Every household has its own story. The layout of rooms – meaning their arrangement and size – can vary depending on a number of factors. More often than not, tenants in rental properties tend to be unsatisfied with the size of the living rooms no matter what the layout offers, which is actually quite reasonable.

Families that number more than two members need all the communal space they can get and they tend to stack the living room area with stuff until it becomes hard to navigate. If you want to avoid spraining your ankle as you trip over one of the many extra items in your communal space, here’s how to get the most out of a small living room in your rental.

Keep it bright

One of the most common interior design hacks is to keep the room as bright as possible if you want to make it look bigger. Time and time again, people tend to repaint the dim walls and replace black furniture with vivacious, contrasting versions that are on the brighter side of the spectrum – and the results are universally positive. Now, you don’t have to fall back on plain white walls to keep this space airy – there is a staggeringly big color palette when it comes to bright, milky pastels.

When it comes to choosing the base (bright) colour that will dominate the room, the only matter that should concern you at first is whether it’s warm or cool. The choice heavily depends on the overall color scheme of your furniture. Neutral colours such as beige or silver, sandstone or baby blue push back the walls and create a welcoming illusion of an expanded space. However, bright color is not the only stylistic element you can add to walls for the indented effect.

Use mirrors

A strategy every good interior designer uses to make a small space appear larger is to place mirrors in spots around the room for maximum effect. The most straightforward ideas is to simply hang a large mirror in a central location in your living room to serve as a focal point. If you can afford (both financially and technically) to add floor-to-ceiling high windows instead of regular ones, this can be a better choice.

The beauty of adding such an element does not only lie in the fact that it naturally expands the space – it also serves as a stylistic supplement. By reflecting the color scheme of the living room as well as the light sources, you’ll have aesthetic consistency with an element that will transform your living room into an oasis, making it appear significantly larger.

Don’t let the ceiling eat the room

It doesn’t matter if your living room ceiling is high or low; if it is too dark or intricate, it can eat up your living room no matter what you do with the surrounding walls and furniture. Now, on the one hand, many interior designers advise to decorate the ceiling in a way that draws the eye to it – it’s a viable method that also makes the space appear larger.

However, your priority should be to apply a fresh coat of ceiling paint that will make it blend with the rest of the new style before you do anything about decoration. When it comes to light sources, just avoid installing intricate chandeliers that will almost definitely eat up space no matter how bright (or crystalline) they appear.

Lightweight furniture

Bulky furniture that looks heavy should be thrown out of the small living room without a second thought. Visual weight is a very important factor people tend to overlook because they often get attached to a piece of furniture. However, if you want to make your living room appear larger, you’ll have to be merciless.

Pale colours, glass surfaces, fewer legs and sleek, and thin design is what you are looking for when it comes to living room furniture. In terms of shapes and consistency of style, the only truly important matter that should serve as q purchasing standard is to choose furniture that doesn’t block view. As you browse the furniture store, it should be quite easy to compare the pieces of furniture according to this quality, but don’t overlook online catalogues either.

Many of these strategies to get the most out of a small living room are about tricking the eye and arranging the space to be more manageable. One hardly goes without the other if you desperately gasp for more space in the living room in your rental, yet both of these strategies tend to produce aesthetically pleasing spaces that retain an airy feeling while still keeping it cosy. Take a chance and try out some of these ideas in practice if you’re out of viable solutions, you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

by Lillian Connors