Tips And Tricks To Make A Small Living Room Look Bigger

Lack of space can make a living room feel cramped and crowded, which isn’t ideal in a space where you want to switch off, kick back and relax. Working out how to make a small living room look bigger has its challenges, but with clever use of colour, furniture placement and simple visual tricks, making a small living room feel more spacious isn’t too hard to pull off.

First things first

Start by taking a long, hard look at your living room and working out what bits of it work well and what bits don’t work quite so well. Re-assessing the space, getting rid of items that aren’t earning their spot and then re-working the layout, can do wonders in a small living room. And, of course, a good declutter is a brilliant way of freeing up space that could be put to better use.

Colour makes a huge Impact

Colour is a game-changer when it comes to small living room ideas. Using muted colours and soothing shades throughout can help to calm a busy space and create a cohesive look that in turn feels more spacious and easier on the eye.

Add in a large rug

When it comes to living room rugs, big is better, especially in small living rooms. It might seem counterintuitive, but a large rug can help to stretch the space, drawing the eye and making the floor area feel bigger. If a rug is too small it can appear as if it's floating in the middle of the room and look out of sync with the proportions of larger items of furniture.

Pull furniture away from walls

While it’s tempting to push all the furniture against the walls in a small living room to put more floor space on show and make the room feel bigger, it can actually have the reverse effect. Having everything pushed up against walls can limit the sense of space and horizon, making a modern small living room idea appear much smaller.

Try pulling sofas and armchairs away from walls to give them more breathing space. An easy solution for how to make a small living room look bigger, it will also make the room feel more inviting. No more dead space in the middle of the room. Group seating together to create a more relaxed, sociable feel.

Let more light in

Natural light can help increase the sense of space in a small living room, making it feel brighter, breezier and much bigger. Avoid heavy curtains and solid blinds that block out sunlight and instead opt for lightweight linens, voiles and sheers that will let maximum light flood in.

Save space with sleek built-ins

Too many large bulky pieces of furniture can crowd a small living room and make it feel cramped. Opting for built-in furniture is a great way of making use of under-utilised alcoves and recesses and frees up floor space, rather than having lots of freestanding pieces. Paint built-in storage to match wall colour to create a more unified look that can also help increase the sense of space in a small room.

Blur the boundaries

Wrap the room in colour, by painting living room walls and ceiling in the same warm shade throughout. A good trick for small spaces, awkwardly-shaped areas or rooms with sloping ceilings, painting walls, trims and ceiling the same colour ensures that the eye doesn’t get drawn to the corners of the room which helps create a greater feeling of space.

Add height with contrast ceiling colour

In a small living room without much natural daylight, painting the ceiling a lighter colour is a good way of brightening up the space and making it feel loftier. Extend the effect in a room that features a picture rail, by painting the wall area above the rail to match the ceiling colour. It will make you less aware of where the walls end and the ceiling begins and will create the impression of extra height. You can also use small living room lighting ideas to accentuate the feeling of height.

Open up the view

In a through-lounge or open-plan living room idea avoid positioning furniture where it might block the view into the next area or across the space. Positioning larger items and bulkier pieces of furniture away from walkways will help to open up the space more and make it feel bigger.

Create a flowery focal point

Living rooms work best if there is a focal point, something that draws you in and the place where your eyes land when you enter a room. In a space without a small living room fireplace idea or any other stand-out features, create your own focal point by wallpapering one wall in a lively print.

A busy pattern will grab the attention and by choosing the widest wall, it will help to stretch the space and make the living room feel bigger. Position furniture in a sociable arrangement so that the feature wallpaper takes centre stage.

Go big with mirrors

It may be an old and much-used trick, but clever placement of living room mirror ideas is a brilliant way of making any small space appear larger than it actually is. Positioning a large wall mirror opposite a window or propping a floor-standing mirror against a wall, reflects light back into the room and creates the illusion that the space extends further than it does, making the room feel brighter, airier and more spacious too.

Find the right shade of white

Decorating a room in pale colours and light-reflective tones is another proven way of making a small room feel bigger. But rather than painting your living room wall-to-wall in brilliant white, using warmer tones of white will feel less harsh and clinical while still retaining white’s room-enlarging qualities.