When you are designing a room, most times you do not have the option of making the room physically larger, but what you can do is add visual space and make the room appear larger than it actually is. Using wallpaper to affect the look of your room’s size is an effective way to use this decorating medium.
Light Colored Wallpaper
Many of the rules that apply to paint and how it affects the appearance of a room also apply to wallpaper. Light colors will make a room seem larger than it is while dark colors will make a room feel smaller. If you paint a room in light color and keep your furnishings light, the walls will actually appear to recede and the space opens up visually. The same applies to wallpaper. Choose light pastels or neutral colors to visually expand the size of a room.
Take Care with Patterns
When you are trying to increase the size of a room visually, using wallpaper devoid of pattern is usually the best way to go, because patterns can visually shrink a room. If your wallpaper has a very large pattern in it, you can overpower a space with the pattern and actually make the room feel much smaller than it is. If you are going to include pattern on your wallpaper, a good option is to use a medium to small pattern that has little color contrast; this will keep the visual space open. Either a tone on tone pattern or a pastel on cream background will work.
Where pattern works particularly well is when your room is out of proportion. For example, if you have a narrow room, you can add horizontal stripes to the wall to make it feel wider than it is or vertical stripes to make a room seem taller. If you do not need to change the shape of your walls and you are considering a pattern to simply add interest to the walls, you may want to use textured wallpaper.
Add a Little Shine
You can also make a room look larger by reflecting light around the room, and one really effective way to do this is with wallpaper that has a little shimmer in its finish. By coupling shimmer with texture, you can add interest to the walls while still visually expanding the size of the space.
Wallpapering a Single Wall
Another really lively way to use wallpaper in a smaller room is to use wallpaper on a single wall in the room and paint the remaining walls a pale, coordinating tone. Adding wallpaper to a single wall will make that wall a focal point in your room, so if you add it to the wall at the far end of the room, it will pull your eye through the space and make it seem longer.