Even if your living room is on the petite side, thankfully, there are smart steps you can take to create the illusion of more space. In this mini guide, we’ll explore several practical decorative tips to make your lounge appear bigger. Let’s take a look!
To hire a decorator, you could look up ‘find a decorator near me’. Please note that decorator labour costs can differ from region to region across the UK.
Move Furniture Around
One of the easiest ways to make a small lounge appear larger is by simply rearranging furniture. You might expect us to say that you should just pull all the furniture away from the centre and push it up against the walls as much as possible. However, this could backfire and actually make your room look smaller.
While it would depend on the design of the room, you may want to pull furniture away from walls to provide them with a little breathing room. This way, you could remove dead space in the centre of the room without having too little space in the middle either.
It’s essentially a balancing act that, when done right and with the right room, can make a small living room appear larger. You should consider grouping seating together as this could create the most relaxing and sociable environment feasible with the space you have.
Fit a Large Rug
Laying down a large rug can help stretch out your lounge’s space by drawing attention to the floor and making it appear larger, which, in turn, can create the illusion of a larger room all-round.
You should go for a rug that is at least as wide as your sofa and maybe even wider. What’s more, once you have a large rug added to your living room, you can use it as a focal point to centre the rest of the furniture around to achieve a fancy design.
Of course, to realistically fit a large rug in a small lounge, you’ll probably need to run it beneath the legs of your couch. If you have a coffee table (or want to add one to your lounge), you can place this atop the rug. With all that said, a rug is a rug, not a floor. So, it’s important that you allow about 25cm to 30cm of space around the edge of your living room so that the floor is still clearly visible.
If you opt for a small rug, it won’t have this effect, however. A small rug might look awkward and out of place in the middle of a small lounge, especially given that the rest of the furniture will probably be a lot bigger.
All in all, a large rug could really help with making your small lounge feel larger. Of course, beyond that, you’d also want to consider the style/design and colour of rug you’d prefer. Looking around online to see what type and colour rug catches your fancy while also considering how it would look next to the furniture and various colours already in your living room (or new colours that might be added, such as from adding a new coffee table).
Fancy Wallpaper as a Focal Point
One way or another, a lounge should have a great focal point. By that, we mean something that catches the eye upon entering the room. Assuming you don’t already have an obvious focal point (e.g., an elegant fireplace), you might want to go for some eye-catching wallpaper.
While it’s true that certain colours can be eye-catching on their own, when we say fancy wallpaper, we mean ones with complex, even artistic designs.
Here are some ideas for a fancy wallpaper focal point:
- Flowery and colourful design.
- Wallpaper with paint-like plants and animals.
- Colourful geometric wallpaper.
- Ziz-zag pattern wallpaper with plenty of colour.
- Other colourful designs that are evidently eye-catching.
In general, wallpaper with a busy or/and colourful appearance can easily make for a fantastic focal point. Of course, to make the best of the wallpaper, you should (at the very least) add it to the widest wall.
This would help create a sense that the room is bigger as there is more detail for guests to take in than would be the case if you had a simple uniform wall painted in one colour and with no design details.
Of course, you’ll want to ensure the rest of the room’s walls do not awkwardly contrast the wallpaper if it’s only installed on the widest wall. We suggest chatting with a decorator about this to find what sort of paint will match your wallpaper if you have it fitted on just one wall. You could, of course, have it fitted on every wall in the room, although this may be tricky or look off.
Lastly, it’s best to position furniture in a smart way such that the wallpaper is not obscured and that it can be as focal of a focal point as possible. With that said, don’t arrange your furniture such that it takes away from the social or practical value of your lounge. Therefore, you may need to find a balance here between making the wallpaper the best focal point it can be and ensuring your furniture is arranged in the way you like.
Other Ideas
Beyond the ideas discussed above, you might also want to consider:
- Painting your skirting and ceiling the same colour as your walls.
- Utilise mirrors to make the space appear larger.
- Having your room painted in neutral, light hues to make it seem bigger.
- Adding pictures, ornaments, and perhaps a bookshelf to the walls. This can also help make a lounge feel more open.
- Simply let more light in. One way of achieving this is to have a longer curtain pole added above your window. This can make a window seem larger than it is while also giving you more room to fully open the curtains. Please just be careful to ensure you don’t extend it in such a way that the curtains end up in direct contact with electrics (e.g., plugs for your TV). Safety first!
All in all, there are many ways of making a small lounge feel bigger. Some approaches will work better than others depending on the exact design and look of the lounge in question. Some ideas discussed today may not even suit your lounge in particular, while others may be perfect.
