
24. Floor Length Curtains
A lot of people make the mistake of purchasing curtains that fit their windows perfectly. This might help with giving you privacy and keeping out the sunlight when you’re trying to sleep, but it does nothing to help make the room bigger. If you use floor-length curtains, it will instantly make a space feel larger. It doesn’t matter if the window is significantly smaller than the curtain itself. This is an optical illusion that tricks the eye into believing that the windows are larger than they actually are. I have personally done this, and it works. In my bedroom, I have white floor-to-ceiling sheer curtain panels. When I take them off to clean them, my room looks like a completely different place.

I’ve also encouraged other people to use this tip, with positive results. A couple years ago, my older brother moved into a basement apartment. The only windows he had were very small, at the top of the ceiling. He asked me to come over for style advice, and wondered how he could find curtains that fit those tiny windows. I told him about this trick to create the illusion of space. At first, he didn’t want to try it, because he couldn’t imagine how that was possible. He thought that it might look strange. But I convinced him, and we purchased the floor length curtains. It did, in fact, make his room look a lot bigger. Now that he moved out, he’s taking those long curtains with him to the next space to repeat the same trick over again.