Design Mistakes That Are Making Your Home Feel Smaller

Does your house feel cramped? Are you fed up and ready to stick a “For Sale” sign in the yard because you assume the answer is a bigger home? What if, instead of square footage, design mistakes are making your home feel smaller?

Cramming furniture against the walls, a poor layout, and using too much open storage make a house feel smaller. Improper lighting and choosing the wrong-sized furniture, curtains, and decor are other common culprits. Avoid using too many dark colors, and select pieces that are the right scale for your space, arranging them so pathways remain clear.

Are you starting to check off boxes in your head? Do some of these mistakes already sound familiar? Well, don’t worry, and don’t put out that “For Sale” sign just yet. If your house feels small, there’s good news ahead! These design mistakes are easy to fix.

Wondering Why Your House Feels Small?

If you feel cramped in your home, your first assumption might be that you don’t have enough square footage. Understandable. A lot of people think the solution to a home that feels small is to move to a bigger house. However, that’s not necessarily true.

A home’s design plays a large role in how big or small it feels. Minor choices can have a big impact on how your home functions, and certain design mistakes can quietly shrink your space. On a positive note, these design dilemmas are easy to fix once you know what they are.

Pushing Furniture Against The Walls

This design mistake is a classic. When you have limited space, it’s natural to want to push everything against the wall. The idea is that you’ll have more open space in the room to move around, making it look bigger. Unfortunately, cramming everything against the walls tends to have the opposite effect. The room feels unbalanced and smaller because there are no alternate pathways or spaces around the furniture.

How To Fix The Mistake

Pull your furniture away from the walls, even if it’s just a few inches. Create small groupings to define different zones, depending on how you plan to use the space. Moving furniture away from the walls creates the impression of more space and it allows you to curate a cozier, more designer look in your home.

Using The Wrong Size Curtains

Short, skinny curtains can throw off the balance of the entire room. When the curtains are too short, the room feels short. Hang narrow panels, and it can make the windows seem less substantial, which extends to the room. Where you hang curtains also makes a difference when your house feels small. If you hang them too close to the window frame, you inadvertently reduce the room's visual size.

How To Fix The Mistake

Hang curtains as close to the ceiling as possible and let them extend all the way to the floor. Choose curtain widths that are at least double the width of the windows. This size allows the panels to fully cover the window when closed and still have some gathering. Select a curtain rod that is wider than the windows. When you hang the curtains, they should frame the window, creating the illusion that the window is much larger than it is.

Choosing Furniture That’s Off Scale

You probably already know that using big, bulky furniture in a smaller space is overwhelming, but furniture that’s too small could also backfire in a smaller room because you end up using too much of it. If you mix and match big and small furniture, it leads to a disjointed feeling that confuses the eye. All of that confusion adds to the sense of overwhelm, making the space feel closed off and small.

Try This Instead

Select furniture that is the right scale for the room. Slightly smaller pieces with multiple functions allow you to maximize the available space without cluttering it. Look for pieces with exposed legs. When pieces sit off the floor, they create the illusion of more space by fostering a sense of openness.

Having Too Much Open Storage

Storage is great, but too much open storage, especially in a small home, contributes to the problem. Even when things are organized, open shelving and similar storage options can contribute to visual clutter. When you see everything at once, your brain has to process it all simultaneously. Consequently, the room looks and feels crowded.

How To Fix It

Adopt a preference for closed storage, only using open options minimally, so you can keep most things out of sight. Use closed cabinets, bins, baskets, or storage furniture, like an ottoman or bench. When more stuff is hidden, it gives your eyes a chance to rest, making the room feel calmer and larger.

Painting With Overly Dark Colors

Dark colors can be positively beautiful in a space, creating a moody, elegant vibe that comes across as very chic, but if you overuse darker shades, you could end up with a space that feels closed in and imposing. Dark colors in a room with little lighting can magnify the problem. Walls painted in dark hues tend to absorb light, which contributes to the smaller feeling in the room.

Try This Instead

If you love the idea of darker colors, focus them on smaller areas, such as one wall, rather than the whole room. Or, use lighter colors on walls to reflect light and open up the space, introducing darker colors through smaller decor pieces.

Poor Layout Choices

The wrong layout can drastically change how a room feels. You might not need to swap out any furniture or decor, but rather, simply rearrange pieces. A bad layout blocks pathways, makes moving through the space awkward, and creates an overall cramped space.

How To Fix It

Think about how people tend to move in the room. What’s awkward about it and what would make it better? Try out different furniture arrangements to clear walkways and create a more natural sense of movement in the space.

Using Improper Lighting

Read any tips on what makes great design, and you’ll see something about how important lighting is. Ironically, though, many people treat lighting as an afterthought when it should be one of the first things you consider. A single overhead light is not enough. It tends to cast shadows that darken the room, making a house feel smaller and inviting.

How To Fix The Mistake

Incorporate layered lighting, such as a ceiling light, floor lamps, table lamps, and wall sconces. These different sources spread light throughout the room and offer a mix of ambient, accent, and task lighting. Maximize any natural light you have in the space. Don’t block windows with furniture or thick drapes, and keep them clean.

Overdoing It With Decor

Decor is a great way to inject your personality into your space, but too much of it can make a room feel small. If every surface is overflowing and packed with knick-knacks, photos, and other odds and ends, it just becomes clutter.

Try This Instead

Be choosy with your decor. Once you have everything how you want it, edit out some items. Choose a few meaningful pieces and use them in the space with intention, purposely leaving some areas empty.

Selecting A Rug That’s Too Small

A rug that’s too small can throw off the look of an entire room, making things feel disconnected. For example, a classic design mistake that makes a room feel small is a tiny rug under the coffee table.

Try This Instead

Choose a rug that‘s large enough to at least fit under the front legs of the furniture in the area you’re using it. If possible, get a rug large enough for all the legs to fit; if not, aim for at least the front legs. Likewise, apply this tip to other rooms, like the bedroom. Choose the right size rug for under beds or in bedroom seating areas.

Eight Things to Do When Your House Feels Too Small

Remedying the design mistakes above is a great start to making your house feel bigger. Here are a few more tips to create the feeling of more space without knocking down walls.

• Declutter regularly
• Use mirrors to reflect light around the space
• Choose multi-functional furniture
• Keep surfaces, including floors, as clear as possible
• Maximize vertical space
• Create zones in rooms to define areas
• Stick to a simple color palette
• Avoid overdoing busy patterns or mixing too many patterns

Fix The Mistakes Making Your Home Feel Smaller

Don’t let easy-to-fix design mistakes make you frustrated in your home. If your house feels small, a few tweaks and adjustments can drastically change how your home looks and feels. Furniture and decor choices, layout, color palettes, and lighting play important roles in how a room appears and functions. Assess each room, see which of these design mistakes is at play, and create a plan to start fixing them.

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