Low ceiling? Narrow living room? Cramped space? What can we do to overcome these intrinsic shortcomings of small apartments and make them “look” bigger?

Let’s start with this picture on “Optical Illusion”:

Interestingly, even though the two vertical lines have the exact same length, the one on the left somehow looks longer. This is because the two ends of the left vertical lines are extending outwards, giving us an illusion of extension that “stretches” the vertical line.

To make a small apartment look bigger, the same principle applies.

Tip 1 – Custom Make Your Wardrobes

Custom made wardrobes that take full height from floor to ceiling are better in creating optical illusions than off-the-shelf wardrobes.

Let’s take a look at the following two images.

This image shows a typical off-the-shelf 2.1 – 2.4m high wardrobe. Notice the vertical lines are “cut off”. Hence, it does not achieve the optical illusion of height extension, making the ceiling look even lower.

In contrary, the full-height custom-made wardrobe in image 2 blends the vertical lines with the floor and the ceiling nicely, visually extending the height of the ceiling.

Tip #2 – Lighting is Everything

Lighting significantly affects the visual size of your apartment. To make your apartment look bigger, you can use the following two techniques as illustrated in the picture:

Use light color furniture, painting and flooring materials. In this case, white or light champagne color.
Blur the joints of ceiling, walls and floor by using the similar or same color tones.

Tip #3 – Storage, Storage, and Storage

To make a small apartment feel larger, you absolutely cannot afford to have chaos and clutter. Hide as much “stuff” as possible. That’s why you need storage. Plenty of storage spaces.

Moreover, avoid having too many different colors in your unit to avoid visual chaos. Primary color should take up more than 60% of the house.