How To Increase the Size of Any Room on a Budget

Now that we’re all spending a lot of time at home, rooms that once felt proportionate now feel smaller than before. Whether it’s because the amount of time we spend in them has significantly increased over the past year, or because our spaces are having to accommodate more functions now than ever before, many of us are yearning for ways to make our spaces feel bigger. 

Here are a few easy and budget-friendly tips for making any room in your house feel larger, even if a full-scale home expansion or remodel isn’t in your immediate future.

Expanding Small Bathrooms

In bathrooms with limited space, large-format tile is your friend. Because grout lines are thinner and fewer and the neutral space between them is larger, slightly oversized tiles can give the impression of expanded space. Choose any shape you like; the larger and more neutral, the better.

Other optic-enhancing design choices include installing a clear or opaque shower curtain instead of a busy patterned or dense solid one and increasing the size of your vanity mirror to give the illusion of more space. Lastly, organization in inherently small spaces such as bathrooms is key. Give all of your necessary bathroom clutter its own place out of sight to give your bathroom a more spacious feel.

Increasing Kitchen Space

If limited space is the issue in your kitchen, maximizing existing storage space is a must. Clutter is a notorious spaciousness-killer, so finding practical storage solutions that help you clear your counter space will help you make huge strides toward making your kitchen feel larger. Consider adding a faux-island to spruce up the layout of your kitchen and add valuable countertop and storage space. Commissioning a nearby closet for storing dry pantry goods or other less-used kitchen items can help you free up valuable space as well.

Once you’ve maxed out your storage and counter space, use light, neutral colors to give the impression of more space in your kitchen design. Painting your walls with a fresh light color or giving old dark kitchen cabinets a lighter finish can open and brighten your space immensely. 

Enlarging the Living Room

Tight living quarters can perpetuate the very feelings of anxiety or restlessness that they should help quell. If you’re not ready to completely remodel and expand your current living space, consider rearranging the room to give the illusion of more space. Though it seems counter-intuitive, leaving some space between the wall and furniture pieces in a smaller room can actually give the impression of more space – not less. Pull your furniture away from the walls, and complement your furniture layout with an appropriately-sized area rug. To give the illusion of more height or a raised ceiling, frame your windows with light floor-to-ceiling drapes. 

Size-Maximizing Tips for Any Space

No matter the space you’re trying to renovate and expand, there are a few general rules of thumb that can make a smaller space feel like a larger one. You should never shy away from using a color that makes you happy, but where giving the illusion of more space is concerned, a palette of light neutral colors is your best bet. Additionally, choosing varying shades of the same color can help project a sense of unity throughout your space, which tricks the mind into thinking that it’s larger than it really is.

The second major tenant of spaciousness is eliminating clutter. Where lots of small objects and competing patterns abound, the eye is bound to interpret the space as being smaller than it could otherwise appear. Invest in storage options that help you organize your belongings and choose a handful of larger decor pieces over an army of smaller ones to give a more expansive impression.

Hopefully, these budget-friendly options get you started, but nothing beats designing and building exactly the space you need to make your family feel at home. Ready to get started on your dream renovation? Contact us about bringing your vision to life.

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With years of experience in both commercial construction and residential construction, Alpha Omega Contractors is your go-to construction company in Southern California. Our experts take on projects ranging from residential kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, and home renovations to commercial construction upgrades and improvements. As a trusted Orange County contractor and Los Angeles County contractor, we help bring your home remodel wish list and home renovation dreams to life. Whether you need help with a residential floor plan or an upgrade to your medical office or retail space, our team of general contractors, designers, and design-build experts will collaborate with you from the initial stages of pre-construction through to putting the finishing touches on your dream remodel project on time and within budget.

Learn more about how to transform your house into your dream home.