light colored cabinetry. Try painting your wall trim and moldings in a lighter color than your walls. The walls will appear farther back, making your living space seem bigger.Light and bright walls are more reflective, making a space feel open and airy, which helps maximize the effect created by natural light. Dark colors, on the other hand, tend to absorb light, making a room look smaller.
7. Let the windows show. Let as much natural light as possible into the room. Allowing natural light inside the room opens up the interior and makes it look larger. Keep window coverings simple. The more details, the more crowded the room looks
8. Wall to wall– Consider adding a floor to ceiling and wall to wall bookcase or closet. Even better – in build it out of drywall. This trick will visually expand space by pushing the walls and ceiling out. Keep walls in small bedrooms empty and design wall to wall cabinetry and closets around the head of the bed.
9. Lights – keep lighting flush with the ceiling. Stay away from hanging lights. Use up-lights around the walls of the room reflecting light off the ceiling to create visual height.
10. Declutter! The less items you have hanging around, the more spacious your home will feel. If you can – have a few decorative empty open shelves with just one or two homey accessories on them. The empty shelves sends a message “We have extra space around here!”