People have been living in small, limited urban residences for hundreds of years now, which means there are hundreds of years of experience with people putting forth a conscious effort to make a smaller space seem larger. Many of these tricks sound self-evident when you hear them, but they are things that do, in fact, make your apartment appear bigger than it really is. Here are some of the best tricks to help make your apartment appear more spacious:

First, get rid of the clutter. If you want to make a small space seem bigger, the first thing to keep in mind is minimalism – having as little “stuff” as possible cluttering up your available space. Further, what “stuff” you do have to have about should be concealed as much as possible. While the old Victorian idea of having lots of little knick knacks and the like scattered all around might be cute, it is also “busy” and makes your available space seem stuffed.

In line with the minimalism discussed above, it is also best to have as little furniture as necessary and arrange it against the walls as opposed to having it positions in the middle of the floor. Further, you want to keep the furniture positioned away from the passage ways as any obstruction only highlights the relative size of the apartment against the size of the furniture. Having as much open and available floor space as possible seems more spacious. This means avoid coffee tables and other pieces of furniture that sit in the middle of the room, as this makes the entire room seem much smaller.

On the topic of furniture, though you want as little as possible and you want furniture that runs more vertically than horizontally, at the same time bigger can be better. Having a few very large pieces of furniture, as opposed to many smaller ones, tends to give the impression that the room is larger than it is simply because it can hold such a large piece of furniture comfortable. Of course, as already noted, this trick only works insofar as the furniture does not block or confine the main passage ways and open area.

Another key element to making a given space seem larger is light. The lighter and brighter any room is, the more spacious it seems, since most people equate darkness with small, dank areas. There are any number of tricks that can be used here, including ensuring there is good lighting (windows, track lighting, and so on), using light colored carpets and drapes, and using lots of shiny decorative items, especially mirrors. Mirrors are in fact one of the best ways of making a small room seem larger since they reflect the image of the room back, making it seem – at first glance at least – considerably larger than it really is. 

There are some other tricks and ideas that help give the impression that a room is larger than it actually is, but the above represent the most common – and most successful – techniques for making a small space seem larger. Following the ideas provided above can even make a single room space seem more larger than it really is, so applying them to every room will make your apartment seem much larger.