How to create more space without extending

Open plan kitchen and living room with black wooden bar stools

If you don’t have the budget to extend or if you live in a property where it would be hard to get permission, there are lots of tricks that you can do to add some more useable space or simply bring more light into your room to make your room appear bigger.

Home office in large cupboard under the stair with white painted wood doors

Make use of dead spaces

Under the stairs is definitely the main contender here – this space can be transformed into a hidden storage heaven – a place to pop away coats, gloves, scarves, boots, shoes, school bags…the list goes on. You can even squeeze in a home office!

A storage bench seat is also a quick and easy way to create a feeling of space in a hallway by hiding away clutter. The landing is another area with potential for adding space – a small console table or a wood bookcase can help take books and other items out of another more cluttered room.

Large kitchen/diner with grey kitchen units, wooden dining table and three hanging ceiling lights in a room with a glassed pitched roof.

Knock through rooms

This is a great idea if you have a separate but adjoining kitchen and dining room. A wall means you lose space in both rooms and restricts where you can put furniture pieces, but by removing it, you will instantly have the feeling of more space, especially if this lets in more light to a small or dark room. If you are creating a kitchen-diner then you might want to consider using dining benches around your reclaimed wood dining table – as a bench is lower than the table, the space appears less interrupted with no taller chair backs.

Photo featuring: Parquet Dressing Table

Multi-use rooms or layout changes

Many of us have a spare room, but how many nights a year does it really get used, a total of a month? This space can be used for something else, something like a gym or a home office. A home office desk can double as a dressing table for guests and you can use a chest of drawers to put your office bits and bobs away in. Switch your everyday office items on the desktop to some house plants to make the room more inviting to guests.

Open plan kitchen and living room with white kitchen, wooden floor and grey fabric sofa with large patio doors

Zoning rooms

You can easily zone a room to make it more multi-purpose using furniture such as a large sideboard, a bookcase, sofas or floor rugs – the great thing is you have the flexibility to easily move them if you need to change how the space is being used.

Furniture choice

Choosing the right furniture for your room also plays a major part on whether your room feels a bit crowded or light and airy. For example, smaller pieces of furniture, like armchairs, will make a room feel more cluttered than one light coloured 3 seater sofa.

White living room with white fabric sofa, wooden coffee table and shelf with white painted wooden letters spelling Home

 

Change doors

A really simple but effective thing that you can do is change the doors to rooms – Using a sliding door to lead to smaller rooms such as an en-suite or dressing room will enable you to use make the most of space otherwise taken up opening and closing a standard door.