9 Colors That Make a Room Look Bigger - Moving.com (2024)

Living in a small home? There are a lot of ways to increase the visual appearance of your space, even if you can’t increase your actual square footage. This include a wide variety of colors that make a room look bigger—and feel bigger, too. By making smart choices with your home’s color schemes, you can give the illusion of more space and help make better use of the space that you have, which is a pretty impressive feat for an easy, beginner-friendly DIY that likely won’t take more than a weekend or two to complete.

If you’d like a bigger room but don’t have a full renovation in your budget, we’ve got your back. Here are the nine colors that make a room look bigger, plus some other helpful tips that can help you increase the size of your space when you can’t, you know, actually increase the size of your space.

Even with the best of intentions, choosing the wrong paint color for a small room can make it feel closed in and claustrophobic. In fact, you often don’t understand the full impact of color in your home until you work strategically with your color palette—or accidentally choose a color that gives the opposite effect of what you were looking to achieve.

The best paint colors for small rooms are those that work with both the natural contours of the space and the available natural light to provide a visual transformation that gives the suggestion of there being more space than there really is. And while it’s often thought that light paint colors are the way to go when you want to do this, you’re not quite so limited when it comes to colors that make a room feel bigger. Here are nine that get the job done (and that look oh-so-pretty to boot).

1. Pale blue
   

   Pale blue is a gentle shade that offers a soothing, calming touch to any room. It also works to make a room feel bigger, particularly when combined with other light colors on the ceiling, trim, and doors.

2. Dark blue
   

   If you’d rather go dark with your blue, consider dark blue shades like navy and indigo. When used wisely—such as on an accent wall, with color blocking, or paired with similarly hued accents—these rich tones can heighten the drama of your space, and by default, its sense of size.

3. Soft black
   

   Speaking of using grandeur to add the illusion of more size, soft black can achieve this too, especially in north-facing rooms where a lack of natural light can lessen the appeal of a stark white.

4. Cool gray
   

   Grays in a variety of shades are another great replacement for white, though when you’re considering room size, opt for a cool shade to add brightness and depth, particularly in rooms that only receive moderate amounts of light.

   See Also

   Blue living room ideas – ways to decorate with light and dark blues

5. Light green
   

   The perfect light green can quickly open up your space while also providing soothing aspects similar to light blue. For an updated look, opt for a muted sage or moss tone instead of going more traditional.

6. Taupe
   

   When in doubt, you usually can’t go wrong with neutrals—and that includes taupe. One of the lighter neutrals, taupe has a unique ability to make rooms feel more expansive than they really are, adding in just the subtlest hint of color in the process.

7. Lavender
   

   It’s hardly traditional, but lavender is a muted shade with bold appeal and adds a breath of fresh air—plus the illusion of more square feet—to your space. Tone it down by sticking to a cooler shade, or go warm if your room could use a bit more coziness.

8. Blush pink
   

   Blush pink is an unexpected but inspiring neutral, taking on an almost peach-like hue in rooms where natural light is lacking. Complement it with other, more conservative neutrals like beige and white for balance and you should end up with a room that feels bigger and brighter than it did before.

9. Crisp white
   

   We’d be remiss if we left white off of this list of colors that make a room feel bigger. That being said, white isn’t foolproof for this purpose, and might look drab (and have the opposite effect) in an otherwise dark room. Stick to a crisp hue and keep it bright and airy with natural wood accents and plenty of plants, plus a pop or two of color where appropriate.

Other creative ways to make a room look bigger with paint

How you use paint in a room can be just as important as what colors you choose for making a room look and feel bigger than it is. Try these techniques to expand your space and make the best use of your available square footage.

• • Paint an accent wall. Accent walls serve as de facto focal points in a room. They can also lend additional dimension to a space that’s in need of it. You can choose to paint one accent wall, or mix it up by painting two walls in a darker shade and two walls in a lighter shade within the same color family. As a good rule of thumb, keep your accent wall (or accent walls) to the long walls in a room and go lighter with the shorter walls.
  • Paint the ceiling. If you want to add the illusion of height to a room, look up. In smaller rooms, painting the ceiling a light color can heighten the overall feel of the space. And it doesn’t have to be a shade of white, either. Turn tradition on its head by using a crisp white on the walls and trim with a pop of color on the ceiling.
  • Consider the finish. Light colors have an inherent reflectivity, which is why they can make a room feel bigger. Another way to achieve this—or to boost the already enlarging effects of a light color—is to go with an eggshell, satin, or semi-gloss sheen instead of a matte.
  • Don’t pair dark colors with a light trim. This might seem antithetical to everything you’ve learned about painting a room, but stick with us here. Pairing dark colors with white or other light colored trim creates a visual border that chops up the space and keeps it looking small. Dark colored trim, however, doesn’t cause a visual barrier and keeps the eye moving around the room, in turn making it feel larger than it really is.

Some things that you’ll want to keep in mind when picking and choosing what paint colors and techniques will help enlarge your space include what direction your windows face (east and west will provide you with the most natural light, while north and south will have the opposite effect), as well as what other color accents you have in the room. Clutter—whether it’s in the form of actual stuff or too many hues—will close in your space, while opening it up with a monochromatic palette could work in your favor.

Looking for more ways to use creative design to make a room feel bigger? In addition to using colors that make a room look bigger, head here, where we’ve outlined additional tips for how you can use things like your furniture, window treatments, and artwork to amplify your space and make it feel a whole lot larger.