Living in a small house? There are many ways to improve the visual appearance of your space, even if you can’t improve your actual square footage. This includes a wide variety of colors that make the room look bigger and also feel bigger. By making smart choices with your home’s color scheme, you can give the illusion of more space and help make better use of the space you have, which is a pretty impressive feat for an easy, beginner-friendly DIY that probably won’t take more than a weekend or two to complete.
If you want a bigger room but don’t have a complete renovation within your budget, we’ve got you covered. Here are nine colors that make a room seem bigger, plus some other helpful tips that can help you increase the size of your space when you can’t, you know, really increase the size of your space.
Even with the best of intentions, choosing the wrong paint color for a small room can make it feel closed and claustrophobic. In fact, you often don’t understand the colorful impact of your home until you’re working strategically with your color palette, or accidentally choosing a color that gives the opposite effect of what you want to achieve.
The best paint colors for small rooms are colors that work with the natural contours of the space and available natural light to provide a visual transformation that suggests there is more space than there actually is. And while light paint colors are often considered to be the way to go when you want to do this, you’re not that limited in terms of colors that make the room feel bigger. Here are nine that did the job (and it looks really nice to boot).
- Pale blue
Pale blue is a soft color that offers a soothing and soothing touch to any room. It also serves to make the room feel bigger, especially when combined with other light colors on the ceiling, moldings and doors.
- Dark blue
If you prefer to darken with your blue tint, consider dark blue tones like navy blue and indigo. When used wisely, such as on accent walls, color-locking, or paired with the same color accents, these rich tones can enhance the drama of your space and, by default, your sense of size.
- Soft black
Speaking of using pomp to add the illusion of more size, soft black can also achieve this, especially in north-facing rooms where a lack of natural light can reduce the striking white appeal.
- Cool grey
Gray in various colors is another great substitute for white, although when considering the size of the room, choose a cool color to add brightness and depth, especially in a room that receives only a moderate amount of light.
- Light green
The perfect light green can quickly open up your space while providing a calming look similar to light blue. For an updated look, choose a muted shade of sage or moss instead of being more traditional.
- Mol
When in doubt, you usually can’t go wrong with being neutral, and that includes taupe. One of the lightest neutrals, taupe has the unique ability to make a room feel more spacious than it actually is, adding a bit of the more subtle color in the process.
- Lavender
It’s not traditional, but lavender is a muted color with bold appeal and adds a breath of fresh air, plus the illusion of more square footage, to your space. Tone down by sticking to cooler colors, or warm up if your room can use a little more fun.
- Pink blush
Pink blush is an unexpected but inspiring neutral, which takes on an almost peach tone in rooms where natural light is lacking. Complement it with other more conservative neutrals like beige and white to maintain balance and you should end up with a room that feels bigger and brighter than before.
- Crispy white
We will be remiss if we leave the white of this list of colors that makes the room feel bigger. However, white is not easy for this purpose, and it can seem tedious (and have the opposite effect) in a dark room. Stick to a crisp shade and keep it bright and airy with natural wood accents and lots of plants, plus one or two appropriate colors.
Other creative ways to make a room look bigger with paint
How you use paint in a room can be just as important as the color you choose to make a room look and feel bigger than that. Try these techniques to expand your space and make the most of the available square footage.
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- Paint accent walls. The accent wall serves as the de facto focal point in a room. They can also lend additional dimensions to the space that requires them. You can choose to paint an accent wall or mix it by painting two walls in a darker color and two walls with a lighter color in the same color family. As a good rule of thumb, keep your accent wall (or accent wall) on a long wall in a room and lighter with shorter walls.
- Paint the ceiling. If you want to add the illusion of height to a room, look up. In smaller rooms, painting the ceiling in a light color can improve the overall feel of the space. And it doesn’t have to be white either. Change the tradition on your head by using a crisp white on the wall and cut it out with a colored tint on the ceiling.
- Consider the end result. Light colors have inherent reflectivity, so they can make a room feel bigger. Another way to achieve this, or to enhance the effect of an already enlarged light, is to use eggshell, satin or semi-gloss gloss instead of matte.
- Do not combine dark colors with light cropping. It may seem like the antithesis of everything you’ve learned about painting a room, but stay with us here. Combining dark colors with white or other light ornaments creates a visual border that cuts through the space and makes it appear small. The dark-colored border, however, does not cause a visual barrier and causes the eyes to move around the room, in turn making it feel larger than it actually is.
Some of the things to consider when choosing and choosing which colors and painting techniques will help expand your space include which direction your windows are oriented (east and west will give you the most natural light, while north and south will have the opposite effect), as well as what other color accents you have in the room. Clutter, whether in the form of real elements or too many colors, will close in your space, while opening it with a monochromatic palette can benefit you.
Looking for more ways to use creative design to make a room feel bigger? In addition to using colors that make the room look bigger, head here, where we’ve outlined additional tips on how you can use things like furniture, window care, and artwork to strengthen your space and make it feel much bigger.