Lighten Up: A Pair of No-Fail Ways to Make Furniture Look Less Bulky

There are lots of reasons why you might have a too-big or too-bulky piece of furniture in your home. Perhaps it’s an inherited piece you can’t part with. Maybe you need a large piece of furniture for storage. Whatever the case, you don’t have to live with a heavy piece of furniture visually weighing down a room. There are two solid ways you can manipulate the way a “heavy” piece of furniture looks, and they’re relatively small changes that can have a big impact on a space.

If you have a furniture piece you want to make feel lighter in appearance, consider raising it up. Furniture that sits directly on the ground can feel like a heavy boulder. It might seem counter intuitive (since you’re actually making the piece taller), but by adding legs you create a space for air to move under and around the piece. This creates an illusion that the piece has less visual weight, and it may trick your brain into thinking that the piece of furniture isn’t near as bulky as it actually is.

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When it comes to making furniture feel or appear lighter than it actually is, another solid choice is using paint to manipulate the piece. Specifically, using paint that matches the wall it lives in front of. By painting all or part of a furniture piece the exact hue of your wall, you make some of the piece’s visual weight blend into the background.

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