How can I make my small home feel bigger?
If you have a small home, unless you're willing to undertake a sizeable extension, you can't physically alter the dimensions of your living space. However, you can employ some clever tricks to make it feel bigger than it is.
Interior designers are geniuses at creating the look and feel of more space and we've honed in on some of their best techniques, which we're going to share with you right now.
Don't despair at a small home, just drink in these great ideas and see which will make a big impact on your small proportions!
You might think you don't want to stray too far from minimalism in a small space, but some contrasting design can actually amplify the size of a room.
Keep your walls simple and neutral but go all out with your textiles and accessories. This will add personality in a controlled fashion.
A great way to make a small home feel bigger is to remove walls that aren't load-bearing in order to open up more space.
Combined living and dining rooms always look great and feel really spacious thanks to the lack of dividing walls and a consistent wall colour.
Small homes make perfect recipients for custom built-in storage items, as you can take advantage of all those little niches and crevices that are otherwise useless.
We think this room is a good example of what we mean, as two separate beds and a wardrobe would have swallowed up the whole room, but here they fit with room to spare!
If you don't want to go totally open-plan in a bid to make your home feel bigger, just get a little more creative with how you divide the space.
Partial screens and thin walls still offer easy functionality divides, yet take up far less room than a solid permanent wall.
Take a look at how small loft homes are laid out and you'll find a wealth of amazing space-saving ideas.
We always enjoy makeshift mezzanine levels, which offer fantastic guest room potential. Plus, by building up into the height of a space, you free up much more floor space, which will leave your rooms feeling bigger.
Bulky technology items can drain a room of all usable space, so you need to consider housing them in more modern, efficient ways.
Televisions, for example, can be so much sleeker and less invasive if they're mounted up on the wall.
Every small home needs a lot of storage in order to keep it organised and uncluttered, so don't be afraid to think outside the box in terms of how you will incorporate some.
This bed/seating area/storage installation is amazing and ensures a small bedroom is comfortable and spacious.
The simplest solutions are sometimes the best. In the case of this small home, a curtain is all that's needed to offer bedroom privacy when needed and an open-plan space when it's not.
Keep curtains sheer and gauzy to let light flow and you'll be staggered how much bigger a room can feel!
Interior designers have long known the value of white walls and natural light, in terms of making a cramped or small room feel bigger, and it's a technique that still works.
You don't have to go full-on minimalist, but a removing curtains and keeping walls clear of clutter will make a massive difference!
Think about your furniture and you'll soon realise there are amazing opportunities to add masses of storage without requiring a floor space sacrifice.
Under-bed storage is a great way to maximise your organisation without shrinking a room, as you'd have a bed there anyway.
Don't let your corners go to waste in a small home as they can be so useful.
Build storage into them, keep things like staircases at the edges of rooms, consider corner shelves and you'll soon feel like you have a far bigger room.
In a super small home (such as a studio flat), clever furniture will be your saving grace in terms of clawing back more space.
Folding beds and sofas that transform into sleeping areas are great as you can enjoy a spacious room when they're not in use and when they are, you'll be asleep so what does it matter if you have less floor?
For more small home inspiration, take a look at this Ideabook: These design mistakes are making your home feel small.