Want a room to feel bigger? It’s really a matter of looking in the right direction. So before you start moving the furniture, try moving the light…
A curious thing about rooms is that they tend to stop where the light stops. If you light only the middle of a room, your eye naturally sort of stays there. The effect is that the walls recede into shadow, corners disappear and anything beyond the main pool of light barely registers. Even a reasonably generous room can start to feel oddly hemmed in.
But if you send a little light outwards, something clever happens, and suddenly you’re taking in more of the space. Which is why, if you want a room to feel bigger, one of the simplest things you can do is give your eyes somewhere to go.
Here’s how to do it…
Why dark corners can make a room feel smaller
A single pendant or a regiment of ceiling spotlights concentrates the brightest light towards the middle of the room. The centre is clearly visible; the edges are dim.
But those edges are very important for perception: walls, corners, alcoves and shelves tell us where a room goes and how much space it contains. If they disappear into gloom, our perception of the room contracts with them.
However, as a remedy we don’t advise simply flooding every square inch with light. Quite the opposite: light is usually much more interesting when it has a good dollop of darkness to play against.
So instead, think about creating a handful of illuminated ‘destinations’ around the room, little stepping stones, as it were, for the eye. The aim is to encourage your gaze away from the centre and out towards the full extent of the space.
Let your eye travel along the walls
Wall lights are particularly good at this because they put light somewhere ceiling fittings often don’t: directly onto the walls themselves.
A light in an alcove, a pair either side of a fireplace or sconces behind a sofa can create warm pools of mid-level light that draw the eye sideways and outwards. Rather than one bright centre surrounded by darkness, you begin to see the room as a collection of connected spaces.
They can also reveal the things that make a wall interesting, such as panelling, paint colour, pictures, shelves or architectural details, so your eye has a reason to linger there.
And there’s now much less excuse for leaving an awkward wall unlit. Rechargeable wall lights mean you can experiment with positions without calling an electrician every time inspiration strikes.
Give the far wall something to say
One of the easiest ways to make the eye travel is simply to give it something worth travelling towards.
That’s where picture lights come into their own. Put one above a favourite painting, print or photograph and you create a small focal point at the edge of the room. Your gaze is pulled across to it, and in making that journey becomes more aware of the space in between.
Making a room feel bigger isn’t really about illuminating more so much as directing attention more thoughtfully. Whereas a dark wall just disappears, an illuminated picture says, “the room carries on over here.”
Don’t lose the corners
Corners are especially important because they tell your eye where the room ends.
When a corner is completely dark, it more or less vanishes. Pop a floor lamp there and you can reclaim it instantly, throwing light across two walls at once and revealing the full height of the space from floor to ceiling.
Floor lamps are particularly useful because they also introduce height. A tall standing lamp encourages the eye upwards as well as outwards, making you more conscious of the vertical space in the room (something we often forget when thinking about how big a room feels).
Put a little light where it has no business being
Bookshelves, niches and odd little recesses are exactly the sort of places that tend to disappear after dark, but they’re also some of the most enjoyable places to put a lamp.
Rechargeable lamps make this particularly easy because they can venture where no table lamp has gone before. No socket? No problem. The top of a bookcase, the end of a shelf, a tiny side table in a forgotten corner… all suddenly become fair game.
And because these are small, intimate pools of light, they make it feel more interesting, as well as bigger.
…But don’t light everything
There is, of course, a danger in taking all this too literally. The object is not to march around the perimeter installing a light every three feet until the room resembles an airport lounge.
Shadows are useful: they create contrast, atmosphere and depth. A room in which everything is equally illuminated can actually feel flatter than one containing pools of light and patches of darkness.
So choose your moments and light your favourite bits, creating a sort of trail for the eye to follow.
You may have more room than you think
A room doesn’t have to be enormous to feel generous; sometimes you simply need to persuade your eye to explore all of it. So next time a room feels a little cramped, don’t immediately start wondering which chair has to go or whether the walls need painting white.
Try switching off the big light. Put a lamp somewhere neglected. Illuminate the far wall. Wake up a corner. You may discover you have more room than you thought.
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