Stretching out your small space
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Do you remember your first place? When my husband and I first got married, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment that had two closets and a living room so small my husband could stretch out his arms and almost touch both walls. In a word, tiny.
Even though there were times we felt we were tripping over each other, we often got compliments on how nice and (surprise!) even roomy our place looked. It wasn’t until we crammed in 20 people for parties that our guests would realize they were actually in a crackerbox.
Decorating small spaces isn’t hard, it just takes a bit more strategy. Instead of just making decisions based on what you like, you have to think about how everything will affect the space, meaning how much it looks like there is.
One common thing I see a lot of people do is cram big, bulky furniture into a room that screams for sleek lines. Just because you had two armchairs in your old living room doesn’t mean you need two chairs in your new, smaller one. And if your round dining room table with 8 chairs makes it hard to walk through your dining room, it’s time to pare down to a rectangle table with 4 chairs.
Dark colors are another way to instantly make a room feel smaller. When it comes to creating the illusion of space, it’s all about light. You want light, airy colors on the walls. Window treatments should also be light and airy, to allow more natural light in.
And the easiest way to make a room (any room) look larger? Simplify! That’s means taking a good, hard look at all the things you have in the room and asking yourself if you really need it all. What things are just collecting dust? What things can be better used in another room? The fewer knickknacks and accessories you have, the more open the room will feel.
So even if you don’t have the most space, there are ways to make the most of it, and make your house feel more like a home, less like a shoebox.
Tags: decor, decorating small spaces, home decorating, home design
