5 brilliant ways to make a home office appear bigger

After days of planning, renovating, and decorating, you’ve finally created a spot in your home for your home office. However, there’s just one little problem – it looks kind of small.

Adding a workstation in your home can be challenging, especially if you have limited space. But, your home office can have a dramatic effect on your work productivity and effectiveness. Making your home office look bigger, nicer, and more professional can do wonders in your job performance.

So, how can you make your home office look bigger? How can you make it feel spacious and roomy? Don’t worry! Ahead, you will learn the five ways to make your home office appear bigger.

Use the power of optical illusion

Obviously, there’s nothing you can do to physically alter the size of your room short of a renovation. However, you can make it appear bigger by using the power of optical illusion.

Have you ever been in a room with dark-coloured walls? How about a room with light ones? If you compare the two, which one of them creates a more spacious impression?

Yes, that’s right – it is the room with light-coloured walls. Paint with light colours are known to make rooms bigger and even brighter. On the other hand, dark shades of colours absorb light and make a room look smaller.

When choosing light colours, you don’t have to automatically go for white. You can choose soft tones of colours such as greens, blues, and off-white.

Here’s a pro tip that you should also apply: the colour of your wall mouldings and trim should be lighter compared to your walls. This makes your walls look as if they are farther back than your wall mouldings and trim, making your room extra bigger.

Bring in the light

Photo source: decoist

Ample lighting is another simple but effective way to make your home office feel bigger. This means whatever you can do to bring in more natural light, bring it on!

One way to do that is to rearrange your workstation so your desk faces the window. That way, not only are you always exposed to natural light, you also get the sense of vastness whenever you look outside.

What if you have a small window, or worse yet, no windows at all? According to lighting experts, certain types of artificial lighting such as wall sconces, track lighting, and Torchieres are good at mimicking natural lighting.

Stay organised

Photo source: Simply Organized

Clutter has the opposite illusion of making your room appear cramped and claustrophobic. Obviously, as you use your home office, it is inevitable that you leave clutter. The key is to clean up quickly afterwards.

Stay organised and clean as much as possible. Remove trash, arrange books, notebooks, pens, paper clips, and other stuff to make your home office bigger. Use drawers, boxes, and organizers to take clutters away from view.

Be minimalistic

Photo source: Home Designing

Minimalism is the process of simplifying things by getting rid of things you don’t need and keeping the essentials. When you create a minimalistic space, you’re actually making your home office look bigger.

What this means is that you shouldn’t add too much stuff to your home office. Aside from the obvious reason that stuff takes up precious space, it can also make your area smaller as it decreases open space.

For example, instead of a big bulky desk, use a smaller table instead. For your office chair, use a mid-back instead of a high-back chair. Among other differences, the former won’t obstruct your view when not in use and opens up your entire space.

Another tip is to avoid small paintings. It is better to use one large painting instead. Also, remove large rugs which can make your floor look cluttered.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Photo source: Home Stratosphere

Mirrors work like magic when it comes to making your home office look bigger. Of course, you need to choose the right place where you should mount your mirror. Here are two tips to keep in mind.

First, choose a focal point in your home office – this can be your table. From there, place your mirror in front of it so it can make your room look bigger.

The second tip is for you to place your mirror near your window. The goal is for your mirror to reflect your external environment and “transport” it inside your home office.