How To Guides Essential Interior Design Tips

Date Published:

10/06/2008

If you're looking to revamp your home with the minimum amount of effort, these are the tips for you. Just a simple change in colour, lighting or furnishings can totally transform a room...

Space

1. Strategically place a large mirror near a window so the outdoors can be reflected. This will make the room look brighter and bigger.

2. Choose furnishings in scale with the rooms - slim rockers, open-back chairs or a simple sofa are better for small rooms rather than overpowering furnishings which swallow your space.

3. Place your large furniture at angles with the wall to break up the room and fool the eye that the room is more spacious than it is.

4. In a long but narrow room, paint the two, shorter end walls slightly darker than the others to make the room seem squarer.

5. A room will appear wider if you paint the floor and ceiling a similar colour, then paint the walls in a lighter shade.

6. To make a room seem smaller use a dark colour on the walls below picture rail height, and a lighter colour above the rail and covering the ceiling.

7. Use vertical stripes to give walls more height and make the ceiling look higher.

Colour

1. Warm colours which jump out at you like reds, oranges and yellows tend to close a space, while receding colours such as blue, green and violet tend to make a room look larger. Although, just to confuse things, the darkest shades of these receding colours, such as navy blue can diminish a room.

2. White or a light neutral coloured walls are generally the best for making a room seem bigger.

3. Paint your skirting boards and mouldings a lighter colour than the walls to make your room look bigger.

4. To create the illusion of higher ceilings and a more open space, paint ceilings white or off-white. Medium to dark colours will make ceiling seem lower - handy for cosying a very high room up.

5. If the colour you've painstakingly painted your walls is too much of a shock to the system, you can tone them down by slapping on a lighter or more muted colour over the original using techniques such as rag rolling, sponging, or colour washing.

6. Use warm colours on North facing rooms which don't get a huge amount of sunlight and cool colours on brighter South facing rooms.