How to Change the Size of Your Room with Paint

Do you have a problem space in your home due to its awkward shape or size? Or perhaps you’ve only ever used the ‘four walls’ approach to painting? It's easy to focus on paint colours alone when planning to redecorate, but taking a smart approach to paint application can create the illusion of a different space by deflecting focus from problem areas. Make your room more liveable with our useful tips and help it fulfil its potential with your next painting project.   

Shorten A Space 

To reduce long, narrow rooms or walkways to more manageable proportions, use a bold or mid-to-dark tone on the furthest wall. Typically, the eye perceives warmer colours as nearer than cooler blues and greens, so use reds, oranges and pinks to really maximise this effect.

Reduce the Room Width

Large spaces are often on the property wishlist, but vast rooms and open-plan spaces can sometimes feel less homely. Injecting colour or a deeper hue into opposite facing walls will give the appearance that they are closer to one another and bring symmetry to a room.

Increase the Width of a Space

The inclusion of horizontal colour blocks, lines or stripes within a space will expand the perceived width of a room, making it feel more spacious. Don’t feel you have to limit yourself to one colour plus white; pair complementary or contrasting colours together according to the atmosphere you want to create.

Reduce the Height of a Room

To bring a cosier atmosphere to rooms with lofty ceilings, pair lighter walls with a mid- or dark-tone paint on the ceiling to give the impression of a lower ceiling.

Increase the Height of a Room / Create a Cosy Space

Incorporating the often-overlooked ceiling into your scheme can bring a whole new feel to your room. Colour is key here, depending on your intended effect. Pairing a mid- or dark-tone paint on the ceiling with lighter walls will create a cosier feeling space.

Conversely, continuing a lighter colour from the walls onto the ceiling gives the impression of a more continuous, expansive space, as it removes the hard colour boundaries that the eye would usually stop at. The use of vertical lines such as stripes also extends the perceived height of a space.

Highlight a Wall

For years, the go-to method for drawing attention to a single wall has been to apply colour or pattern to it. An alternative feature wall option is to reverse this concept and instead paint the wall in a lighter colour, which automatically draws the eye towards it before other surfaces.

Elongate A Room

Use paint to give the impression of additional depth in your room by continuing colour from a feature wall up onto the ceiling and along the room length.

Hide Unattractive Room Features

Every room has less attractive, yet essential, fittings or architectural features that can distract from the overall décor scheme. Simply paint these features the same colour as the background they are on to make them blend in. Do consider that these details may require a different paint finish so for optimum results, select your paint tools accordingly for the coating finish.

Zone a Larger Space

Large, open-plan spaces serve multiple functions, and a good way to differentiate areas without the use of walls is to zone the areas with colour blocking. This helps to break up and add visual interest to large expanses of space, even extending beyond one surface.

Get the Most out of Forgotten Corners

It’s easy for corners and in-between spaces to be ignored and either lie unused or become full with clutter. Bring these dead spaces to life by creating a feature of them with an assigned purpose. And there’s no need be square! Creative angles or curves can inject a sense of high-design fun to a space.

We recommend:

• Bring ceilings and hard-to-get-to areas within easy reach with our range of Extension Poles. 

• HEADLOCK Roller Technology makes slipping roller covers history. And for covering larger areas more quickly, try our range of longer 12”+ rollers.

• Achieve sharp linework with Coral Precision Paint Brushes and Decorators' Tapes.

• For a fine surface finish and controlled paint release when painting woodwork and trim, try our All Paints or Foam Coater paint rollers.