How to make small rooms look bigger with paint
This is such a commonly asked question, and I think we’re often worried that if we paint a small room anything other than white, it’ll look even smaller.
I’m all for embracing the fact that a room is small and making the most of the cosiness. However, there will be times when we do want a room to look bigger than it is. And here is how…
Can you paint a small room a dark colour?
Good news! Yes you can! The obvious option when choosing how to paint a small room is to slap some white paint on it and hope it’ll feel airy. While this can sometimes be the case (if the lighting is good) you could also find that it can just look dull and dingy.
Painting a room white isn’t always going to making a room look bigger, unless it gets good light like in this example.
So for those who love dark colours, the good news is that they can actually be very useful in making a small space feel bigger. It’s all about perception and distraction:
Perception: our eyes don’t perceive the room to be small, because its edges and corners don’t jump out at us as obviously as they would if they were lighter. Therefore we don’t immediately notice the boundaries of the room.
Distraction: the dark colour is the first thing you notice in the room, it distracts from the size of the space.
Cool toned dark colours, like charcoals, dark blues and dark greens are the best if you’re going for a dark colour in a room.
This extreme example shows that the darker room appears larger, because you can’t perceive the corners (boundaries) as clearly.
When the walls are dark they act as a distraction from the size of the room. DesignDepot.
If you’re not into dark colours, then opt for softer and lighter colours which are cool toned. Cool toned colours tend to recede to the eye (make things feel further away) but warm colours draw them closer. Avoid really intense warm colours like red, orange and yellow.
The cool toned walls on the left seem further away than the warm toned ones on the right.
Another example of a cool toned colour receding to the eye in this blue bathroom. Colin Poole via Ideal Homes.
Choosing the right paint finish
Once you’ve chosen your colour, you can also use the paint finish to help make your room seem bigger.
There are a lot of important factors to consider when you’re choosing a paint finish. How matte do you want it to look, how much traffic a room will get and how cleanable it’ll need to be, and the quality or smoothness of your walls.
If you want to choose a finish which will help to make your room feel bigger here are 2 tips:
If you’re going for a lighter colour, choose a slightly more glossy finish as this will bounce the light around.
If you’re going down the dark route, a more matte finish will absorb the light and help with the perception trickery we discussed earlier, of making the edges of the room less obvious.
This example from Urban Company shows how matte paint absorbs the light and gloss paint bounces it around.
Don’t forget the ceilings
There are 2 ways that you can make your ceilings seem taller.
The first is via a trick I discussed in another blog post which is to bring the colour of your ceiling down onto your wall by a few inches. It changes the perceived height of the ceiling and makes it feel higher than it actually is.
Bringing the colour of the ceiling down onto the walls makes it seem higher.
The second is to paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls. This feels like quite a brave move, but it’ll blur the line between where the wall ends and the ceiling starts, thus making the space feel taller.
By painting the ceiling the same colour as the walls, the height of the walls isn’t as obvious and they appear taller.
@theknottedtouch has painted her ceiling dark as well as the walls
Other paint tricks
Reducing visual clutter in a room is an easy way to make it look larger. This applies to built in things like shelves, cabinets and wardrobes.
If you paint these the same colour as the walls, there’ll be less contrast between them and the walls so that it will be perceived as one continuous space; which ultimately makes a room feel larger.
You can also use similar colours in your furniture and soft furnishings if you want to take this a step further.
A side by side example of a piece of furniture painted the same colour as the wall vs not. It blends into the wall in the image on the right, making the room feel larger.
The dresser painted the same colour as the wall makes it take up less space visually in this example. My Attic.
So, using the techniques I’ve discussed there are a number of ways that you can make a small room feel bigger. Below is a side by side example which combines them all:
Bringing the colour up to the ceiling
Using a dark colour
Using a cool toned colour
Painting the large furniture the same colour as the wall
The room on the right seems larger, and the only thing that’s changed is the paint.
Ultimately, the most important thing is that you love your home. If you want to ignore all of the “rules” then you do you; you paint that tiny room bright orange!
However - if you are trying to make a space look bigger, then I hope this has been helpful, and I hope I’ve encouraged you to try colours you might previously have thought were out of bounds.
If you’d like my help with your next project, check out my services to see how we can work together. If you’ve enjoyed this blog, don’t forget to subscribe below to receive my new post in your inbox every Sunday.
