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What colour blinds make a room look bigger? A wide range of lighter hues; more or less any colour you can think of in fact, as long as it comes from the paler side of the colour spectrum. However, to say that light colours make rooms look bigger is only part of the story, and there is in fact much more to making a room look bigger with blinds than just their shade.
This blog post will tell you how blinds can make a room feel larger as well as what kind of blinds make a room look bigger, and why. I’ll also give you a definitive answer (complete with justifications) to whether curtains or blinds make a room look bigger overall.
How blinds can make a room feel larger
If you need to know how blinds can make a room feel larger, the first thing to bear in mind is that you need to manage your expectations. Blinds can both reduce the actual space taken up with window coverings and contribute to the impression of a clean or spacious feeling, but they can’t work miracles!
If your spare bedroom requires your sausage dog to make a “this wiener is reversing” noise in order to get out safely again once they’ve got in, or if your downstairs bathroom is so small that the sink needs to be housed in another room entirely, you will need to manage your expectations. Blinds can make a room feel larger, but they’re not a portal to another dimension.
With that caveat in mind then, how blinds can make a room feel larger is based on a combination of not impinging any more than is absolutely necessary into the room itself; not occluding the window glass and so, enabling you to maximise the light that enters the room (good light being essential for an impression of space); and by means of their style and design as well.
Window blinds come in various different forms, and some of them are better at achieving these things than others; this all being aside from the original question of what colour blinds make a room look larger, which I will cover later on.
Different types or styles of blinds have different footprints in terms of how much of the wall and/or window they cover when open. Some appear cleaner/neater than others while some types of blinds might be considered to be a little busy or “fussy” in comparison. Some are very minimalistic, symmetrical, and structured compared to others, all of which contributes towards the ultimate cause.
What kind of blinds make a room look bigger?
Type-wise, what kind of blinds make a room look bigger? Again, I will get onto the colours and styles thing shortly, but before you get that far, you need to fix upon a blind type. This itself has just as much of an impact as the ultimate shade you pick once you know how. Blinds can make a room feel larger by maintaining a small footprint within the room and also, by allowing you to maximise the light that you get through the window.
This means that to understand what blinds will make your room look bigger, you need to first of all understand the two different options for where on a window a set of blinds can be hung, and why. These are either over/outside of the window recess, or inside of it respectively.
What kind of blinds make a room look bigger based on their hanging position?
Hanging the blind inside of the window recess reduces the actual space that the blind takes up inside of the room itself to zero; which might be all the answer that you need. However, depending on the type of blind you pick, when it is open, it might take up a reasonable amount of space of its own; which if hung inside of the recess, will mean that it still partially occludes the glass even when in the open position, which in turn, blocks some of the light, and this itself can make a room look smaller.
Now, if you choose one of the types of blinds that only take up a very small area of space and that maintain a small footprint when closed, hanging them inside of the window recess to make the room look larger will usually be the way to go. (This holds true unless there’s a functional reason for not doing this, like awkward window handles, or a practical consideration to bear in mind, such as the fact that blackout blinds may allow light to leak around the edges of the blind unless they’re hung over the window recess and with a reasonable margin on all four sides.)
If you are searching for what kind of blinds make a room look bigger and that are also fine to hang inside of the window recess without blocking virtually any of the glass, your best choices are roller blinds or day and night blinds. These roll up in one piece around their header tube, and so take up very little space.
Venetian blinds are also usually a good bet for small to medium-height windows; their slats are very narrow and so only form a small stack, which is only likely to occlude the glass at all if the window is on the large/tall side. Vertical blinds rank about the same; their louvres open to the sides, and again, don’t take up a lot of space when lying flush. However, if the window is wide this time (rather than tall) their opened louvre stack can run to several inches either side (or even more if the whole array opens to one side rather than parting in the middle).
Wooden blinds, faux-wood blinds, and Roman blinds are the worst choices when it comes to blinds that don’t take up a lot of space. Roman blinds open into a fairly large fold of pleats, which will definitely occlude some of your glass. Wooden and faux-wood blinds can also form moderately large stacks when open, once more dependent on the height of the window.
How large the window is, how large the room is, and various other individual factors and of course, your own preferences all go into making the final decision, but knowing what kind of blinds make a room look bigger by means of not occluding the glass inside of the recess or covering a lot of wall outside of the recess if hung in that way is a sound starting point.
How blinds can make a room feel larger by means of your style choices
I know, I’m still going and have yet to give you the skinny about what colour blinds make a room look bigger… I am honestly nearly there. Couple of other things first though. I’ve covered the blinds type/footprint/glass coverage issues above, and there are a couple of other things to consider when it comes to your style choices as well as the type of blind you get and ultimately, its colour.
Blinds that are plainer/less “busy” in terms of both design and any pattern they display will tend to open up a space more than blinds with a lot going on. This means that for me in most instances, Roman blinds are not a good choice. Not only do they take up a fairly large footprint as I mentioned above, but even the plainer types are fairly intricately formed, before you even get onto pattern choices and fine detailing.
Also, as well as the colour of a blind, texture and finish can play a part too. Most if not all types of blinds come with a variety of options in this respect, whether they’re made of fabric, a hard material like PVC faux-wood or enamel-painted aluminium, or a natural material like real wood.
Fabrics can be textured or smooth, as can the finish of most painted materials like the enamelled finish of Venetian blinds. Wood and faux-wood may be smooth, grained, or painted, and all of these materials can run the whole spectrum from matte, to sheen/eggshell, to gloss and so on.
To make a room feel larger, factor in blinds in minimalistic styles and with plainer designs rather than those with a lot going on, and a sheen or gloss finish rather than a matte or textured finish.
What colour blinds make a room look bigger?
Are we there yet? Yes! What colour blinds make a room look bigger then? White blinds or other very light and bright colours. This means more or less any colour on the colour wheel that is pale and also, generally cool toned. Cool-toned blinds tend to have a fresher, more airy feel than those in warm tones, which while they won’t specifically make your room look small, don’t give that same impression of freshness and lightness that a subtly cool shade will.
Bright colours too can make a room look larger; and with colours that are particularly bright, you can usually play with shades that are a little bolder too, as opposed to heading solely in the direction of very pale ones.
Plain blinds are best as well; by which I mean, those without a strong, large, or bold pattern. You may well be able to work a subtle or small patterned design into a blind of the right colour and tone, but a dark, bold, or busy patterned blind will make the room look somewhat smaller.
A final idea is to look at ombre blinds or those with a graduated colour effect to them, once more being mindful of the correct colour choices and colour tone.
What makes a room look bigger, curtains or blinds?
In closing then, what makes a room look bigger, curtains or blinds? Setting aside even the colour and tone considerations for this one, the answer falls firmly in the camp of “blinds.” This isn’t even a case of “well you would say that wouldn’t you, being that your company is called English Blinds rather than English Curtains;” it’s simply self-evident.
Blinds take up a far smaller footprint than curtains (even the larger/busier types of blinds) and also, occlude far less of the wall or window when closed, again, even for the heftier or wider types.
Style-wise, while you can get very trad-styled and classical-looking blinds as well as supermodern minimalistic ones, curtains kind of… Can’t really be described as minimalistic or modern in quite the same way, regardless of how much chrome is involved in their fittings!
Overall, blinds are better at making a room look bigger than curtains, and blinds that take up a smaller footprint, and that are made from a plain, cool-toned light and/or bright colour with a slight sheen to it will make your room look larger.
