Six Tips to Open Up Your Space!
Opening a space up to make it feel and look bigger is a common design dilemma that we come across in not only our client’s lives, but ours as well. For this weeks blog post we have pulled together our top six room-opening tips to share with you! Read on to find out some easy ways to make your space feel more… well spacious!
Choosing Your Paint Palette
Starting with the base of your room, the paint palette is one of the more basic but most important steps you can take to transform your space. Keeping your colors along the same range is a great way to open your space up. The best bet would be to choose a lighter toned color palette as they brighten up a space and can adapt to different lighting situations well.
If you are looking to hop on the trend of the dark and moody colors, no worry! You can still get your dramatic colors in by choosing one paint color for trim, walls and ceiling. Doing this creates better flow, where if you chose a bold, dark color paired with a bright white trim and ceiling, which would create a more broken up look to your room.Hanging Your Curtains Higher
A common theme with the next few of our tips is, drawing the eye up. By drawing the eye upward with different decor, you make the ceilings look higher thus, bigger feeling room. Hanging your curtains higher than your window frame goes is a great way to achieve this. Take a peek at this great before and after from The DIY Playbook, from her guide “How to Hang Curtains the Right Height”.
3. Taller, Larger Pieces
Another more “permanent” way to open your room up is with larger and taller pieces. For example, more statement light fixtures or higher bookshelves that really grab your attention upwards.
In this example from The Haven List, you can really see the difference a statement light piece paired with the curtains hung higher than the window can do to a space.
4. Furniture with Legs
A less “permanent” way to add height to a room is to pick furnishes that have some kind of visible legs. This doesn’t mean that bed skirts and sofa covers are totally over, any kind of visible furniture leg will trick the eye in thinking the piece is much taller than it is. And, if paired with the right furniture, these furnishing will fit right in with the scale of the rooms decor.
5. Large and In Charge Wall Decor
It was so difficult to narrow down the best decor options, we feared we would be working on this post for the next few months. When it comes to wall decor in this situation, there are so many different ways you can add height and the illusion of space to your room. Gallery walls, wall tapestries/ hangings, basket walls
and mirrors stuck out to us the most as they helped create movement for the eye to follow.
Check out a few of our favorites below!
Original Posters in order from left to right: Brittaney Elise, Grey Street Home, The Bohemian Flea Market, Ballard Designs (Melissa Payne Baker), Elle Decor and New Darlings.
6. Rug Size
Don’t be fooled by this last tip’s placement on our list, it is just as important than the others! Making sure you have the appropriate size rug for your space is key to making a space seem bigger. Rugs help break up a space into different zones. By using a larger rug, you then create the feeling of a larger area. Larger area = larger room. Check out this rug size guide from the Magnolia Blog if you need some help figuring out the size you need for your particular space.
Let us know your thoughts on the topic as well as any tips you think we missed! If there are any topics that you would like to see covered in the future, please let us know.
See you next week!