How to Use Paint Colors to Make Your Small Apartment or Home Bigger

How to Use Paint Colors for Small Homes & Apartments

Choosing the right paint colors is the best design decision you can use in a small apartment or home. You many think small rooms limit design ideas, but design is more about creating an optical illusion to make spaces feel lighter, bigger, grander than they really are.

The paint colors you choose will add or subtract light, so its important to consider the room’s natural light, and adjust room lighting sources to get the full benefit of your paint color decisions.

By cleverly choosing colors, as well as the color and style of your furniture, you can make your rooms look more spacious and feel more comfortable.

Here are 5 paint color techniques you can use to make your rooms look and feel larger.

5 Paint Color Techniques for Small Spaces

Single Paint Color Themes

Using a single color theme makes rooms feel bigger. Blurring the line between rooms tricks the eye into thinking the rooms are bigger. Without clear color borders, your eye find it difficult to work out where wall edges and corners begin and end. This is a simple way to create larger rooms in a seamless and elegant way.

This works best in open spaces, but it can also be used when the rooms are in the same line of sight.

For some, the concern is monochromatic rooms feel boring. By carefully creating focal points and zones within rooms, will make your rooms feel bigger and more than adequate.

If it still feels dull, pair your rooms; for instance, kitchen and dining room, living room and hallway and paint each pair a different paint color. You’ll know which two rooms to pair together from the natural flow and layout of your home. Your color choices shouldn’t be wildly different or you will create rooms that feel disjointed.

Be Bold

Decorating with bold colors makes rooms feel lively and more vibrant. Creating focal points or features takes your attention away from the size of the room, to focus instead on the more interesting bold color features. If you have large areas to paint, using one of the many top paint sprayers, will help you get the job done faster. This is particularly true for walls and kitchen cabinets.

If your rooms are very small, then there is an important rule to follow when choosing bright colors – pick one color and stick to it! Too many colors, even noticeable shades, can make your home feel disjointed and messy.

Choosing a bold accessory as the focus of the room, while the rest of the room design remains traditional, even modest, magnifies the differences for full impact.

Solid Colors

Using solid colors on your wall, adds depth, and looks less two dimensional; making rooms feel bigger. The lack of depth is particularly noticeable when the room is white or beige and coupled with poor lighting. Walls feel flat and lack luster. Use different techniques to break up the color like this below.

Layering glazes of color on your walls is one way to add depth. Using two or more solid combinations is another. For instance, a blue wall with a red opening is dramatic and effective. When experimenting with this method, always remember to keep brushes clean and separate; use acetone to keep the brushes clean and prevent shades from mixing. Use color combinations that blend well with your furniture.

Low Ceilings

Low ceilings can make your home or apartment feel oppressive even if the rooms are wide enough. Hiding this design feature needs a completely different strategy.

Paint the ceiling in lighter and glossier paint in white, beige, light blue or yellows. Make sure you move your curtain rails close to the ceiling.

Adding vertical stripes and patterns on the walls and furniture distracts your eye to the middle of the room and not the ceiling.

Or paint your ceiling a light blue, going down the walls 4 inches to make ceiling look deeper and higher.

The Element of Surprise

Introducing the element of surprise, makes a room much more interesting. The key is to find ways to use these accents; and depends on your paint color selections, furniture, room layout and architectural features.

This can come from highlighting features in a room, such as a radiator by turning them into pieces of art décor. You can paint your radiator bright orange, metallic gray or even create a sideboard by boxing them in.

You want the eye to stay interested, moving from point to point, taking as long as possible to get to its final destination; the back wall.

The element of surprise can come from small things, like painting or wallpapering the inside of a book case, or using tiles to create interest where you least expect it.

Having a small apartment or home has its advantages, and if decorated with care, the size issues become practically unnoticeable.