Houzz Contributor and Interior Designer, Neila Dean, gives you ten tips to help make your living room look larger and feel more welcoming, below.

If you don’t have room for a sprawling sofa or giant media console, you’re not alone. Those of us who dwell in an apartment or townhouse frequently find that space is at a premium. If this describes your experience, you can choose to look at your limited living space as a creative design challenge. The key to living happily and beautifully in small quarters is combining space-saving and multi-functional solutions while expressing your personal style. Smart decisions will give you the space you need while making your room beautiful and welcoming. These 10 tips can help you make the most of this all-important space: the living room.

1. Open It Up To Other Rooms

If you have a limited living area, you may want to view your living room as a flowing space and, when possible, open up doorways or walls so adjacent rooms blend together. A living room can be a larger combination of an open-plan living, dining and kitchen space if you take down the walls that separate them. Likewise, widening doorways and opening them up to the ceiling will create a larger, more open feeling. If making major structural changes is not possible, try simply removing the doors to each connected space or replacing them with internal glazing. This not only will improve the sight lines and light in each room, it will also allow for an easier flow of movement.

2. Use Built-In Furniture & Storage

It’s a good idea to invest in built-in solutions and appropriate shelving and storage to fit your space and needs. Custom built-ins are ideal in a small room because you can size each piece of furniture for your challenging space while adding a feature or two that maximizes its use. For example, a built-in sofa or relaxing banquette seating can have useful storage hidden underneath. Similarly, instead of a custom-made wall of joinery, you could place shelves in an artful pattern on a wall to create a media unit. When planning where your shelves should go, place them all the way up a wall to create a vertical pattern. Higher placement of design features helps create the feeling of volume in a room.

3. Get Creative With Your Furniture Layout & Lighting

When possible, try arranging furniture to create separation between functional zones. This helps define different uses within a single room. For example, place a desk behind a sofa to fashion a workspace, or arrange your chairs and sofa in a way that clearly separates the living area from the dining space.

You can further define the layout by placing a different overhead light fixture in each separate space. For example, in the living space zone, go for a light fixture that’s close to the ceiling (flush or semi-flush mount). Then, in the adjacent dining space, hang a pendant directly over the table.

4. Let The Sun Shine In

Emphasise your natural light sources to make your room brighter. A sunlit room feels more open and helps eliminate shadows that can make an enclosed area feel smaller. The simplest way to enhance natural light in a room is to place a mirror where it will reflect the light from a window. This will not only reflect light but also create the illusion of more depth in the space. When possible, place your most-used pieces of furniture – such as the sofa or your favourite cosy chair – so they have a view of the outdoors. If natural light is minimal, consider installing track lighting. While not taking up valuable table or floor space, its bright light and flexible track heads can act as a substitute for direct sunlight.

5. Paint Strategically

The classic tip of using white or paler hues is still spot-on advice for painting a smaller space. Also, painting the trim and walls in the room the same colour draws the eye up and highlights the ceiling.

6. Ditch The Overstuffed Sofa

This may be rather obvious, but it’s important: avoid oversize furniture and heavy pieces with a lot of visual bulk. They will take over and make the room feel smaller. Instead, opt for low-profile, streamlined furniture, particularly sofas. Low-profile furniture essentially means low to the ground. A low-profile sofa, for example, means there’s a small distance from the floor to the sofa seat. From a design standpoint, this usually means smaller sofa legs, streamlined cushions or a narrow base.

Use the extra wall space your low-profile sofa provides to balance the space with wall decor that starts low and goes high. Great examples are hanging a large-scale art piece or arranging a vertical row of shelves that draw the eye up.

7. Multitask

When living in compact quarters, it’s imperative that you ask yourself this question: can this serve more than one purpose? By having key pieces do double duty, you can easily accommodate all your living room needs. Perfect examples are a console table or wall unit used as a desk and the highly useful pull-out wall bed or sofa bed. Storage is another useful feature to add anywhere it can fit. Instead of dining chairs, perhaps try a bench with hidden storage. Instead of floating shelving, opt for floating drawers. They serve the same purpose and give you extra compartments for necessities. Similarly, place a tray on top of a storage ottoman to serve as a multi-functional coffee table.

8. Go Big With A Rug

It might seem counter-intuitive, but when possible, use a rug that extends beyond the furniture in each functional space. In a living area, a rug that sits under the sofa, coffee table and additional seating will draw the eye wider and make that living space appear bigger. On the other hand, a smaller rug sized just a bit larger than the coffee table can feel more like a bath mat, causing the living space to read as its limited size.

9. Create A Focal Point

Take advantage of your living room’s diminutive size to easily create a design feature. Specifically, choose one aspect of the room to highlight with something visually interesting. The eye will be immediately drawn to this standout feature, with less emphasis on the room’s challenging size. A terrific example is to design a feature wall behind a sofa with colour, texture or wall decor. Use a wall covering such as grass-cloth wallpaper, design a gallery wall of artwork and photographs, or use depth-enhancing mirrors on a brightly coloured wall.

10. Express Yourself

Just because you have a little living room doesn’t mean you can’t include stylish features that represent your individual style. In a small room, it’s easy for the furniture to take over the personality of the room. Since the living room is where we spend a lot of time, imbue your space with personality via accessories that tell the story of you and your household. Creatively framed photos, a sentimental accessory from a grandparent, or personal artwork or collections are great one-of-a-kind decorative elements that personalize your cosy living room.

It’s important to make all your ideas known to your builder at the start of the design stage, that way nothing will get missed. Our homes are custom designed to suit each clients needs. At Hurst Homes we pride ourselves on providing no hidden extras, and full turn-key homes for our clients. That’s why shower niches and custom joinery comes standard in all of our builds. Just another reason why we are considered Wagga’s Best Builder. If you’re interested in building in the Wagga area contact us today on 0438 692 962 for a preliminary estimate on your dream home.

For more great tips and tricks from the Houzz experts, visit Houzz.com.au