decorating your home for the seasonsdecorating your home for the seasons

If you've just moved into a house that has some small rooms that look cramped, you know you have to do something to make the room seem bigger. Cramped rooms can often feel depressing and unwelcoming. Luckily, you can make the room seem a lot bigger by decorating it well, and color plays a key role in making the room seem airy and spacious. Here are three ways color can open up a room.

Light Shades

The lighter the colors in a room, the larger or more spacious the room will seem in general. Dark colors tend to call up cozy images, but using light colors for the walls, ceiling, floor, and main pieces of furniture -- especially if the room has a large window that can let a lot of natural light in -- gives an impression that is breezy and relaxed.

Using shades of white and off-white is usually what comes to mind when trying to use light colors, but you can use light shades of blue, green, and other colors. White does tend to reflect light better than other shades, but anything that's light enough to give you the impression that it's easy to see in the room is good.

Consistency

The one exception to using light colors is if you use too many clashing colors. A room with shades of white and light yellow can seem sunny and nice, but orange, pink, blue, green, and tan all over the walls and floor, for example, would make the room seem crowded and disorganized.

Choose a main color scheme and stick with that. You're never forbidden from bringing in other colors, but it is better to have them as highlights, instead of letting them compete for the room occupant's attention. To use the previous example, say a room has mainly white and light yellow features. Suddenly painting a wall bright orange could unbalance the room visually. However, adding orange throw pillows or an orange blanket to a couch could work well because the orange wouldn't overwhelm the other colors.

Diversion

In fact, if you're dealing with a truly small room, a highlight can be a great way to draw attention away from the size of the room. When people enter the room, give them something to focus on -- maybe line up a few of those orange throw pillows on the couch across from the door. That way, they subconsciously focus on the orange pillows instead of the overall small space.

If you want more help, though, contact an interior designer. Designers are skilled at finding ways to make rooms appear bigger than they are, and the designer can come up with several different ideas that could make the room look very different.

For an interior designer, contact a company such as Stephanie Kratz Interiors.