Good Questions: The Battle of the Stripes

Photo from Jayson Home & Garden

Friends of ours finally took the plunge and moved in together. With the rent in LA rising, they decided to tough it out in a 450 sq ft apartment for a few years so they can save up to eventually buy some property. Unfortunately, their new apartment is not only on the small side, but also comes with low ceilings and small windows. To remedy the situation, she wants to paint tonal vertical stripes on the wall to give the illusion of height...

...And he's thinking that horizontal stripes in bright, bold colors will enliven the space, and ultimately make their humble abode seem wider. So we're asking you: for the love of all that is small yet spacious, what do you think is the better solution?

Comments (6)

We just painted one horizontal stripe across our tiny living room wall, and it *definitely* makes the space look/feel bigger...

I think I'd have to see the space to make any kind of suggestion, but I think that if they want to make it kind of modern, horizontal is just far more interesting, and I'd have some of the stripes coincide with the tops and bottoms of the windows, I think.

Better than striping is to paint in a color that helps "knock back" the larger pieces of furniture.

You can achieve some sense of enlargement without vertical or horizontal stripes by painting the ceiling a different color than the walls and bringing the ceiling color 4-6 inches down the wall or leaving the ceiling white while painting the walls, terminating the paint 4-6 inches from the ceiling. You can see some of this effect in the "Jayson Home and Garden" picture above.

I'm confused - in other threads the color goes onto the ceiling from the wall, 4-6" in. what is the definite answer?