Many rooms in small apartments are quite small. Designers, when choosing finishing materials for such premises, are guided by certain laws of the organization of internal space. In this article, we will get acquainted with the rules for decorating walls to give spatial volume to small rooms.
Features:
The first difficulties and limitations arise already at the stage of choosing wallpaper. In finishing a cramped space, a large decorative pattern will seem cumbersome, stucco will make the ceiling even lower, saturated dark colors will so thicken the atmosphere that it will be uncomfortable to be in the room.
What remains at our disposal? It turns out, not so little! It is better to prefer the light background of the wallpaper. Light colors add "air" to the space that small rooms need. Bright contrasting blue, green, red, graphite colors are acceptable in very small concentrations to create style accents.
Small drawing is preferable. Striped wallpaper, when used correctly, can make a low room taller and narrow walls move apart a little.
It is not at all necessary to completely abandon a large bright pattern, but it must be applied locally, in some parts of the wall , alternating with the main plain wallpaper.
The texture of the wallpaper should also serve the purpose of increasing the volume of the room. The more embossed the wallpaper, the more depth it gives to the wall surfaces. This is perceived as deepening and expanding space. Glossy surfaces, being the direct opposite of embossed surfaces, have the same effect due to multiple reflections.
Thus, wallpaper for a small room must be selected according to the following criteria: light colors, small drawing, embossed texture. For the view accents, any you like are suitable, you just need to arrange them correctly in the decoration of the walls.
Tasks of finishing walls in cramped rooms
The main task of repairs in a modest room is to visually increase the space. It should visually look taller and more spacious due to the pattern and color of the wall decoration material. Low ceilings should be visually raised due to the vertical decor on the wallpaper.
Another task is to create a cozy and comfortable place for family members to live. Designers take into account the illumination of the room and, depending on this indicator, choose one or another wallpaper color: for northern rooms, peach-colored wallpapers are selected, these tones create a feeling of warmth. The southern rooms "cool" a little with blue and gray wallpaper.
Another important function of wall coverings is to create a certain mood . In the bedroom, everything should be conducive to relaxation - wallpaper is needed in a calm, pacifying color, in the nursery - brighter, more energetic, for the study - laconic and strict, for the living room - ceremonial, for the hall - practical and elegant.
Finally, wallpaper is the basis for creating a stylistic interior solution. The aesthetic perception of space depends to a large extent on the choice of wall decoration. To create a harmonious interior, furniture and decor accessories are selected in the same style.
Which ones are right?
Let's try to choose wallpaper for rooms of different purposes and sizes. At the first stage, you need to decide on the type of wallpaper - paper or vinyl, plain or patterned, glossy or matte. The decor of a small room dictates its own terms. In a narrow room, it will be correct to combine horizontal striped wallpaper on narrow walls with solid colors or with a small pattern on opposite long walls.
The narrow wall is decorated with bright wallpaper with an expressive print, the rest of the room is trimmed with plain material. The curtains are matched to the color of the wall.
A narrow long room should be divided into functional areas. Highlight one zone with an active color, the other in calm tones of the corresponding colors. For example, in the children's area, the beds are decorated with a blue monochromatic decor, and the place for games in a marine style with alternating white, red and blue stripes. This technique will make the space richer and wider.
In the bedroom, behind the head of the bed and above it on the ceiling, you can glue wallpaper of the same color so that the wall seems to go into the ceiling to create the illusion of a niche, all other walls can be pasted over with plain wallpaper in a contrasting color. Visually, the part of the wall passing into the ceiling looks like additional space.
The family often gathers in the living room, and wall decoration with combined wallpaper will serve to increase the space here. In a small room, it is worth choosing the horizontal division technique . The lower part is pasted over with a darker saturated color, and the upper half of the walls is finished with light monochromatic or finely patterned wallpaper. It is better to make a curb thin, since a wide one will visually reduce the height of the hall.
For a small square room, the method of alternating plain fabrics with printed ones is suitable. In this case, there should be more monophonic stripes. This will create a specific footage that expands the area.
Volumetric elements are suitable for decorating small rooms in limited quantities. You can cut some images and paste them separately. You should not completely glue the room with canvases with a large pattern.
For a visual increase in height, the wallpaper is not glued from the ceiling, but stepping back 10-20 centimeters. This strip is painted in the color of the ceiling, and thus the ceiling is lifted, as it were. This strip on the wall is either simply plastered and painted, or trimmed with a molding - a decorative convex strip.
Not only the placement of the pattern, but also the choice of color affects the visual perception of space.
How to match the color?
The functionality of small rooms is different, depending on which colors are selected. There is a special classification for matching colors to each other. Some colors are combined, others will look dissonant. It's a good idea to stock up on such a table in advance if you intend to use several tones. The general rules are as follows: all colors are combined with white, black, gold and silver. Brown colors will be good companions to blue, blue, pink, red shades. The green ones are yellow, orange. Red should be used in interiors as an accent, especially in a small room.
In the kitchen, dining room, nursery or young man's room, it is better to choose summer colors, juicy from the upper part of the spectrum, from light green to orange. All white, beige, steel, cream tones are welcome to decorate the living room, study, bedroom. Black, brown, dark green can be present as fine lines or stripes.
On the sunny side, well-lit rooms do not need additional lighting, so you can use cherry and burgundy wallpaper with a pattern in combination with blue, gray or olive wallpaper with a small pattern.
The choice of wallpaper for a dark room is limited to light colors. In such rooms, you should not resort to strong contrasts. The most lighted wall can be decorated with more rich ornamented paints, the rest can be kept in a calm range of appropriate colors.
It is worth taking a closer look at glossy light wallpaper. Their reflectivity will add a little space. However, it is not necessary to make the ceiling, walls and floor glossy. You need to choose some two positions or just one. In the case of a strong darkening of the room, they resort to using artificial lighting. A niche is made, the interior of which is pasted over with wallpaper with an original design, hidden lamps are placed in the arch of the niche.
In order for the wall decoration to be in harmony with curtains, upholstery of upholstered furniture, decorative textiles, when purchasing them, it is desirable to have small samples of wallpaper, so it will be easier to choose the desired color. It is better to choose textiles in the same colors that are present in the wallpaper pattern.
For information on how to combine wallpaper in a small room, see the next video.
Decor options
There are a lot of decorative techniques for decorating walls. One of them is the use of double wallpaper. These can be companion wallpapers of the same tone. In this case, a canvas with a large pattern is taken on one wall, and on the rest - with the same small one.
The same approach is used when choosing contrasting colors. But invariably in a small room, a large pattern is located only on one wall.
A bright pattern can be applied to the entire area of the room in the case of a diagonal arrangement. The diagonal pattern is already provided by the manufacturer. If the wallpaper has a vertical pattern, then the canvases are glued diagonally. It should be borne in mind that with this pasting technology there will be a greater consumption of finishing material.
In small spaces, it may be necessary to emphasize with a large pattern, then the "decoretto" technique is suitable. The use of decorative wall stickers is always popular. Manufacturers offer drawings of various colors and thematic focus. Bright accents on the wall that match in tone will greatly decorate the room, make it individual. Vivid images, such as roses, butterflies, or stylized flowers against a bright background, are pasted onto the view wall.
In nuanced compositions, wallpaper with an already applied plot pattern in pastel colors is chosen. This pattern can occupy one wall, or two walls and the angle between them are trimmed this way.
Artistic appeal, depth and exclusivity of the design will be given by the photo wallpaper, which decorates the central wall. In small rooms, you should not decorate the wall with a photo wallpaper with one large image - for example, a car or a tree. It is better to choose photowall-paper in the right colors with a perspective view.
Determining the style
In any room, small or large, all design elements should be harmoniously combined and connected by a single artistic line, which is determined by the style of this interior.
In a small room, palace styles - empire or baroque will look out of place . But by choosing silk-screen printing in blue tones with gold monograms, supporting this pattern with appropriate furniture and satin decor, you can give the interior a bit of palace luxury.
"Burnt-out" paints of wallpaper with a pattern in small flowers, aged light furniture, porcelain dishes, light upholstery of armchairs will make up an ensemble for a Provence style interior.
More relevant for confined spaces will be to follow modern styles with their minimalism. The fewer items in a room, the more spacious it is. It is worth leaving only the most necessary furnishings or hiding storage spaces using modern space transformation systems.
High-tech style meets these tasks . A minimum of furniture and an abundance of chrome surfaces, metal, glass will create multiple reflections that blur the boundaries of the room. Wallpaper with metallic elements will be appropriate here. Steel shades won't spoil a few bright accents of red or other very vibrant color. But these accents should be few, otherwise fragmentation of the interior will appear. It can be one or two wallpaper designs, or a couple of figurines in a niche, or a pillow on the sofa.
Functional Art Deco leaves several very high quality and valuable items in the interior. In this style solution, each thing is exactly in its place, there are not many of them, they do not block the transparent space. Shiny surfaces made of natural stone, gloss of glass countertops, smooth dim wallpaper will look very organic in this interior.
The Scandinavian style requires wallpaper in soft natural tones, solid or with a geometric pattern. Simple brown wood-textured furniture lends austerity to a small room. A minimum of decor will free up space.
The style of high-tech interiors is a loft. It involves the use of wallpaper in the form of brickwork or a porous structure of a concrete surface. Windows without heavy curtains will let in streams of light into a small room.
Mediterranean style with white wallpaper with the texture of simple rough plaster, light or white textiles, simple forms of room decoration will create an airy interior.
A variety of design approaches will allow even the smallest room to be stylishly decorated.
Interior design examples
Making the space of the house to your liking, you can embody any ideas. Design developments will help to competently combine beautiful decorative elements in the apartment. It is worth familiarizing yourself with ready-made examples and choosing for yourself what suits your taste and needs.
A small room with a light gray wallpaper with vertical stripes in a Scandinavian style with a mustard sofa is filled with light and looks spacious and bright.
An accent wall papered with turquoise wallpaper, combined with white trim in the rest of the space, gives the bedroom a spring fresh feel.
Bright lilac wallpapers, combined with striped ones, zone the space of a small room and visually increase the length of the walls due to horizontal stripes.
Cheerful tones and vertical stripes make the room look taller. The yellow-green spectrum of colors combined with lighting and a glossy ceiling fills the space with energy.
The alternation of stripes with a small pattern and monochrome wallpaper matched to the tone visually expands the volume of the bedroom.