After my second daughter was born, I was adamant that – despite living in a rented house – I was going to do everything I could to break the mould when it came to decorating the smallest room in the house. This meant pulling away from the dreaded magnolia epidemic of rented houses, putting our own stamp on the nursery and ultimately giving it some personality through truly effective interior design.
Today, I’m going to show you just how thinking big can really make a difference when it comes to effective design in a small space. Here are some of the great ways that I managed to get around the limited availability of space using clever and optimistic design!
Adding Drama Through Colour
This room in question may be the ‘box room’ of the house, but it has a fantastic window that is perfectly positioned to let in ample natural light throughout the day.
I specifically wanted to counteract the small size of the room, and so I decided to play on the natural sunlight that the room enjoys. I noticed that, particularly during the summer months, the room really lit up with natural light, and decided to use this feature to add a little drama. I was intent on avoiding the typically “girly” pinks that most baby girl rooms suffer from. In doing this, I decided to turn to the dozens of interior design paints that Farrow and Ball can provide, to help me choose contrasting colours that would really play on the type of light that this room enjoys.
I finally settled on a rich, warm colour that brought an edge of drama to the room whilst still keeping it soft, fun and childish enough for my little one. I chose Babouche as the accent/feature colour of choice, which was then complimented by white tie – a yellow-based white which really helped to bring the Babouche to life.
With the choice of such a bold colour the rest of the room was to be kept simple and soft to keep the baby feel of the room.
Mix Up Patterns
So, I may have just said that we were going to keep the rest of the room simple, in order to stop the room from turning into some kind of 1960s interior design-style “far-out” mash of contrasting colour. However, my mother-in-law decided to buy a gorgeous musical mobile from Mamas and Papas, which added in the extra theme of elephants. Fortunately, this theme fitted in perfectly with the rich yellows we’d chosen, and could easily represent the rich sunset of an African evening.
To compliment this design, we decided to opt for yellow chevron-patterned lampshades and complimented the mobile with matching bedding in order to add additional pattern and colour, without overdoing it.
Make Bold Gestures with Feature Pieces
To highlight the fairly simple elements which made up the design, we decided not to go big but to opt for many simple, white box-frames which display a range of fun images of African animals to add a softer more fun element tying the theme all together as a gallery wall. Set on the warm wall of Farrow and Ball Babouche, the frames really stand out and draw the eye immediately to create a feature piece.
Just because the room itself is so small, doesn’t mean that every composing element within the room had to be. By choosing some simple, larger pieces, we were able to avoid the risk of making the room feel cluttered. When it comes to smaller rooms, we have one piece of advice; Go big or go home! That’s exactly what we did with an American-style rocking chair as a feature piece, it really helped to tie the room together and make the space feel much larger.
This technique isn’t just limited to bedrooms either, but can be used to make the most out of a whole range of smaller rooms. One idea that has worked well in the past is the installation of an oversized clock as a feature piece. The Orchard have some fantastic options in this respect, be sure to check out our three Steeple clocks or the Old Town clock: http://www.theorchardhomeandgifts.com/section.php/34/1/clocks
The Conclusion
The key thing to remember throughout the interior design process when it comes to small rooms is to not be put off by the very fact that they are in fact small. Instead think big and imagine the room so and decorate it accordingly, you’ll be amazed at the results!
For more interior design inspiration, be sure to trawl through our other blogs, our Pinterest page and, of course, our Facebook page, where we share many photographs from customers who have already shopped with The Orchard and worked pieces beautifully into their own homes.
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