Making your Dining Room Look Bigger

Smaller houses, townhomes, and apartments are often designed to reduce square footage by way of a small kitchen, small dining room, or no dining room at all. This space shortage isn’t a huge issue, but one of the mistakes that homeowners make when decorating is wasting what little space they do have. Just because your dining room isn’t as grand as one might be in a Victorian home, it’s still designed to be workable – you just have to know how to make it look bigger!

Paints and Wallpapers

The first thing you want to do is choose a wall color that will open up the room. Some interior designers say that it helps to paint the walls a darker color while leaving the ceiling white in order to create the illusion of more space. However, in a very enclosed dining room, rather than just a dining area, this can feel very encapsulated. In a room with no windows and/or small doorways, try sticking with lighter colors all around or using striped wallpaper. Both have been known to lengthen up a room.

Hanging mirrors is another trick of the trade. Ideally, in a small room, you’d hang a mirror that is the same size as, or almost the same size as, one of the walls. However, you can also play around with shaped decorative mirrors, such as hanging several circular or geometric mirrors across the wall. Play around and work with what you’ve got – any reflective piece will surely open up the room.

Dining Room Furniture

If you’re trying to use a dining room for its intended purpose, you’re going to start shopping dining room sets – and obviously, they’re pretty space-consuming. Luckily, there are a few ways to make yours work well in your small space.

Be sure to aim for sets with armless chairs. Arms on chairs make it difficult to push them all the way under the table, and therefore, they take up more space. Choosing generally lighter profile chairs rather than bulky designs – whether it be in color or style – will reduce visual barriers and allow for more “air” in the room. This same sentiment can be applied to the table – try one with a glass top!

Round tables work well in smaller areas since there is more seating access in a smaller surface area. In other words, there’s less “wasted” table space. For extra points, try a pedestal-style table that eliminates the multiple legs and creates the illusion of more floor space.

It’s easy to use nice, attractive dining room sets in a small dining room, you just have to decorate smart! Using these tips, you’ll have no problem throwing dinner parties.