Whether you are selling your home or staying put, chances are you have (or will have) a small space on your hands. Most of us are not lucky enough to have walk-in closets the size of kitchens, so what’s a girl (or boy) to do? Below are my top 5 tricks to making any room feel more spacious!

1. Large artwork will make small rooms appear bigger, so skip the random hanging of small prints and go for one sofa-sized painting or blow up a photograph using a site like Photogonia.
2. Monochromatic color schemes can be your best friend, especially when staging a home to sell. Using many different colors causes the eye to jump around and can visually break up a room. A monochromatic scheme (the use of various shades of the same color) encourages an ebb and flow appearance and makes even dark, small rooms less claustrophobic. For example, a bedroom could be visually enlarged by using a khaki-colored carpet, beige bedding and a neutral paint on walls (try Sherwin Williams’ ‘Trusty Tan’ or ‘Macadamia’).
3. Speaking of paint, a ceiling that is painted lighter than the walls will always make the room appear taller. For example, choose your wall color on any paint swatch. Now move up the swatch two shades and that should be your ceiling color (in most cases).
4. Sky-high drapes can fool almost anybody. Use this trick when working with drapery panels: Hang your rod about 3″ below the crown moulding (or where the wall meets the ceiling if you have none). Even if your windows are only 75″ high, hanging 85″ drapes above the window frame instantly makes the room look taller! Staging a home? Leave the panels pulled to the side so that potential buyers can enjoy the view.
5. Unified flooring is key. No matter what your square footage, multiple flooring materials shrink a space. Stick with one or two surfaces (such as wood panels in the living areas, carpet in bedrooms) to keep a nice flow throughout the home and visually increase size.

Jennifer Hicks is a Certified Interior Decorator and Owner of Designing Diva Interiors, LLC

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