When decorating your home, making it more appealing and comfortable should be your top priority. However, certain factors can make achieving this goal difficult. These factors include your budget, the overall design or style of your home, and the size of your house or apartment.

Among these three factors, the size of your home or a particular room can be the hardest obstacle to overcome. With narrow home designs, you need to put careful thought into choosing the type of furniture pieces that would look best and fit into your small space.

You also have to think about the right type of décor pieces you can add to complete and complement the room without making it look cluttered and overcrowded.

Knowing and avoiding the usual mistakes when decorating small or narrow living spaces will bring you one step closer to having a lovely and comfortable home. Below are the top five decorating mistakes you have to take note of and avoid:

1. Cramming too many furniture pieces

Owners of small or narrow homes are aware that space is already limited in all rooms. However, they still make the mistake of cramming in too much furniture in one small room.

Although the unwritten rule for furnishing a living room involves a sofa, a coffee table in front, and side tables at either end of the sofa, if you have a small living room, you will have to break out of this norm. Otherwise, you will have a living room where you can’t do anything because the furniture has taken up all the available space.

To furnish a small living room or any space in your home, use your judgment based on the space. Using the example above, it would be best to drop the side tables and simply have a coffee table.

2. Overlooking multipurpose pieces

In small homes, all furnishings and decorative items need to be multi functional. As such, when shopping for furniture and other large decor items, select ones that can pull double duty.

These include getting a pull-out sofa so that you will be ready for guests and ottomans that double as storage containers. There are also movable cabinet units that have pullout shelves which you can use as part of your home office or computer space.

To ensure you get more from all your furniture and décor items without sacrificing valuable space, get multipurpose pieces.

3. Not using color and pattern

Although white or light walls and ceilings can make any room seem brighter and appear a little bigger, this effect will be negated if you choose furniture with dark hues.

If you want to make a room feel cozy and warm, don’t be afraid to choose a darker paint color. If you want to make a room look vibrant, choose a bright color.

And if you want to make a room look really interesting, don’t shy away from patterns as well. If you’re unsure about picking the right pattern, try it in simple ways first. Try adding easy-to-change items like patterned pillows, a decorative area rug or draperies.

4. Using walls and other bulky fixtures to define spaces

If you have an open living room or kitchen, you don’t need to have walls built to define spaces. You don’t have to buy movable room dividers either as they can also make your home look more crowded.

To define spaces in small, open rooms, you can use area rugs and furniture. For instance, place a large area rug in the living room and another one, with a different design, in the kitchen. These two rugs will clearly separate these two rooms effortlessly.

Open shelving is also a great option if you want to separate zones or areas in your home.

5. Not using vertical space

Finally, walls are not only places for hanging framed photos and art pieces; you can use them for other purposes, too. Start by having wall-mounted shelves installed that will allow you to expand storage without taking up any floor space.

Don’t be afraid to extend shelves all the way to the ceiling as well. By doing so, you will be making use of otherwise unused space. In addition, you will make the ceiling seem higher up. This will help make your home look bigger than it actually is.

Decorating a large or medium-sized living space is often challenging. When you have a small living space, decorating and designing it will even be more difficult and daunting. If you don’t know how and where to start enhancing a small or narrow home or room, begin by avoiding the mistakes shared here.

AUTHOR BIO

Ben White is the Sales & Marketing Manager of Danmar Homes. He has had a passion for home construction from an early age as he grew up in construction and followed in the footsteps of his parents. At Danmar, we believe in building great homes of value for families that want to build an asset and their financial future through housing and developments.