How to make rooms seem larger and taller?

The living room and dining room in my home are both fairly small (14x10 and 6x10.) I would like to make the rooms seem as big and tall as possible. There is a six-foot wide arched opening between the rooms, so it helps make the area seem open. Are there any certain colors, window treatments, or furniture arrangements that would help? Is there anything specific (such as painting the ceiling) that would be extra bad?

Thanks for the help, guys!

 

Definitely keep the walls a light color because dark colors will make it seem very small.
What kind of furniture do you have, hopefully nothing oversized and keep functional minimal furniture but warm at the same time (light buttery yellow). U might be good with just one couch (with accent pillows) and one or two chairs as opposed to a couch and loveseat and not a huge coffee table. maybe a trunk block in potterybarn that function as storage for blankets magazines etc.

maybe a dining table and a small buffet to use as workspace as opposed to a huge clunky china cabinet that will take up the whole room.


also, if you have hardwood floors, dont close it off with a rug because that will make it smaller looking.

Just some opinions without seeing the rooms or furniture...i will be interested to hear what annette has to say

 

correcting myself, i meant to put a buttery yellow with the walls, not the furniture

 

Thanks, Colleen!

Here are two things I'd really like to do (because of my decorating theme):

Crown Molding in Living and Dining Rooms
and
Wainscoting in Dining Room

Will those be bad?

 

colleen had some good advice! the key to creating spaces that seem big is to reduce any contrasts. therefore it's not so much your color choice for the walls & ceiling, but rather keeping them the same color. by painting the ceiling the same as the walls (even if it's a mid-tone) you will eliminate the line of contrast that would normally be there if your ceiling were white. (hard to believe but true!) also, cool colors tend to recede, whereas warm colors will bring the walls in. but i wouldn't get too caught up in that - just pick nice colors you like and that reflect your personality. you're not wanting people to walk in & simply say "yep, it's big alright." you want them to say "ooh! i LOVE it!! it's so cute & homey & inviting - it makes me want sit down & stay a while!"

arranging furniture in an "open" arrangement makes a room look bigger and more inviting. such as not placing a sofa so that when you enter the room, the back of the sofa is blocking you. instead, turn it so that you immediately can enter the conversation area.

also, selecting "light" looking furnishings will help. instead of sofas with skirts use sofas up on legs. instead of a chunky boxy coffee table (like a trunk), use a glass topped table that you can see thru, and maybe an iron base and it will seem lighter & take up less visual space.

crown molding & wainscotting will be fine as long as you paint them in the same tones as the adjoining walls. for example, creamy/buttery walls with white crown, wainscotting & ceilings will be very light & airy. try to keep ALL woodwork the same color (doors, casings, windows, baseboards, crown).

if you have hardwood floors, i wouldn't sacrifice the warmth an area rug will give you, but again keep the colors muted and in the same tone as the floor - nothing a whole lot lighter or darker than the wood tone of the floor.

 

Thanks Annette!

I can't wait to get in there and get started!

 

Lots of good advice above. That's very true about the contrasts - because lines of contrast have visual gravity the eye is drawn to them. We want people *not to see* the ceilings, and get no visual cues about the ceiling height.

So I'm unsure about the crown mouldings because they're a reference to the ceiling height. Crown mouldings help connect a high ceiling to a room, or underline the ceiling height. But borrowing them from their normal setting won't make your room feel like that setting anymore than a highway sign will make your hall seem wider.

Something funny about identically shaded paint on adjoining surfaces is that that it never looks the same shade. That's because a room's lighting discriminately applies shades of its own. A good example of this is the ceiling contrasted with the walls. You can try holding a folded sheet of white paper into the corner of your wall and ceiling to see the difference. The ceiling looks several shades darker, usually about two shades on the paint sample card.

For paint, I suggest you get a bunch of sample cards, and tack them up on the walls. Live with them a bit. Understand that the range of shades is mainly provided to help you pick lighter shades of the same colour that, used on less lighted surfaces (normally ceilings), take away the contrast. I've painted lots of ceilings two shades lighter and truly you cannot see the difference unless you test it with lamp in hand. The effect is to make the ceiling blend into the walls, and seem higher. I've also stepped shades for the different walls in a basement stairwell, and again the effect is subconscious, and it works.

So, Annette's right as always to rather keep the same colour for walls & ceiling, but, as a painter, accomplishing that is not so simple.

Another trick with warm (cozy) colour vs. cool (spacious) colour is to cast this with lighting. Regular incandescent lights vs. halogen lights for example. This effectively shifts the colour of the entire room and everything in it. A quality of lighting more like daylight will make a room feel open i.e. outdoors. Also you may notice those stores where people go into a shopping trance use a sort of lighting that makes otherwise mundane products come alive. Have a look at the Pottery Barn home page, and ask yourself is that just plain sunlight *bathing every single image* or is it sunlight enhanced?

EDIT: Contrast Pottery Barn's photos of patios with the indoor photos. The sunlit "outdoor rooms" are actually darker!

 

another note regarding the crown moulding:

if your ceilings are only 8 feet high, go easy on the height of that moulding. don't get the super big grand stuff that you've seen in older homes with higher ceilings. keep it on the smaller side and in scale with the room's proportions and existing trimwork.

how high ARE your ceilings? i'm not sure i'd even put crown in a 6x10 room.....maybe just put it in the living room.

 

Have you ever thought about mirrors? Doesn't need to be anything fancy, but mirrors will definately make your room feel and look bigger. I had a small bedroom in a house once and just purchased three or four "full length" mirrors and attached them to a wall at an even level about four inches apart.

When we moved from that house and took the mirrors down, I couldn't get over how small the room felt and was so glad that I had them where they were for so long! Not to mention, it's great for getting light around a room!