How to Style Small Living Spaces

Good things come in small packages – this includes compact living spaces. A lot of the time we’re told that bigger is better, but that isn’t always the case. You can achieve just as much joy out of small living spaces as you would out of a larger one; it just depends how you choose to style it. Here at G Plan, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve to make your smaller lounge feel deceptively roomier. After all, you want your small living spaces to be somewhere you enjoy spending time, relaxing and unwinding with loved ones, or hunkering down for cosy duvet days.

In this article, we will explore a few ways to style small living spaces. This includes giving you tips on how to maximize storage and make a room feel larger through paint choices, furniture decisions and much more.

Bright & Light Paint Choices

A good place to start when styling your small living space, is with your paint choices. Over recent years, there’s been a huge trend in painting rooms in darker, richer tones. Although this might work for some living spaces, it can often make smaller living spaces feel oppressed and confined.

We recommend opting for a brighter, lighter paint choice, to really open up your small living space. Light colours are more reflective, thus acting as an optical illusion by bouncing light off walls, helping a small living space appear larger than it actually is. Lick has an excellent range of light and airy paints, that will work beautifully to create a grander perception of space in any compact room. Our favourites are Purple 06 and Yellow 01.

If you’re looking to create an even bigger sense of depth in your small living spaces, why not consider painting your room the same colour from top to toe. This includes skirting boards and ceiling cornices. You can even match your furniture upholstery to your paint choices, to extend the visual length of your small living space. For example, our Plush Turmeric fabric would match Lick’s Yellow 01 paint beautifully.

Image: Lick

Sneaky Storage

It’s really important to consider storage space, when it comes to styling your small living space. Hidden storage is a great way of maximising a small living space, whilst being able to keep all your belongings in one place.

High, floating shelves are a great way to display ornaments and trinkets, making the most of the wall space you have on offer.  This will elongate the height of your ceilings, as you’ll be creating an aesthetic focal area at a higher viewing point.

Furniture with built-in storage is also very handy. Our Storage Sofa and Footstool options will keep your small living space free of clutter and allow you to store away your most treasured possessions. Our living spaces, no matter how big or small, need to offer us easy functionality, however this can often attract mess and disorganisation. Storage Furniture is a great way to bury away seasonal decorations, children’s toys or items you want kept for a rainy day, without being stuffed into an unsightly box that’s always on display.

Two-in-One Furniture

Moving on ever so slightly from Storage, another handy tip for styling small living spaces is incorporating a multi-functional coffee table. A big development in interior design has been using a Footstool or Ottoman as an alternative to a traditional hard table.

A great spot to put your feet up, or place your cup of tea on, footstools can act as a wonderful piece of two-in-one furniture. Dress your ottoman with a tea tray, some candles and coffee table books, to give it an elevated sense of purpose. This will create a lovely visual centrepiece, whilst still being able to transform into a comfy functional footstool.

For this purpose, we recommend opting for the Allen or Nevill Footstools from our Jay Blades X G Plan collection. Both offer an ample amount of space to act as a plump footstool, whilst also being able to imitate a coffee table.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Mirrors are a must when it comes to styling your small living space. Mirrors effortlessly reflect light, making them excellent space-enhancing decoration.

Hang a cluster of mirrors on a wall, lean one on top of a sideboard or opt for one larger mirror; however you choose to style your reflective display, it’ll be the best thing you’ve included in your small living space.

Mirrors trick the eye into thinking there’s more light than there really is, helping to expand cramped quarters and add more natural light to a small room.

Draw Attention to the Windows

As much natural light as possible is best for a small living space. Draw attention to any windows featured within compact rooms, by painting them bright and bold colours. We would opt for bright yellows, bold blues or dazzling greens to inject some fun personality into smaller environments.

To echo this and add a sense of cohesion throughout a room, why not paint conjoining archways the same colour? This will advance a room, allowing it to appear much bigger and be a nice finishing detail when it comes to styling a small living space.

When thinking about window coverings, we would recommend opting for blinds over curtains. Curtains can easily enclose a space and although this can sometimes appear cosy, it can make a smaller living space seem dark and dingy. Light, airy blinds made from natural materials are a better option, allowing more organic light to peep through during the day, but still create a cosy space in the evenings. If you do wish to go with more traditional curtains, consider hanging the curtain rail at ceiling height, as opposed to the top of a window. This will elongate the height of your walls, without enclosing a space with heavy hanging materials.

Images: Pinterest

Choose Furniture with Legs

One way to really open up a small living space, is to choose furniture that is supported by legs or feet. This includes sofas, sideboards and footstools; any item that you would like to feature within your compact lounge.

Seeing the floor underneath your furniture will help to expand your small living space, allowing natural light to flow freely and enlighten gaps. Low profile furniture can make a room feel more cramped and clustered, which isn’t necessarily the atmosphere you’d like in a small living space. If you’re not sure what type of feet you’d like to have on your furniture, take a look at our blog on how to choose the right sofa leg for your interior style.

It might be worth also considering compact furniture items. Here at G Plan, we offer a range of Compact Sofas, Armchairs and Footstools, to allow that much more space in a smaller living room. Designed with space saving in mind, our compact range of furniture is versatile and stylish, seamlessly fitting into the layout of any small living space. Our Chloe, Holmes and Mistral models give you more space to play with, due to smaller dimensions, making them the perfect 2 Seater and 3 Seater Sofas for cosier living.