De-clutter! Probably the best and cheapest way to make any space seem larger.

Beyond that, smaller/lower/less furniture.

Also lighter colours, better lighting. Better != brighter. I'll usually use higher colour temperature lighting in small spaces, also use uplights, cove lighting, lights on top of bookcases/cabinets. I've also been known to paint walls in a couple different shades, with the desired color at middle and feather/blending it from dark at the bottom to lighter near the ceiling. Seems to make the ceilings appear taller.

A few places I pull ideas from are high-end yachts, private jets, and hotels. Make storage where you didn't have it before. There's no reason for a boxspring with most mattresses, put more storage in there. Same goes for the dead space in most sofas. No reason you couldn't put more storage in there. Take a look at Hyatt Place's rooms. They have an unconventional layout which leads to a very open feeling. They also have removed quite a bit of furniture and replaced them with built-ins, if they replaced them at all.

Add light....uplights in the corners really add space to a room. Keep as much light as you can from the windows.

Make sure your furniture is in scale with the rooms and don't add too much furniture. Look for vintage pieces which tend to be smaller than today's furniture, or look for makers which carry "apartment" lines which are smaller than their standard lines.

Take off doors where you don't need them...

Continuity of style and color through the home will make it feel larger than it is. That blurs the lines between one room and the next. Having said that, that doesn't mean all pale neutralls and no color. Color is a great way to expand a space visually. Set dressers use visual tricks like painting out things black that you want to disappear and then placing something light on top of it so it ''floats''. You can do the same, andd it's why dark floors became so popular, despite their maintenance. They expand a room if used correctly with a minimalist decor style.

Go to Apartmenttherapy.com. Lots of great advice on how to make smaller rooms bright and inviting, including storage advice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Apartmenttherapy

This post was edited by nosoccermom on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 17:45

Be careful not to add more furniture than the rooms can comfortably and openly hold. Remove any doors where possible. If you are unable to make it look larger, make it look grander by layering. You do not have to overlayer but you can layer without making it look like you went to an auction and bought everything there.

Sightlines! Tall, narrow storage pieces in the corner will direct your eyes up.

When buying upholstered furniture, note carefully just how thick/wide the backs and arms are. You can save a lot of floor space by choosing pieces with thinner/narrower arms and backs. Not necessarily skinny--it's just that a lot of furniture today is scaled for large great rooms and you'll see a lot of sofas and chairs with huge, thick, rolled arms. These arms take up room and don't add to the available seating space.

You don't necessarily need tiny furniture, but furniture that is scaled to your space and that doesn't take up unnecessary room.

Think up. Use taller bookcases. Add shelving up near the ceiling.

For smaller spaces, I think enclosed storage lessens the visual clutter. Use large armoires to store things, or cabinets, instead of open shelving. A nice collection can be displayed, of course, but unless you are very good at keeping things neat, put towels and cleaning supplies and kids' toys and video games and other random things that you use a lot but don't want out all the time where you can't see them.

The smaller your space is, the more it will benefit from carefully thought-out storage. As Sean M says, think of houseboats and RVs and how they put storage in unexpected areas. In a small space, I'd budget to create a Great Wall O' Storage in one or two rooms.

You could easily add a wall of built-ins in the average living room. Use a mix of cabinets and open shelving. The built-ins, depending on how they are designed, could house the TV and related boxes, all DVDs and video games. You could display a collection, store all your books, use baskets to corral kids' toys. If you have cabinets, you could store anything from Christmas decor to out-of-season clothing to quilting supplies to an archery set.

Then treat the wall of built-ins as just another wall, if the TV isn't there. Don't be afraid to put furniture in front of it--just leave enough room for a person to get behind the furniture and open a cabinet door.

ikea furniture is made for small spaces. they have spaces in the showroom with examples of tiny bedrooms made into very functional spaces with adequate storage.

DWR has a line of sofas that are nicely made called 'theater' which look great in smaller homes because of the clean lines, and trim shape.

mix more expensive DWR pieces with IKEA for a fresh and upscale look.

two books I highly recommend on this topic:

The Very Small Home: Japanese Ideas for Living Well in Limited Space Hardcover
by Azby Brown (Author), Kengo Kuma (Introduction)

Small Spaces: Stylish Ideas for Making More of Less in the Home Paperback
by Azby Brown (Author)

This post was edited by detroit_burb on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 21:39

Two suggestions I agree with: Go up and avoid overstuffed furniture/huge round arms. I have a small house, but do have some large scale furniture which works in the right place. Unless you are a minimalist, don't go too small or bare.

Keep a line of sight for open view and walking paths to common areas.

My only challenge is wanting something which really doesn't fit and have to ignore the want. Otherwise a fun adventure in small and making things work.

Wall color-- keep rooms in similar colors so that walls sort of blend in with each other /can't tell where one ends or begins.

Re: light colors, I read in a book in which they did a study of dark vs light affecting room size. Outcome was that darker = a loss of only 6 inches.

Also, remember that you aren't trying to avoid it feeling small. What you don't want is overstuffed.

Use mirrors for the deeper look.

If your kids are using the other rooms, bunk beds are actually good. Kids don't generally need or want big beds like a full or queen. Twin size is fine, and that is a typical size for bunk beds.

Even if someone doesn't need the top bunk or bottom bunk, being able to build up adds a different look to the room than just having everything all at the same levels.

(Although I knew a family that would use the unused bed for storage of things like blankets and pillows, the stuff you might put in a linen closet --- I would encourage you not to have too much stuff but it can be used that way)

I agree with technicolor. Using fewer, larger pieces instead of more, smaller pieces works better for small spaces. Take measurements and stay on that target when buying upholstered or case pieces. For instance, a sectional will look less cluttered than a settee with several small scale chairs, even though they offer the same number of seats.

Yes, narrower arms and backs will give you those extra inches for tables and space.

Restraint with accessories is key. You own aesthetic will play a large roll, here. Some like very spare interiors and some like lots of pretties. I like to see things out on the surfaces and layering a couple of large items will work better than grouping a bunch of small ones.

Using mirrors to reflect the outside brings in more light.

I'm going to disagree on using only light paint colors, although I'd probably do that in the entry/living spaces. Dark colors in small rooms can be very soothing and cozy. Or dark colors used where there is a lot of white cabinetry/trim to offset each other. It's not necessary, of course, but if you like some drama in your interiors don't rule out deep tones. A low light room is one example of building on an already moody space. Painting it white to make it feel lighter can actually lead to dingy looking walls and a blah feel. Don't be afraid to experiment if a paint color doesn't feel right.

If you have standard or low ceilings, bring the wall color (or something similar) onto the ceiling. People are always commenting on my having great ceiling height in my 8 ft tall rooms. I think that the stark demarcation of wall color and white ceiling (especially without moulding), in the average room, is a mistake. Not every does or cares, but it's a pet peeve for me, hahaha! I still have a lot of peeves to address in my own rooms!

I just want to add that this is a great thread full of lots of practical advice. My home is small, 1200 sq ft with the same # of rooms as yours. The room that feel the smallest (IE the Living ROOM) has too much furniture in it, the seating is overstuffed/oversized for the room, and it has clutter hanging around.

My boys share a small bedroom (I think it's almost 10x10). We didn't get a bunk bed because they are crazy monkeys, they have matching twin captain's beds that take up almost the entire room. Furniture that has multiple functions (bed/storage) is so practical for a small house.

When we moved in ~12 years ago, I didn't fully realize that most new furniture was scaled for the LARGE homes currently popular, hence how I ended up with living room furniture that is inappropriate for the size of the room.

I don't have any unique advice to add except that, for me, it takes a lot of self-discipline not to let the day-to-day stuff pile up. And still sometimes it does and i just keep putting it into a big box until I can deal with it. I have made several pocket organizers that hang on the wall and I think they have helped a lot in terms of adding storage/organization without taking up space.

For me it is keeping the window coverings simple. If using drapes, make them so that they can be fully drawn off of the window so that your rooms are gaining natural light and opening up the house to the outdoors. If using blinds check to make sure that when open they can be almost made to disappear - again your eye will be drawn to the outside, your eye will go beyond the smaller size of your rooms and won't be stopped by the window coverings.

(Our house isn't small but I'm claustrophobic so I have made sure that my blinds and wall paint are the same colour. It helps with making the rooms appear a little bigger. Having said that they are a lighter taupe colour)

Embrace the smallness and accept it will never look big for it is not big. Mmm, I find it funny how everyone strives for the sense of large open spaces but in reality we mostly crave smaller, cosier ones. Every home I have been in, people always congugate in the smallest rooms not the big open spaces like the kitchen or in my own house my 8x12 sunroom.
Yes scale is very important when decorating a small space but do not become to concerned with making it appear to be larger by taking away a small space's main attribute, its feeling of warmth and comfort.

The easiest is to dump your junk. Less is more. Lighter colors open up a room. And as multiple people have stated, be very careful with the scale of your furniture. Bring the dimensions of your rooms to the furniture store and carefully check the dimensions of each piece and how it would fit. A better furniture store has salespeople that can help you, especially if you visit a store that is located in an older neighborhood where most customers will have smaller rooms.

My home is smaller,but what made it feel even smaller was the choppy floor plan...what a difference putting hardwood flooring on the whole first story made! I put it in the kitchen and powder room as well.

My living room was a challenge as it is L shaped. I went with a loveseat instead of a full size sofa and added smaller sized chairs, removed the hearth from the fireplace and it really makes the room more liveable.

Agree with others. DE-CLUTTER!

Get as many things off the floor as possible. I know you can't do that with a bed or sofa, but shelves attached directly to a wall, rather than a bookcase, for instance, works wonders.

Nothing takes the place of editing your possessions. Keep just what you need and make sure there is storage space for everything and everything has a place. Think storage space first, decorating after all the needs have been addressed.

If you are shopping for new furniture go to places that sell condo/apartment sized furniture or just simply tell the salestaff that that is where you live. You will at least get an idea of the difference in scale, however sometimes the seat itself is sometimes smaller so do beware.

First of all, IMO you might think about why you want the rooms to appear larger. There is something very charming about small rooms when decorated appropriately. If anyone doubts this they need to look at pics of my3dogs home.

The conventional wisdom is to paint walls light colors but I have seen some lovely small rooms painted dark colors so it's not necessary to limit yourself to white or pastels.

For more inspiration google "jewel box homes".

What luckygal said.