Putting together our post on modern sun rooms, we saw a lot of light, open spaces. But what if you live in a small, dark apartment? There are ways to lighten the space and open it up. Click below to see them...
In general, light walls make a small room feel larger. This image is from Victor and Soeun's Loft from Small Cool 2007. There are exceptions to this rule: a dark accent wall can bring definition and scale to a small space and bright colors can definitely help to enliven a small room. Unless you're going for a cloistered, cozy feeling avoid dark chocolate browns on all four walls.
If you can paint the floor white, it's a good trick for making a small space appear larger. This image is from Joseph D.'s Wicker Park Nest. By painting white floors and white walls, he was able to make a very small space seem open and airy.
Hang curtains at the edges of the windows. You can make a window appear larger by flanking it with floor-length curtains that visually extend into the wall. In this image from the Shade Store, a small window has a lot more presence because of the drapes.
Don't fill the room with too much furniture, and choose pieces with a small footprint that are visually lightweight. Low-profile furniture or pieces with legs (and open space underneath) will make a room seem larger. Image: Eames Chair from Room & Board. (Also notice how the artwork is hung a little lower to fit the scale of the room in this photo.)
Use accessories that emit and reflect light. If you don't have the space for floor or table lamps, use wall-mounted sconces (especially in areas that don't get a lot of light). Hang a mirror on a wall opposite a window to reflect light into the space. Ron's Hotel "Sweet" from the Smallest Coolest 2007 Contest makes good use of lamps and mirrors.
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Comments (16)
What are some good colors, other than white, for a dark room? My living room has 3 big windows on one side, but none get direct light, so it's dark. Also kind of long and narrow. I definitely want color, not white walls, but I want to lighten up the room. Any suggestions? It has to work with rust colored sofas and medium-dark wood furniture.
What I really mean is, are all light colors equal for this purpose?
A friend of mine actually painted his entire bedroom in Benjamin Moore Bridal Pink (yes, pink). It really helped infuse the room with light and added just enough warmth. You could try a light warm gray too.
In your case; Maximum light = white artificial lighting. Color "eats up" light, that's how our eyes are able to "see" color. White reflects it, hence making it brighter. If you tint white with color, you're proportionately making it "eat" more light, so try to compensate with more artificial light, just make sure the outcome's balanced. A fun trick if you can't live without color is to paint your walls dark (almost black) making them visually disappear. By doing that and making your floors and furniture light or white and adding a few plain mirrors, a room seems infinite. It definitely takes a LOT more work to do this than to paint EVERYTHING white, but with the right execution it's a very cool effect. What I read on this month's Metro Home though, was to simply get rid of clutter and it'll immediately make your place HUGE (visually anyway). In other words, yes, there are many more ways, color combos, and furni arrangements to make a small space look bigger, but the ideas listed in this post are pretty much fool-proof, unlike most of the ones I gave ya.
EDIT: In your case; Maximum light = white PLUS artificial lighting. For some reason the plus sign doesn't show.
In my case I went overboard with light in trying to keep my studio apartment from seeming too dark. Now it feels as though there are lights and table lamps cluttering up everywhere. There's only one window, carpet is beige, walls are white. I can't change any of that, since it's a rental. Any good general suggestions? I like the idea of sconces, but I haven't really seen any that are rental-friendly. FYI, color scheme is black wood, green with lots of neutrals and orange accents.
mjoe, you could try browsing through the Small Cool Contest Entries for color ideas. All of these spaces are under 650 square feet, and there are a lot of long, narrow shotgun spaces.
I don't know - I find very little as depressing as a white room that doesn't get much light. A sun-filled white room is one thing, but a white room in shadow, all dingy and bland, is awful.
Yellow, cream, and the sort of yellowish "bridal pink" mentioned above all make a room look sunnier than plain white does -- pyewacket is exactly on target about ill-lit white-white rooms looking dingy and bland. The issue is that you don't actually want LIGHT -- you want the illusion of SUNLIGHT.
Just look into very light colors. They bounce around just about as much light as white walls do but obviously allow for a little more expression on the walls. I just painted my walls a very light cool grey ("Sterling" by Behr). My last bedroom was painted in a light blue, "Blue Mesa" by Ralph Lauren.
mjoe, I second the very pale blue. I too painted my bedroom light blue and, even in grey Seattle, the room feels full of light. I think any pale cool color would give you the same effect.
I have a tiny basement apt in the back of the building so I get almost no naturally light. When it was all white it was very depressing. I went with a very pale lilac with black trim in the bedroom living room, and a butter yellow in the kitchen/dining. The wall that divides the space is painted black and works really well to bring out the contrast and give a little depth to the place. I think I can still add a bit more lights here and there to brighten up a bit but overall I like the colors. You can see them in my cure pics, feel free to add suggestions, us cave dwellers can use all the help we can get:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12721467@N02/sets/72157602167088268/
Oh and lurker, try to put your lamps in maybe odd spots or behind things where you don't really see them. I put a desk lamp between my wall and my bed and it casts a really pretty glow without being visually cluttery.
lurker2200, ignore the rules for rentals and invest in some paint. I've made a deal with my past four landlords... let me paint and I'll paint it back to navajo (nava-NO!!!) white when I leave. I've only had to honor this bargain once. Usually the next tenants love the colors and ask the landlord to keep it as is.
wende in phoenix has great suggestions for color (see above) asdo other ATers. Best of luck andlet us know how it turns out.
Man, I LOVE wood floors painted white!
That said, I tend to agree with pyewacket that an all white room without any sunlight tends to be even darker and depressing than one with a bit of color. I find white really only works well when there is a lot of light and color coming in and bouncing off the walls (or floors!). Sometimes when you have a darker room it can be best to embrace it and make it a nice cozy space, which has helped a lot in my apartment. We have a wall of nice red bookcases and a few rich brown wooden pieces of furniture. Lots of sort of autumnal colors have made it a much nicer space, and a lot less oppressive than when it was all bland white walls with no sunlight. I can't say whether or not it feels "larger" but it most definitely feels more livable, and ultimately that is what matters in our living spaces.
I have to say, though, I think my number one requirement in my next apt (beyond walls, rooms, running water and the like) is going to be an abundance of natural light! I never, ever want to end up stuck in another north-facing, ground floor apartment. I never realized how much i could covet a sun-filled room until I lived in my current space, it makes such a difference in quality of apt life!
My loft has a big window but since it's north-facing everything looks dreary/dingy all day, so I can completely sympathize w/ trygve. I recently painted a bright orange-brown accent wall and it made such a HUGE difference in the warmth of the space that I don't even mind having the rest of the walls white anymore (which is good, because the ceilings are too high to paint anywhere else!). I also have a fetish for paper lanterns so I always recommend them to increase coziness as they can add lots of soft, colored light.
@ mjoe,
I second (or is it third?) the pale blue. I have painted the floor in my darkest room at light Tiffany Blue, and even on the darkest, greyest day (I live in Denmark), the room has a fresh, light feeling to it. It's lovely, and I daresay it's one of the new neutrals, since it goes with a lot of different elements.