Don’t let a small room keep you from thinking big. With the proper flooring, a small room can easily appear larger. Color schemes, curtains and furniture arrangement are amongst some of the strategies to make a small room feel more spacious. There are a few ways to lay a floor that can prevent those walls from feeling like they’re closing in. Here’s a few tips.
Go Big
The more visual elements on your floor, the smaller the room will appear. Narrow planks, plenty of seams and grout lines will make the floor look busy which in turn will make the room feel even smaller. Try to stick with with planks (3” or larger) instead of strips and go with a larger tile for tiled flooring.
Be Tricky With Your Placement
In a room, it is natural for people to follow the lines of the floor and count how many planks are across and down. One way to trick the eye is by laying the flooring in a diagonal pattern. This forces the brain to process the space from a different perspective and won’t make the space seem as cramped.
Try Different Sizes
It’s natural for people’s vision to follow lines in the floor. By using slightly different shapes, you break up the floor pattern keeping the eye from following direct lines across the room. This will expand the visual space and keep the room from appearing so small.
Mix Dark and Light
You don’t have to be afraid of using dark floors in a small room regardless of what you’ve heard. You just have to mix it well with lighter colors. The trick is to make sure it compliments the wall paint (cool colors recede, dark colors advance) and then pair the dark floor with a lighter crown molding. This will draw the eye up and away from the floor creating a sense of expansiveness.
Smooth Transition
By connecting the flooring in the small room with another room — for example, connecting bathroom to master bedroom — the continuation of the color and pattern will make the smaller room flow into the larger one. Using several different types of flooring will abruptly chop each room and restrict it to its specific area. If you need to switch up the type of flooring, make sure the new flooring is in the same color family.
Smaller rooms when designed improperly can feel like a restroom on an airplane. Try some of these tips and your room will quickly begin to feel spacious. If you’re having problems, give us a call and we’d be more than happy to provide some tips.
