How to Make a Small Room Look Bigger

Wondering how to make small rooms in your home feel more spacious? These nine tips will help you make any room look bigger!

You may not have realized it, but we've lived in some pretty tiny homes throughout our 20-year marriage. Our first home was almost 1,000 square feet, and it's still one of my favorite homes we've ever lived in. And even though our current home is much, much larger, we still have some small spaces in this home, too.

So, over the years, I've discovered plenty of tricks to make a small room look bigger! There are many, including light colors, window treatments, and mirrors, to make a small bedroom look bigger or a small family room feel open and expansive. It's your living space; the most important thing is that even a tiny space feels like home. So, let's dive into the tips!

9 Tips to Make a Small Room Look Bigger

Tip 1: Hang Your Curtains as High as You Can

Y'all, this is SO IMPORTANT for making any room look larger. And frankly, I think it looks better even in rooms that are plenty big. Instead of hanging your curtains at the top of your window frame, you want to hang your curtain rod as high as you can–– preferably up to the ceiling.

This curtain trick is something we have done in all of our rooms for years. It's especially helpful in small bedrooms since, by definition, a bedroom has four walls and is closed off from other rooms. So, if you've ever wondered how to make a small bedroom look bigger, this curtain trick will help so much! You can see that in our primary bedroom, we hung our curtains as close to the crown molding as possible, and it really creates the illusion of a bigger room.

A beautiful bedroom in pale greens and beige displaying green curtains hung high to make the small room look bigger.

In Attley's room, we were reusing these DIY tassel curtains from our last home, so we were working with a set curtain length. I hung them as high as I possibly could while still having them touch the floor. You DO want the bottom of your curtains to touch the floor to create the feeling of openness (we don't want high-water curtains).

A bright colorful tween girl's bedroom with high white tasseled curtains that make a small room look bigger.

Another example below shows how Elsie used this method in her primary bathroom, as shown on A Beautiful Mess. This simple hack will help elongate the room height and make a small space feel taller than it is. Be sure to buy the correct curtain length because you want them to hang to the floor.

Floor to ceiling curtains frame a sunny window against the back wall of a long primary bathroom. Photo courtesy of "A Beautiful Mess."

We've also used this curtain-hanging trick in our old and current dining rooms. Even though neither of our dining rooms is particularly small, they aren't huge either. And you can see how the curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor, making both rooms look bigger and creating the feeling of high ceilings. Seriously, this trick works every time!

Floor to ceiling curtains hang on the side wall in a blue dining room create the illusion of a bigger room.

A dining room with blue walls and chairs, a bulbous chandelier, and sheer white floor to ceiling curtains over the glass doors.

Tip 2: Choose Furniture With Visible Legs

Another way to make a small bedroom look bigger is to choose furniture pieces with legs. This creates an airy, open feel in a small bedroom (or any room, actually). Not every piece needs to have legs, but try to have at least one piece with some height, whether it's your nightstand, dresser, or bed.

We chose a simple platform bed for our small guest room. Even a peek of leg under the bed and dresser makes the rest of the room look bigger.

A dog on a bed with exposed legs and a headboard that reads, "be our guest." Colorful abstract art hangs on the wall.

And the DIY-painted dresser also has legs! These “leggy” choices make the small bedroom feel slightly less crowded and heavy, creating the illusion of more space.

A smaller bedroom often has the bed as the main focal point. By highlighting the openness of these larger pieces (like the legs), it feels like you have less furniture. Even smaller bedrooms can handle vivid and bold colors if there is open space near the floor.

A purple dresser next to a pink bed and bright window. The furniture has legs to make a small room look bigger.

Tip 3: Lighten Up Your Color Scheme

A lot should go into choosing paint colors for your home! You will seriously be amazed at the dramatic transformation you can make by lifting a room's color palette. Dark colors can be wonderful, but they tend to make rooms look smaller because they absorb light instead of reflecting it.

Our foyer had medium beige walls when we moved in. By painting the walls white and choosing some colorful artwork, the space looks SO MUCH lighter and brighter. Contrast that with the dark navy color we chose for our dining room, which makes our large dining room feel cozier.

An empty hardwood floor room has a wide arch into an empty hallway.

A dining room with deep blue walls, white shiplap, and a dining table. An arch into the hallways shows artwork and a credenza.

In the powder room makeover of our old house, the light color on the walls made the small powder room feel much bigger and brighter, especially since there was no window or natural light in the powder room. A tiny bathroom can get a boost from cool color and good lighting (even if there's no window to be had).

A bathroom with a large painted rainbow and blue honeycomb-patterned floor.

Tip 4: Add an Accent Wall

Adding an accent wall is a great way to make a room feel larger. People often choose a monochromatic color scheme for small rooms, but feature walls are an effective way to create visual interest in the entire room.

One of the many things Chelsea from Making Manzanita did during her farmhouse bathroom renovation was to add a simple faux shiplap wall behind the toilet. By immediately giving the eye something interesting to focus on, you are distracted from the relatively small bathroom. You can see she also lightened up the color scheme and replaced the toilet with a slightly higher one, again making the room feel a bit taller (just like that “hanging the curtains higher” trick!). Shelving helps the narrow room look bigger against the white walls, too.

A side by side picture of before and after toilet updates. The simple white small toilet area on the left has been dressed up with white tile and wooden shelves holding candles and plants above the toilet in the after picture.

Tip 5: Emphasize and Increase Natural Light

We added skylights to our old primary bedroom, and the natural light was amazing! But skylights aren't an option for many people (and they certainly aren't the most budget-friendly option). Fear not!

There are plenty of other ways to emphasize and increase the limited natural light your room receives. One of the easiest changes you can make is ditching any dated blinds or window shutters and letting the natural light in! Emphasizing and increasing the amount of natural light makes a huge difference in making a small room feel bigger.

Just look at what a big difference removing those blinds made in our old laundry room. We also painted the walls white and added a lighter color floor, making a remarkable impact.

A first-floor laundry room is darker and looks smaller with windows covered by old blinds.

A fresh laundry room without blinds on the windows is bright and cheery with white walls and deep green cabinets. More sunlight is
how to make a small room look bigger.

Tip 6: Incorporate Large-Scale Art or a Wall Mural

Statement art is another great way to make a room feel larger. Statement art is just how it sounds: large art that really makes a statement in the room. It gives the eye somewhere to focus; hopefully, the art is interesting and appealing.

Many people assume that small rooms should be filled with small artwork, but this actually makes a small space feel smaller! You can see how I use a couple of large art pieces in Avery's small bedroom to make it look larger. I've used art for a similar effect throughout the house.

A large picture of horses and a large butterfly piece of art make a girl's small room look bigger.

Another trick for making a small room look bigger is to add a mural! We added a mural to Attley's small bedroom in our old house, and it made it look so much bigger! I think it's because the different colors draw your attention to it and flow from the floor to the ceiling. A mural is a great idea for rooms that could benefit from a little pop of personality. It's one of those creative ways to add visual oomph.

A tween girl's bedroom has a pink bedframe and a large mural of a fox and birds.

Tip 7: Incorporate a Mirror

Another tried-and-true trick to make a room feel larger is to use mirrors. Mirrors help reflect light sources around a room, which helps by boosting the amount of natural light in the space. Plus, there's something about the reflection in the mirror and seeing “more” room that truly makes an impact and gives a roomier feel. It's the easy way to make a small living room look ample or hide the lack of space.

A round mirror reflects the decorative touches in a cheerful pink and white bathroom. — Source: Tips for a Budget Bathroom Makeover

Try hanging a mirror in a room that reflects an accent wall or an interesting piece of art. The added bonus of using a mirror in a small room is that it's also functional–especially in the bathroom, bedroom, or near the entryway.

Tip 8: Add Smart Storage

It’s no surprise that if there is less clutter in a room, it will definitely feel larger. One of the best small room ideas is to include ingenious options that provide lots of storage without taking up a ton of floor space. Traditional storage units can break up a space, but built-in storage (or pieces that appear built-in) create a clear path.

We added a window seat with storage in Attley's old room, which created so much storage for books and other little girl stuff. Other great ideas for innovative storage solutions that are so important, especially for smaller homes, include back door storage, a full wall of craft room storage, and a bench with hidden storage for games.

A young girl sits on a window seat hugging a stuffed animal. A crafted "A" hangs above her head and her room is colorful and bright.

Tip 9: Use Vertical Space to Free up Floor Space

Vertical space is one of the best ways to wrangle different things with plenty of storage when dealing with a small room. Instead of cramming it full of pieces of furniture, think about using as many vertical options as possible. You might not have much floor space, but by using the walls right up to the ceiling, you use the space you have more efficiently while drawing the eye upwards, again making the room seem larger.

One of the best things you can add is built-in furniture, like we did with these built-in bunk beds in Avery's old room. Though she had a small bedroom, it included TWO closets. So we took over one of the closets to create these built-in bunk beds for her. They freed up a ton of floor space AND added some storage for books and stuffed animals, which was a total bonus.

Built-in white bunkbeds with a small white ladder and built-in book alcoves make a small room look bigger, even in a tween girl's room.

In Attley's old room, we transformed a weird and useless niche created by the fireplace chimney into a functional space by building in a desk and floating shelves.

An awkward space created by a hidden chimney has white built-in floating shelves and a built-in desk between a mural and a white bed.

If you're dealing with a small home, I'm sure you are constantly thinking about how to make a small room look bigger. Even if you don't have a small home, you can still benefit by trying these design goals to make a room feel bigger. They will work instant magic, and you will be shocked at how big your space feels! Want more great interior design tips from Kaleidoscope Living?