Four Tips to Make a Small Bedroom Look Larger

Houses rarely come with all bedrooms the same size and more often than not that final room is a small boxroom. Whether this becomes a home office, nursery, child’s room or even a walk-in wardrobe, there are some easy design tricks you can pull to make the space look as large and as light as possible.

Small rooms often get left out of the decorating thought process, especially if they don’t have a specific purpose or aren’t going to be used as a permanent bedroom. But these little spaces need as much love and attention as the bigger rooms if they’re going to reach their full potential. From carefully choosing the colour scheme to making sure the furniture is arranged in the most efficient manner, here are our top tips for maximising your small space.

1, Extend the Walls

Although you can’t actually make the walls bigger or the ceilings higher, you can give the illusion of more space with some decorating tricks. Paint your walls, woodwork, and ceiling all the same colours: this will blend the edges and make it harder to distinguish where the boundaries are. Coloured walls and a white ceiling will definitely make the ceiling seem lower and can make the space looked cramped. Just remember to stick to one colour: feature walls are a no-no as they abruptly end the room.

Furniture placement is also important. If you place bulky items along the end wall, they will make the room look larger, but cramming them against a longer wall will unnecessarily narrow the space.

2, Keep Colours Muted

You don’t have to stick to shades of white to make your small bedroom seem lighter and larger. In fact, if there isn’t a good amount of natural light, painting everything white can have the opposite effect as the walls will look dull and dingy and will shrink into the space. Dark hues can work just as well as light hues to extend the walls and make the room appear larger, so don’t be shy to try greys, blues, and browns. Avoid bright, highly saturated tones as these will be too loud in a small space.

3, Choose Furniture Carefully

There’s no point trying to fit full-sized beds and wardrobes in a small room, they’ll just end up looking squashed and cluttered. Instead, opt for smaller versions or items which have multifunctionality. Cabin beds can be really useful for children as a desk or set of drawers can be placed underneath, freeing up a lot of unused space. For adult beds, try a storage bed, like these from Divan Bed Centre. Having built in drawers or ottoman storage for bulky items like winter coats, towels, and spare duvets means you don’t need to take up space with freestanding cupboards.

4, Make Use of Vertical Space

Use shelves and wall units or high beds to take full advantage of vertical storage space. Building up and over a desk will give you places to store important files and folders within reach without making other surfaces look cluttered. The important thing to remember here is not to build on every wall or you will end up dramatically shrinking an already tight space. Instead, keep storage and furniture on a pair of adjoining walls, with the desk against the shorter one if possible. You can then use the bare walls to try and enlarge the space. Adding mirrors to a wall or to wardrobe doors can make the room look double the size and help reflect light into every corner.

In Summary

Breathe new life into your boxroom with these tried and tested tricks to maximising the potential of your space. With the right colours and accessories you can elongate walls, raise ceilings and spread light more efficiently to make any sized space feel welcoming.