The quickest way to make a narrow room feel wider

February 23, 6:15 PMDallas Home Improvement ExaminerDallas Alice

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AFTER: the matching side and back walls adds width.

The simplest and least expensive way to make a long, narrow room feel wider is to paint one or both of the end walls a darker color than the longer side walls. The darker color visually pulls the distant wall toward you. The example given in this article takes the idea a step further by painting a portion of the adjoining wall as well, further shortening the visual length of the side wall. Furniture placement can either hurt or help the feel of the room. Putting a long couch on a long wall emphasizes the long and narrow. Placing it perpendicular to the long wall will stretch the sense of width. Deep bold blue was the owner's personal choice.

Long and narrow BEFORE

The Kiva fireplace is a frequent feature in homes across the Southwest. Its placement at the end wall, along with the vertical slashes of windows and door, further narrowed the width of wall at the end of the living area. The solution for the space was to paint the walls at each end of the room a darker color to visually shorten the length of the room, and widen the room. Leaving the short wall beneath the fireplace bench a different color from the wall can also emphasized the horizontal. 

Opposite end of space even narrower.

At the other end of the room, an architectural accent was created from the energy-saving practice of dropping the air conditioning ducting into the home. Using the resulting horizontal line to further widen the room, it, too, is painted with the accent color used at the end of the room. Because the dining room wall itself is taller than it is wide, using the dark color on another wall, that above the bridge, again fools the eye with the horizontal wrap of color that stretches the width of the space. Adding horizontal stripes to the space, either with paint effects or by adding artwork that brings horizontal lines into the space, again adds width. The back wall received the darker paint treatment as did the small section over the bridge and the side of the bridge as well to accent the horizontal (AFTER not shown)