Adjusting to a smaller space after living in a larger family home presents a unique set of challenges for new downsized homeowners. When you initially downsize your home, the change in space size can prove jarring at first. However, you don’t have to feel like your home’s walls are starting to close in on you. With the right interior design decisions, paint choices, and floor plans, you can begin to make your space feel as wide open as much larger homes.
When you move into a smaller home, you want to make the best use of your available square footage as possible. Whether you choose furniture that accentuates the room’s charms, use different paints to draw the eye, or find ways to create the illusion of more space, you can make a small space feel like it belongs in a mansion with a few subtle techniques.
A Lighter Shade of Color
Finding ways to make a room look bigger starts with the color palette you choose. Light and neutral colors can make a small room feel open and vibrant than a darker color scheme would. Lighter shades not only brighten the room but can make better use of the natural light that comes into your space.
Before choosing your lighter shade for your living room, you need to consider the entire room before committing. Hardwood flooring meshes with different colors than a carpeted floor, and you want the colors to compliment each other instead of clashing.
Make Your Flooring Choice Matter
Speaking of flooring, you can utilize your flooring choice to help make your home feel bigger. The flow of your home takes a cue from your flooring choices. Certain rooms feel better with natural wood flooring, while others can benefit from a minimalist style rug to provide unique contrast without being too busy.
You Don’t Need Every Door
When it comes to maximizing the amount of space in your home, it’s not always about what you add — it’s about what you remove as well. Removing certain doors can help open up new sightlines in your home that give it a much more spacious appearance than you had initially thought.
While you may not have a modernist open floor plan kitchen to make your home feel bigger, you can mimic this aesthetic with a simple trick — remove the doors. By taking some of the doors in your new home off their hinges — use your discretion — you can simulate the style of an open floor plan and create the illusion of more space.
Making Windows Less Busy
Those luxurious and flowy curtains you brought with you from your old home? They can take up more precious real estate than you realize and make your home feel significantly smaller as a result. However, a minimalist approach to your window dressings can help you better maximize your downsized home.
If you still want the flowing curtains, all you need is to install your curtains higher up on the wall. The increased height helps elongate your room and makes it feel larger than reality.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Illusions and playing perceptions go a long way towards making your space feel larger and more spacious than it is. A simple yet effective way to accomplish this comes when you utilize full-length mirrors throughout your home. Strategically placing full-length mirrors throughout your home can better capture natural light to brighten a room up but also create the illusion of a larger space as well.
Wise Furniture Decisions
Playing with space and the dimensions of a given room comes down to your furniture decisions. Different pieces can play better in smaller rooms than others, while the wrong choice can lead to one particular piece becoming the room’s main focal point. However, filling your new home with a bunch of smaller pieces of furniture that you would have used in your old home makes the space feel cluttered — not open and spacious.
Picking the right larger piece of furniture can do more to make a space feel roomier than outfitting with multiple smaller pieces can ever do. Going for couches or bed frames that come with built-in storage space, you can cut down on the number of dressers and storage pieces your home needs, limiting the chances you have to accidentally overcrowd your available area.
Find the Downsized Home of Your Dreams With Christina Swain’s Help!
Have you been looking for a new home but haven’t had the time to find a real estate agent to help? With the help of Christina Swain, you can find the right downsizing solution that fits the needs and budgets of both yourself and any family members. For example, if you have parents looking to transition to a 55+ community or find a smaller home, Christina can provide downsizing assistance for your mom in PA. Once you’ve settled on your new home, you can determine what you need to make it feel as spacious as you like.
We can help you find the right home for sale in Warwick, PA, and the surrounding communities of Bucks County, and get you settled in and make interior design decisions in no time. Give our team a call today to get started!