by Rachelle de Bretagne

Created on: June 12, 2009   Last Updated: January 23, 2012

Making a small space look larger is actually easier than you may imagine. Often, as we get older, we find the need to down-size and this presents opportunities to the home decorator of trying their hand at making the space they are about to live in look more luxurious and large than it actually is. Home isn't about the space you live in. It is about what you do with that space to make your home the best it can be and maximizing what little space you have to its best effect.

This is also a great strategy for those who have smaller rooms than they wish they had, since the eye can be detracted away from the smallness of a room, simply by clever use of color, furnishings and soft furnishings, coupled with the use of light. With innovative new designs on the market all the time, there are so many possibilities. Tricks can be played with the choice of furniture, and you can define different areas, making the overall space look larger.

Actual overall size.

Take a look at the space you have available, preferably without the furniture in the room. Small rooms are usually fairly easy to empty into an adjoining room and, as you remove items from that space, look at which items are essential.

One of the biggest pitfalls a homeowner faces is trying to put too much into a room, thus diminishing the look or size of a room. When everything is out of the room, look at the available light sources, and the overall shape and size of the room. This plays a huge part in getting the equation right.

The trick is to fool the eye into thinking that the room is bigger than it is. Look at your room and see which items immediately draw your eye to the smallness and these are areas which will be problematic and are the areas which need your attention.

Accepting limitations.

To make a small room look larger, something has to go. Accept that the space you have is crowded and try to accept those limitations, as these can help enormously. Throw away or sell items which are no longer used. It is always hard to down-size your possessions but this helps a lot. We collect things during the course of a lifetime, and these things are standing between your desired presentation of the room and the room being small in looks. When you down-size the possessions a room has to house, you automatically create the illusion of space.

Down-sizing furniture.

It is simple to replace large furniture with smaller items. A sofa which is huge will always shrink a small space. Similarly, many free-standing items could

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