How do you design a space? Maybe you’re a fan of the minimalist movement, or maybe you love a retro look, or maybe you like to mix and match until you’re satisfied? And all three of these design styles are perfectly fine to make use of! However, when you start to realize that your home looks a bit dark and dim and small, thanks to some cardinal mistakes that all three design schools can make, some change needs to be implemented.
Your home looked cozy and comfortable in winter, and now it’s time to switch things around again to really open up that space and give your home a new lease of life! And hey, seeing as the summer is in full swing, why not use it as an excuse to finally switch out those lampshades and finally put a potted plant on every shelf?! And with that in mind, here are the best design tricks for making your home look more spacious and bright.
Photo by Alina Vilchenko from Pexels
Update Your Furniture
How long has it been since you last shopped for furniture? Has your sofa become a bit dusty and thready in recent years? Or maybe that dining table has quite a few more scuff marks than it needs to? If the answer to these questions are less than favorable, it’s time to go shopping for some more modern furniture!
After all, the chairs you sit on and the sideboard you keep your keys are a big part of your room’s disposition. And if they look out of date or like they haven’t been reupholstered since the 70s, it’s time to swap a few pieces out for a more contemporary look. Even if you don’t want to get rid of the older, more vintage pieces, you can mix and match here just fine.
It doesn’t matter what kind of sofa you’re sitting on, or the price you pay for it – it simply needs to be the right size and color. Go for a two or three tone palette if you want to add a bit more dimension to your room; mixing light wood tones and white, for example, or mixing dark mahogany with a more orange tone elsewhere. And a lot of color combinations can work, especially when it comes to redecorating your walls too!
Try a New Color on the Walls
The way you paint and/or decorate your walls does a lot for your space perception! It’s one of the best ways to help your home look a lot more bright, and for a variety of reasons. And not only that, but repainting or putting up new wallpaper is one of the simplest and easiest jobs for making a home look ten times different, and they can take advantage of your natural light setup as well.
For example, if you have sheer curtains or blinds, your rooms are going to have a lot more sun exposure than those with thick or blackout curtains, and that means you need to think about the colors you use here. For a darker room, whites and light sandy colors are best, and for those with a lot of windows (or east/south facing), light blues, greys, greens, and even a touch of yellow really helps to emphasize the airy and bright atmosphere you’re going for here.
Even wallpaper can reflect light in a constructive way, especially if the material is less matte and more glossy. With this in mind, maybe you should check out these wallpapers to start with? You’ll have a creative and beautiful pattern on the wall, and you’ll still have that light and bright color you were looking for!
Adopt ‘Green’ Living
There are many ways that living a green lifestyle can make your home feel lighter and brighter and more like summer, simply because it incorporates natural hues and elements, as well as space-saving ways to keep your home environmentally friendly. And one of the simplest things you can do to add a touch of green living to your home is by buying a lot more potted plants!
If you’ve got a gap on the shelf, or a space behind the sofa and near the window, and even if you’ve got a windowless bathroom with a clear counter, a potted plant is always a great addition to this spare space. They’re good for keeping the air clean, and making the room look more ‘lived in’ without adding clutter.
Not to mention just how good they are for your mental health as well! Humans love being in nature, and incorporating that idea into your home is a fine way to embrace the summer feeling all year long.
Change Your Lighting Setup
The places where your lights sit or hang make a huge difference on how your rooms will be perceived! A big hanging lamp dangling down from the ceiling is a great statement piece, and will work wonders in the dining room, but should a similar principle be applied to a living room or bedroom? Only if you particularly want it there; these rooms are otherwise much more intimate, and deserve to have a lighting setup that complements that.
Not to mention just how creative and interesting some table lamp designs are! They can add a lot of personality to an otherwise plain looking room, and a table lamp really helps a room’s design to feel a lot more significant. And if you want more of a summer feeling in any of your spaces, why not buy a lamp that takes inspiration from the kind of paper lanterns you’d hang in an outside gazebo?
Always Have a Mirror Ready
Mirrors are a staple of room design. They help a room feel a lot bigger and a lot more bright when placed in the right areas, simply thanks to their reflective power. And considering how useful they are as a household element, it won’t be a hardship to put more mirrors up around your house!
When deciding where to place mirrors, focus on the smaller, less significant parts of your home. Maybe the small hallway you step into after you come through the front door, or maybe the cupboard or small toilet under the stairs, and definitely the closet you’ve got in your bedroom! Big mirrors can add a lot to a space, but so do small mirrors; place these up and down a staircase, in between family photos, and your whole hallway will be given a face lift.
Rugs Make the Space Look Less Empty
Just because a room looks bright doesn’t mean it’s empty as well. After all, making a space look more summer-like goes a long way to making your home feel bigger than it is, but you shouldn’t forget about the highlights either. And these can be small and easy; indeed, the best way to dress up too much of a ‘negative’ space is to throw down a rug.
The rug needs to be the right size, and the right color – you’ll want a light tone and a bold hue for best results. And it should never be larger than the space you want to fit it in. Try not to push some of it under the sofa, for example.
Clean Up Some of That Clutter
Finally, maybe it’s time to give your home a once over? A bit of clutter here and there is just fine, seeing as you live in your home and have multiple people living with you, but an overrun of the stuff isn’t great for your space perception. You need to have the right amount of ‘negative’ space to help complement the amount of decoration you’ve done, and we all love a tidy room, don’t we?
A clear yet purposed coffee table, acting as a focal point in your living room, is always going to look good. Similarly, clear bedside tables help to bring a bedroom together and make it a comfortable place to sleep. And we don’t want this clutter coming back either!
Why not look into small and private storage solutions for ensuring your new, clean rooms stay that way? Boxes under the sofa, or installing doors on the bookshelf to create a new cabinet, are both easy and budget friendly ways to make your space much more useful.
Does Your Home Have Enough of a Summer Vibe?
If you want a more bright and airy home to live in, you’re going to need to be clever about the way you decorate. All homes are built to let the sun in and keep the rest of the weather out, so you’ve just got to take advantage of this.
So maybe it’s time to put a mirror up, or repaint the walls, or make sure your lighting is appropriate for the room you’re sitting in, and never underestimate the power of simply decluttering a space! There’s a lot you can do to help a home feel more happy and sunny, and it all starts with tips like those above.
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