Design & Decorating: Expansive Thinking --- From tall built-ins to allover wallpaper, five unconventional ways to make small rooms look bigger

"When it comes to decorating a small space, conventional wisdom prescribes a lot of dictates, from "avoid saturated colors and prints" to "keep the furniture Lilliputian." But these seemingly intuitive rules often come "at a sacrifice to your self-expression," said San Francisco architect and designer Anand Sheth.

He's a fan of alternative, "unconventional" strategies that can make a little room look bigger "while prioritizing personality and character." Here, five counterintuitive tips from Sheth and other pros.

Build Out With Built-Ins

Alissa Johnson, a designer in Chicago, swears by fitted millwork -- say, built-in shelves or cabinets that go to the ceiling. By taking advantage of vertical space and squeezing in storage, "built-ins reduce visual clutter and create a more open, streamlined look." They also "bring the eye up and make the room feel and appear taller," she said.

Let Go of Eggshell White

Designers beg you to step away from blanched walls in predictable finishes, instead recommending a variety of other approaches. Tanner Morgan of Morgan Madison Design in Scottsdale, Ariz., contends that colorful, high-gloss lacquer "creates a sense of airiness with its reflective quality." For her part, Manhattan designer Tara McCauley favors a total lack of luster. "Painting a room in a darker, cool-toned matte can make it feel like the walls are receding," she said.

Sheth has been experimenting with color blocking to trick the eye. In his San Francisco home, he painted the bottom half of his living room wall a warm red, which blends with the wood floor and makes the footprint appear larger. "[It] provides breathing room at eye level and critical depth down below," he said.

As for the accepted wisdom that white ceilings convey airiness, Krista Nye Nicholas of Cloth & Kind in Ann Arbor, Mich., disagrees. "Painting the ceiling the same color as the walls draws your eyes up and creates the illusion of higher ceilings," she said.

Embrace Diminutive Patterns

Though some people are convinced busy patterning yields claustrophobic quarters, Austin, Texas, designer Sarah Stacey believes a small-scale, simple wallpaper motif can have the opposite effect. In an attic bedroom in Fredericksburg, Texas, Stacey minimized the angle changes of the ceiling and walls with a petite print to visually enlarge the space. "The wallpaper all blends together," she said.

Don't Stick With Wee Pieces

"A space feels biggest when it's the most useful," said Sheth. "A great seating arrangement where you can lounge and lie down serves a lot better than small furniture." Similarly, go big with the rug. A puny one makes a space seem more cluttered and shrunken, says Johnson. Ditto large plants, says Joseph Carline of Kligerman Architecture & Design in Manhattan. "They add verticality and create a more dynamic and volumetric space, engaging that dead corner that we all have," he said.

Float Your Furniture

Whether a room feels colossal or crammed often depends on the placement of your furniture. "We always see people try to put most of their furniture against walls because it leaves an open space in the middle," said Nicholas. But this arrangement has the unintended effect of compacting the room by overemphasizing walls. "Breathing room around the perimeter of the furnishings, and being able to completely walk around them, will make the space feel roomier."" [1]

1.  OFF DUTY --- Design & Decorating: Expansive Thinking --- From tall built-ins to allover wallpaper, five unconventional ways to make small rooms look bigger. Mulvey, Kelsey.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 29 June 2024: D.10.