TOP 10 INTERIOR DESIGN TIPS FOR SMALL ROOMS | BEHIND THE DESIGN

Hi everyone and welcome back. In today's video we've been watching all of your feedback and we are giving you what you want. A lot of the projects we share are quite big and you would like to know how to design and make the most of a small room. So today I'm going to share with you everything I've learned over the past 14 years of how to make the most of your small spaces. So let's get straight to it. Tip number one is all about furniture and I really want to go into some detail here with you. If you look at this project behind me this is a good example of quite a small room. Although it's got tall ceilings the actual floor space is quite tight and what we've done in here is prioritise the most important furniture. So you can't fit lots of big furniture and you can't you don't want to have too many small bits but I've got a really big sofa because that's the most important thing. You want a big sofa that's comfortable, obviously not too big for the space and then that's meant that I don't have space for side tables on either side and how I've overcome that is using tray tables here so you've still got somewhere to put your drink and I've done wall lights rather than table lamps. So it's all about picking and choosing the scale of the pieces of furniture. Generally I would say don't squish loads of small furniture into your room it will just feel cluttered it won't make it feel bigger. Have a few key pieces that you've carefully selected that make the most of the space and the room will feel much more spacious for it. Another point on furniture is that if you can do wall-mounted furniture that's going to free up some floor space and make it feel a lot more spacious in the room. Visually because your eye can see under the piece of furniture it tricks your eye into thinking that the room's bigger than it is. So here we had some custom joinery done with this headboard we didn't have room for bedside tables it was just it was the tiniest space we didn't want to go any smaller on the bed so by having these wall-mounted drawers we still had some storage there wasn't quite enough space for a table lamp on it so we put the wall light instead but it's just somewhere for you to put your drink on at night time and it gives the illusion of having bedside tables when you don't actually have the space for them. Tip number two is all about lighting and there's different stages of lighting that you can go through so if you're watching this video and you're thinking well I'm not ripping out my whole house so all of this is irrelevant I'm going to start with the easy lighting tips that anyone can implement. When I'm designing a space that's small I always want to put lots of layers of lighting in so whether that's table lamps or spotlights or chandeliers you want to have your eye drawn to the outer perimeter of the room as well as the interior of the room because that will make your eye feel like the room's much bigger than it is but if you wanted to recreate something like this coffer ceiling detail obviously you're not going to be able to do that unless you're at the stage where you're designing all your interior architecture but what you can do is you can buy plug-in up lighters that you could literally position on top of a piece of furniture whether you had like a shelving unit or a side board by positioning the up lighter either behind a piece of furniture or on top of a piece of furniture it's throwing light up to the ceiling it's throwing light behind it it's creating shadows and all of that makes your room feel much bigger as well as the ceilings feel much taller. If you don't have space for table lamps please don't think that that means you have to just rely on overhead lighting there's lots of beautiful floor lamps out there that aren't just reading lamps they can have beautiful shades on them some of them made of glass and they add a lovely luxurious feel to your room as well much like an accessory when you're dressing yourself lamps are so important for dressing your interior so always think about different ways you can introduce lighting if you don't have space for a table lamp don't give up on it completely. Now you can't do a video on designing small spaces without mentioning mirrors but I do feel like I'm pointing out the obvious by saying use mirrors what I would say though is not all mirrors are equal so if you have the option of using perhaps an antique mirror or an eglamise mirror this is an example of one of those behind me it has like a slight patina to it which makes it feel much softer than just a clear mirror and it also has the added benefit of disguising any of those pesky finger marks also with your mirrors you want to go big so by creating this huge mirror here it doesn't feel like a mirror it actually just feels like the room continues if we just had lots of little mirrors it wouldn't have given the same illusion so go as big as you possibly can with your mirror and consider different types of mirrors not just plain mirrors other surfaces in your room can also give the same kind of effect as mirror so if you have high polished surfaces for example on a tabletop or particularly your floor what that's going to do is bounce the light around you're going to see a reflection in it and even though it's not effective as mirror it still gives you that feeling of more space more light and general airiness in your room don't just use mirrors on your walls as well you can also integrate them into joinery in this example this is a really small child's bedroom in London and whilst I wouldn't normally put mirror in a kid's room it really needed it to stop it feeling from oppressive so we've clad some of the wardrobe doors with mirror fronts and then some of the others we've kept open so that you have some depth in the storage it doesn't all feel like a solid wall tip number four is all about flooring now in a small space you might think going for small little tiles will help the room feel bigger because you have more of them that is absolutely not true if you can go for large format slabs if you're doing stone in your room definitely do that because by having the large format it feels a lot more seamless and by having less grout lines it also feels a lot less fussy and the overall effect of that is that your room will feel bigger with rugs you also want to go bigger and you want to be able to get the front legs of your sofa and your side tables on the rug if you can get the back legs onto great but you definitely need to be able to get the front legs on if you go for a rug that doesn't reach underneath your furniture it almost feels like a little stamp in the middle of your room and visually your room will shrink so go big on your rugs tip number five is go bold just because you have a small space doesn't mean you have to keep everything white with white walls light furniture if you like dark colors embrace them and dark colors in a small room also have the added benefit that it kind of diffuses the perimeter of the room so in this cinema for example this was in a recent project it was in the basement it was a really unwelcoming cold space but by adding this beautiful suede wallpaper in a charcoal color it really feels dramatic it suddenly feels cozy and the small scale of the room actually becomes a positive because it's a lovely cozy space that you just escape the world but by having the dark walls you also aren't so aware of where the room ends it kind of confuses the eye a little bit so what would have felt like a really small cinema room suddenly becomes this beautiful glamorous space and you can see we've implemented some of the previous lighting design details that i've mentioned by having this uplighter behind the sofa which is something that we've done with the joinery but you could create that same effect by having one of those plug-in up lighters behind the sofa and also having some up and down lighters we didn't have any space for table lamps wasn't a problem by putting these up and down lighters on the wall you create some drama and it also draws your eye even if you want to stick to a light color palette don't be worried this doesn't mean you have to go dark if you like a light color neutral room that's absolutely fine you can still create drama in that space as we've done in this kitchen we've kept everything really toned down and paired back and then we've just gone for a large scale bold pattern on the roman blind and what that does is it creates a focal point in the room it draws your eye it's drawing your eye to the furthest point and it stops it all from feeling bland and boring so just play with patterns as well as colors if you don't like dark colors maybe embrace a slightly stronger pattern in your fabrics this is one of my favorite spaces we've ever designed and it was a little breakfast nook in a project in london a townhouse and it wasn't a big space at all but this is a family home and we wanted to create an area where they could have breakfast informal and meals together and what we did to create a space where it's open plan that didn't feel very small is we wanted to kind of borrow space from the rooms off of this little area so this links through to the kitchen and then down here where the photographer would be standing is the playroom and how we did that was keep the color palette consistent so in a really small space where you have lots of rooms coming off of that space try and use similar color palettes you still want to give each area its own identity but by using a similar color palette on the floor and on the walls it kind of makes that area feel like it expands into those other rooms and also in a small space you don't have much you know you want your eye to still feel restful and if you have too many colors going on too many different patterns and textures it becomes a bit overwhelming and can look a bit cluttered so try and keep it very cohesive whatever color palette is you want whether it's light like this kitchen or dark like the cinema we showed you before try and keep that consistent throughout the space tip number seven try and source pieces that really help you find additional storage so if you don't want to do lots of built in joinery you're still going to have hidden extra storage that you might not have otherwise so what am i talking about here in this particular room we had this sofa made which underneath has drawer pullout storage this is a really small playroom and we needed every possible inch of storage that we could have in your bedroom you might have a bed that's got drawers underneath or sometimes we'll do a lift up mechanism that allows you to store suitcases when they're not in use under there opt for bedside tables that are all drawers rather than perhaps a bedside table that just has like a small top and legs you really want to have that extra storage and with your bedside tables try and go for extra deep ones because even if you don't have a lot of wall space that's going to give you extra storage and extra surface area for items that you might want to display and if you have room for an ottoman think about getting an ottoman with a lift up lid so you can shove more storage in there so really try and find pieces that are multi-purpose that don't just look beautiful but give you extra storage options as well now when it comes to small interiors there really is no substitute for built-in joinery yes it's expensive but it's going to make a huge difference to how your small room feels what it does is it allows you to use every single inch of space that you have to put storage in there and when it comes to joinery you don't just want to shove storage and not think about what kind of storage it is but you want to mix it up so in this room we have done a window seat under the window which is a lovely area to set but underneath the window seat is a pullout drawer that's giving you extra storage we've gone for some open shelves to the side because if this was fully blocked off it would make the room feel smaller because it's a solid wall but by having the open shelves with some led lighting again it's drawing your eye into those little recesses and making the room feel a bit deeper so I would say if you can do built-in joinery it's the absolute best thing you can do there's no other more efficient way of making the most of your room in this particular bathroom this was a really small space as well and again it's another good example of how joinery makes the most of every tiny bit of space you have so when we were excavating and renovating this Chelsea townhouse we discovered this little recess in the wall which the builder was about to block off and I was like no no don't block it off we will create a little niche with some shelves and just by having that little niche and these custom shelves although it's you know probably about 10 centimeters wide it again creates visual interest makes you feel like there's more going on in that space and it also gives you some practical storage so you can have some little area for flannels and some books you can see we've also implemented the same idea that we did in the kids room where you have some open shelving so it's not all closed off this gives you a little bit more breathing space around the dressing table area where you don't want to feel hemmed in you want to feel like you've got a bit more space around you so it's still offering some storage but it's also not blocking off areas in the room window treatments are really really important when it comes to your interior if you have a small space you do not want to have bulky curtains that block out the natural light that take up a lot of floor space so what you need to do is think really carefully about what kind of material you use you want to opt for a fabric that's going to drop very neatly and fold very neatly you don't want a big puffy curtain that's going to take up loads of floor space and it's going to encroach across your window because that's going to make your windows feel smaller your room feel darker and you're going to have less floor space another tip that I do and these are probably my most asked about curtains I've ever done I think they're so elegant is we weight the bottom of the curtain with some little weights get your curtain maker to add the weights in and that's going to make them drop even neater and stay really straight and you'll notice as well we've put the curtain pole as high as we possibly could it's literally right under the cornice and what that means is it's drawing your eye up and making the room feel as tall as it possibly can and ensuring it doesn't block any natural light so that's great if you do have room for curtains they can create a lot of drama they look very elegant and I think here they make the room feel grander as well but if you don't have room for curtains you can always go for roman blinds and what that allows you to do is push your furniture right up against the wall whereas when you've got curtains you need to leave a bit of space because obviously you need to be able to draw them and open them with roman blinds you can push everything back my final tip and this is something that anyone can do it doesn't take much time and it doesn't take a lot of money in fact takes no money at all is declutter your interior and your rooms because no matter how much storage you've got no matter how much beautiful wallpaper you have or great lighting if you have lots of clutter in your surfaces the room is going to feel claustrophobic and much smaller so really look with a you know a harsh light at all the things that you own that you have on display decide to keep the things that you think work the best and the things that don't have to be on show put them away because you want to give all your beautiful accessories and most treasured possessions breathing space you can appreciate them and the room on the whole is going to feel much calmer much less cluttered and as a result much bigger thank you so much for sticking with me and if you are enjoying this channel don't 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