Small Space Styling Tips

Small space styling tips. Ideas to get the maximum comfort out of EVERY single room.

We don’t live in a tiny house but our home isn’t a McMansion either. Our home is 2100 square feet, which isn’t small; however, the scale of some of our rooms is small. Many retail stores carry over-sized furniture that is just too big for our smaller scale rooms. Our living room is long and narrow. The sunroom and playroom are narrow. All our bedrooms are smaller than average size, with the exception of our kids’ bedroom (original master bedroom).

I’ve become an expert in making these rooms feel cozy and spacious. Want to know some of my tricks?

Brighten and Lighten Rooms with White Paint

White paint works wonders. Painting walls white, not only made our dark woodwork feel richer, it also brightened up our rooms. I love Mascarpone and Simply White by Benjamin Moore. In fact, I love Simply White so much I have it in three rooms!

Larger Couches in Small Spaces Makes the Room Feel Bigger

We opted for a large leather couch in the playroom. Prior to this we had a small loveseat which made this room feel even smaller. The large couch takes up so much room that it actually makes the room seem bigger.

Oh, the walls in here are Simply White, by the way 😉

Painted Floors Create the Illusion of Space

We painted the floors in our sunroom and pool house at the beginning of summer and I was surprised just how much this did for each space! The sunroom is a very bright room, as it has three walls of windows but the white floor made it even brighter. It makes the room feel so much bigger.

Slipcovered Furniture Can Make Space Feel Warm and Cozy

I’m a huge fan of slipcovers (in fact I’m washing my sectional slipcover today). Having white slipcovers makes both our dining room and living area feel spacious. I can change up the look from season to season simply by swapping out cushions and plants.

Above is our dining room for fall, click HERE. Below is our living room, see HERE.

This was our living room last fall, I’ll be sharing some new fall ideas soon.

Oh, I often get questions about keeping white slipcovers clean, click HERE to read all about that post.

Faux Paneling to Create Height

To create the illusion of height, we added faux board and batten to our bedroom.

We also added wide plank flooring – the planks on the walls gave the illusion of vertical height and wide planks on the floor gave the illusion of a wider room.

We love our room so much, and find it so restful, that we haven’t made any changes since doing it over two years ago. You can read more about the room makeover HERE.

Make Rooms Cozy with Dark, Saturated Hues

Some rooms call for a cozy touch, think of libraries, home offices, or game rooms. I would also throw dens and breakfast nooks into this category. Some rooms are small so by painting the room a dark color you create a cozy space. This is my husband’s office and we painted the walls the most beautiful blue / green. It’s called Seraphinite by Benjamin Moore and it feels like velvet. You can read more about this space HERE and HERE.

It really is amazing, how much color can affect a room. Another great dark hue I just used in a client’s space is Sherwood Forest. It is the prettiest deep green, but so luminous and looks amazing with dark woodwork.

Shiplap Walls make a space feel cozy and spacious

This was my she shed a few years ago. You can see the full post HERE. This is actually a 8 x 10 shed we redid with the Home Depot. You can see the full reveal HERE and our tips for installing shiplap HERE.

Shiplap visually makes the space feel bigger. An “on trend” look is painting shiplap in different hues, like black or dark gray, and also hanging it vertically rather than horizontally.

Add Built Ins

Built in seating and storage space are perfect for tight areas, like small kitchens, breakfast nooks, or outdoor dwellings. We actually converted the she shed to a pool house this summer. In order to add functional space we created built in seating and a bar area.

Now we have function and the feeling of a large, resort-like space in an 8 x 10 shed.

You can see the pool house reveal HERE and the DIYs for the bench and counter HERE and HERE.

Another trick to give small spaces the illusion of more room is less clutter. I’m working on this one, but got rid of a bunch of things this weekend. Less stuff means more room for comfort and style.

I hope this was helpful in giving you some ideas on how to make small spaces feel bigger or more cozy. What are some of your favorite ways to make a big impact in a small space?