6 Ways to Make Your House Look and Feel More Spacious
Your home is a space that should reflect your personal style and taste. It should also be where you feel most comfortable and safe. The idea of "cozy" can mean something different to everyone, but creating a space that is open and deliberate can be the difference between cozy and cluttered. Here are six ways to make your house look and feel more spacious.
1. Make Your Main Rooms More Open
Open floor plans catapulted into popularity for being a great way to make your home feel more spacious. If you're on a budget and not looking to do a complete renovation and open walls just adjust the floorplan, creating arches is a great way to open a space between two rooms. For those that need the option to close, add interior glass doors that still allow you to see from one room to the other when closed.
If you're willing to take on a major remodel, redesigning your home to be more open will make it feel shockingly bigger. Removing interior walls can be tricky. You can't just grab a sledgehammer and start knocking down a wall without assessing its value to the integrity of the home. Load-bearing walls can still come down; you just have to take precautions and install beams.
2. Embrace Dead Space
It's natural to feel like you have to cover every space with something when you're decorating. However, less truly is more sometimes. When you cover tables and desks with lots of little knickknacks, you'll find that it makes the room feel smaller. A cleared desk leaves open space and changes the feel of the room. Keep your decor in a specific area, such as one particular wall, to act as an accent rather than spreading it out all over the room.
3. Use Hidden Storage Space
Hidden storage is an obvious way to make a space feel larger. It can be as simple as taking advantage of closet space. Even if you have small closets, build shelves or cubbies in them to maximize usage of your square footage. If you're remodeling, put a hidden walk-in pantry in your kitchen where you can use an entire room as storage and no one will even know it's there.
4. Decorate With Mirrors
Mirrors can work magic to make a small space appear much larger. Placing a large mirror on one wall in the living room, for example, can make the area look twice as big by reflecting the image of the room. They are also great for rooms that need more lighting because they bounce light around, making the room seem brighter.
5. Declutter
Decluttering is the fastest and least expensive way to make your home feel more spacious. Everyone leaves things lying around from time to time. When you're busy, it's hard to stay organized and clutter-free. However, if you take a small amount of time each week to walk around picking up random things that accumulated, you'll notice a difference.
Clear the floors and walls. Making piles of things in corners will also make a room feel smaller. Clearing the floors follows the same logic as embracing dead space. You can apply this to the walls as well. Putting your furniture against the wall makes the room appear smaller. If you pull it away from the wall even slightly, you create an illusion of more space.
6. Get the Lighting Right
Don't underestimate the power of great lighting. Decentralize your light sources by spreading them out through the house. Using a single source of overhead light is better for cost, but it will make the room appear smaller. Use lamps in strategic places to light the corners and darker areas and showcase more space.
With more and more people working from home, it's more important than ever to maximize your use of space. If you're searching for a new home, look for open plans and more windows. Windows bring in more light, making a room appear bigger and promoting better health.
