If your house is on the smaller side, you may be wondering if there are rules you should follow in these spaces. Smaller rooms come with their own set of design challenges, and we've collated the main guidelines that you should be following to make the space feel welcoming.
Don't worry – we won't be telling you all the walls need to be white and all the furniture tiny. We want to maximize the space we have to work with, without compromising on going for items you love.
Mistake #1: Buying furniture that is too small or too large
The too-large furniture point might make perfect sense to you, but too-small may come as a surprise. Hear us out, the furniture needs to be proportional to the room. So while smaller furniture is definitely more appropriate for smaller rooms, buying the smallest furniture you can find will also not do the room any favours. For lack of a better metaphor, you don't want the small room to look like it's fit for a gnome.
Measure out your furniture items in the room with a measuring & masking tape, and see how it works proportionally. Google is your best friend here. Look up how big your sofa should be in proportion to the room, how much space around your dining room you need for chairs, so on and so forth.
Generally speaking, furniture is often made for larger rooms, so you will need to shop around and see what is available in styles you like that is also not going to look enormous in the room.
Mistake #2: Using a tiny rug
Repeat after us: The rug must be larger than the furniture that sits on it. No exceptions, especially in a smaller room. Using a small rug will dwarf the room even more visually.
If you want to do a sofa, occasional chair & coffee table situation, the furniture must fit on the rug with room to spare.
Nothing will make a room look more chaotic and unintentionally cluttered than a tiny rug.
Mistake #3: Pushing all furniture up against walls
You might think that if you place all the furniture on the outskirts, the space in the middle will make the room feel larger. However, having all your furniture up against walls will disturb the flow of the room.
You want to create visual zones within the room through furniture placements, and circulation space around the zones. If you place everything against walls, you'll end up with one massive circulation space that'll probably feel like an LA highway, and some "island" zones around the room. It won't feel welcoming, inviting or intentional.
If possible (and in the really small spaces we appreciate this won't always be possible), keep your sitting furniture away from walls to create a pleasant flow.
Console tables, entertainment units & TV's, sideboards and so on always go to a wall. But the corresponding sitting furniture ideally should sit away from the wall, if there is enough room for that,
Mistake #4: Using too much dark wall colours (maybe)
The common rules from back in the day used to be that "if you have a small space, make your walls white to make the space feel larger". There is a plain, indisputable truth to this - dark colours do close a space up. Regardless of trends or personal preferences, this is simple colour theory that will always hold true.
However, in saying that, this is not always a bad thing.
Firstly, if you like you can absolutely lean into this. Dark colours and make the space feel cosy, secluded. Small spaces decorated well can feel like really comforting and snug, why shouldn't you embrace that?
You can also use isolated pops of dark colours, as well as bright colours, for visual impact. If you want to avoid closing a space up and making it feel smaller, keep the dark colours to a small wall or two.
Of course if you want to make the room feel as large as possible - stick to lighter shades.
Mistake #5: Not utilizing mirrors to open the space up
Mirrors are your best friend in small spaces. But large mirrors are the key here, not small ones. Small mirrors will shrink the space up even more.
Mirrors bounce light of themselves, which visually makes the space feel much larger than it actually is. Placing a large mirror opposite a window or sliding door will bring in a lot of extra light into the room, and make the space feel much more open.
Mistake #6: Having inappropriate lighting in the room
Lighting in a space is one of the most crucial elements to how the room feels. It can completely transform a room.
Artificial light can visually change dimensions of a space depending on how it's positioned. It can bring emphasis to areas you want the eye to follow, it can shrink or open up an area of the room, it can add depth and dimension to a specific zone or it can take away from a zone.
If you have a smaller space, you may opt for dimmable wall lights instead of table lamps to save the horizontal space. Or, instead of a larger floor lamp, you may opt for an overhang floor lamp with a smaller base that can fit under your furniture to again reduce the footprint of the light.
Be careful not to shrink the space up with ceiling pendants that are too low as well. If there isn't a dining table, island bench or similar surface under a statement light, you want a minimum of ~2.2m clearance from the floor to the light fixture. The final dimensions depend on the ceiling height, but with a standard 2.4m ceiling you really only have 20cm to play with before the space will feel cluttered from the top.
All that is all, these are all our interior design tips for smaller spaces. Of course, feel free to do whatever you like (we don't have to tell you that!), this is just a collection of the best practical advice. Rules are made to be broken, as always!
