No matter what floor plan or style of architecture, it seems like every house has that one room that looks too small no matter how it is decorated. You can rearrange the furniture, paint the walls, add some mirrors or even have bright and colorful paintings, but no matter what, it still looks and feels too small.
Make A Small Room Look Bigger
The good news is there is a solution to this all-too-common scenario that really does make a room look bigger: the right flooring. Picking the right flooring for a smaller room in your home can make all the difference between that overall impression of too small and just right. Here are several tricks for choosing flooring that will make any room look and feel more spacious.
1. Choose Darker Color Tones
Many people believe that brighter means bigger when it comes to decorating. That’s a pretty common misconception when it comes to
flooring. The real deal is this: dark flooring in combination with the right wall color actually gives the room a more expansive look. Use a cooler color tone for the walls, ceiling, trim, and moulding, then select a darker toned carpet,
hardwood,
laminate in Brazilian cherry, walnut, or oak.
2. Always Place Flooring Diagonally
Whether it’s a carpet pattern or hardwood, when you lay it out diagonally it immediately creates an impression of greater size in a room. Why? It’s something of an optical illusion: the widest part of the pattern is facing you as soon as you enter the room, which tricks your eyes and brain into seeing the space as larger than it actually is. The diagonal pattern rule applies to every type of flooring, from carpet to natural stone tiles.
3. Use Larger Tiles
The best flooring for smaller spaces should always use the biggest tiles or widest planks possible. When the flooring itself looks larger, it creates a greater impression of size as you enter the room. If you are installing vinyl tiles, the best choices are 16, 18, or 24-inch size rather than standard square foot tiles. One way you can enhance this visual effect with
tiles is to install your tiling with rectified edges and keep the grout in between to a minimum.
4. Use Large Patterned Carpet Tiles
Not a fan of laminate flooring or hardwood? If you must install carpeting in a room due to preference or budget constraints, select large patterned carpet tiles rather than wall-to-wall carpeting. Placing these larger carpet tiles on a diagonal with the widest part of the pattern facing the door, gives a much larger impression of square footage despite the fact that you have just increased the size of your carpet tiles and not the actual dimensions of the room.
6. Keep Storage Off the Floor to Make it More Visible
Every room needs some form of storage space, whether it is for books and papers or decorations and artwork. An excellent way to make a room appear larger is to install shallow shelving on the
walls to free up floor space that would otherwise be occupied by bookcases or clothes dressers. Try to pick shelving that is no more than 30 cm. deep. Placing a bed or seating in a recess surrounded by shelving also helps to free up floor space and allow you to project the impression of a larger room.
7. Make Flooring Consistent Throughout Your Home
When you use a consistent style between all adjacent rooms in your home, it creates an overall impression of greater space than the actual square footage of each space. Choose the same designs for patterned flooring throughout the house, and if you need to change flooring materials (for example, when tiling a bathroom or kitchen floor), make certain you choose complementary colors. Lighter wall-to-wall carpeting is best in areas you want carpeting in your home, but bear in mind that carpeted floors require more maintenance than laminate or newer hardwoods.
Conclusion
Picking flooring that expands the visual impression of each room can go a long way in making individual rooms look much more spacious without the need for demolition and expansion.
Consulting with a flooring specialist when renovating or redesigning rooms in your home is always a good idea, and be sure to look at as many options as possible in order to get the look you want, not the look you can live with. With just a little planning and forethought though, it is very easy to expand the look of any room in your home.
For more information on flooring options,
contact Carpet To Go today!
