A funny thing about people and space is that as soon as we encounter an open area, we tend to quickly fill it up with a lot of things and then complain that we’ve run out of space. Why do we do that? Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with filling up a space… I think the problem with this behavior is that we fail to fill a room, a hallway, or any empty area with things that complement the space that already exists.
If carefully designed, even the tiniest area can be made to feel roomy not by keeping it bare, but by decorating it in a way that says, “This is a special place that has a specific function.” Approaching space planning in this manner opens up a whole new world of opportunities (no pun intended!) mostly because we’ve simply changed the way that we perceive it.
So when faced with something that looks impossibly little, consider the following two tips. You just might find the biggest ideas come from the smallest packages after all.
1. Dedicate an undersized area to no more than three tasks. The smaller the room - the smaller number of tasks. This will prevent the area from being cluttered to the point where it serves no purpose at all other than to be a big mess!
2. Minimize the area’s visual excitement. You don’t want to create something that resembles a prison environment here, but you don’t want to go overboard on multiple colors, textures, or accessories either. All the extra eye candy creates mind-noise that will inadvertently fill up a room before anyone even enters it!
So a monochrome theme with furniture of varying modern shapes should create a sufficient amount of visual interest without being overwhelming.
