A lot of people struggle with a lack of space in the home and have to find ways to make the most out of tiny rooms. But you wouldn’t think that people would complain about having too much space in the house. You’d think that a large room with lots of space is always a positive, but that isn’t actually true. Oversized rooms can easily feel empty and sparse and you won’t be that comfortable in there. If you decorate a big room just like you would any other room, you’re going to have trouble getting it right. There is a different set of rules for decorating large spaces in order to make them feel homely. These are the most important ones.
Tall Potted Plants
Large rooms often have very tall ceilings and all of that open space makes it feel incredibly empty. That’s why it’s important to fill that space somehow. There are a lot of different ways to do that but one of the easiest is to put tall potted plants in the room. Place them in the empty corners and you can fill a lot of that empty vertical space and bring the ceiling down a little. Just make sure that there is enough light to keep the plants alive if you’re going to do this (visit www.balconygardenweb.com for a list of ones that are easy to look after), the room isn’t going to look nice with half dead plants all over the place.
Fill The Wall Space
Big sections of empty wall are really going to highlight just how empty the space is and they’ll look boring as well. You need to get some decoration up there to make it more interesting and fill a lot of that dead space. Wall art is one of the best ways to do it. Get some great posters and some decent frames (you can get some made to measure at www.frames.co.uk). You can also put family photos or canvas prints that you can pick up for next to nothing at home stores. If you’ve got some particularly large empty spaces, you could get some big cloth wall hangings to cover it.
Two Tone Walls
Decorating a large room is all about illusion. You need to trick the brain into thinking that the ceilings are lower than they are. One of the easiest ways to do this by using two tone walls. When you’re painting, don’t just use one single colour. Paint the bottom two thirds of the room in one colour and the top third in another. That will make it look as though the ceilings are a lot lower than they are and make the room feel a bit cosier.
Low Hanging Light Fixtures
Another very simple way to bring the ceilings downwards is to put in a low hanging light fixture in. A big light fixture makes for a great centrepiece so the eye will naturally be drawn to it and away from all of the empty space above it. It’ll also help with lighting the room because if the light source is way up high, it won’t be as effective. This is the perfect way to light a dining area or kitchen, with a light fixture hanging low over the table but it doesn’t work quite as well for a living room, for example, because it’ll look out of place having a light dangling in the middle of the room.
Divide The Room Into Zones
When you’ve got a massive room, a lot of the space inevitably gets wasted. In a big living room, for example, you can put a giant sofa, a couple of chairs and a TV in there, but you won’t be using the rest of the space at all, which just makes it look half empty. But if you divide the room into zones, you can get more use out of it and fill the space properly. Why not put a dining table in one half of the big living room or even a desk so you can use it as an office space. Use large pieces of statement furniture to denote the different zones of the room or you could even put in some small dividers for more privacy. If you’re willing to do structural work on the house and you’re really struggling with the large spaces in the house, you could even consider putting up some new walls to divide the large rooms into multiple smaller ones.
Decorating a large room can be tough and it’s easy to end up with a couple of pieces of furniture in the centre of an empty looking space. But if you follow these basic rules, you can create a great space in the large rooms in your home.