Using Light Colour Wood Flooring To Create Illusions Of Space And Light

The days are getting longer and we’re all waking up to the birds singing outside. It’s a great time of year to spend lots of time outdoors, but if you’re stuck inside a lot of the time and are yearning for more natural light or the illusion of more space in your home, strategically using light colour wood flooring is a great way to tick all your interior boxes.

Light colour wood flooring comes in both solid and engineered wood varieties so can be installed safely and confidently throughout the home and even in rooms where you have under floor heating. Available in a whole host of species, grades and finishes, there’s a light colour wood flooring option to suit every budget and pretty much every style of interior you can think of. In this article we want to share with you how you can make gloomy rooms seem brighter and small rooms seem bigger, by using light colour wood flooring as well as a few other tips and tricks that we’ll share with you to help you achieve your objectives.

Using white and off-white wood flooring to increase natural light

The lighter the colour of flooring and paintwork you choose in any room that is lacking light or feels small, the brighter and bigger your room will feel. Also, if your light coloured wood flooring has a light sheen to it, it will reflect light more effectively, creating an illusion of an even greater amount of natural light in your room. What’s more, using the same light coloured wood flooring throughout the home will throw more natural light into the whole house and give a real feeling of space and volume.

Choosing board size to play with dimensions

While most people assume that in a small room, you should choose narrow floor boards, light coloured floor boards that are wide can create a great effect in a small, dark room. In the same way that broad stripes on bodies make those bodies seem bigger, an illusion of increased size can be created with the use of broad boards. That said, narrow boards work equally well too.

Other tips and hints to increase natural light

• Paint your ceiling white. By combining a light coloured floor and a white ceiling, a gloomy room will seem loads brighter immediately.
• Use mirrors to bounce natural light around the room.
• Use electric lighting cleverly by combining uplighters and downlighters.
• Paint your walls with a light coloured, eggshell or satin finish paint to reflect more light.
• Enable as much light as you can to enter the room by stripping back window dressings.
• Fit glass doors to enable light to travel throughout the home.
• Invest in glass or perspex furnishings to enable the light to pass freely through the room.

Other tips and hints to give the illusion of space

• Paint your ceiling white. In the same way that this trick will give you more light, it will also create an immediate feeling of space in your room.
• Choose the right sized furnishings. While big and chunky can work in small spaces, generally speaking, if you choose furnishings that are in proportion with the room size you will achieve a greater illusion of space.
• Choose furnishings that have raised legs. Wherever possible, choose sofas and chairs that are raised off the floor on legs rather than furnishings that touch the floor all round.
• Fit glass doors to give the impression that one room leads naturally into the next.
• De-clutter. There’s nothing that screams lack of space more than having clutter all over your room. Choose clever storage solutions and shelving to make sure everything is in its rightful place.
• Invest in glass or perspex furnishings so they seem almost invisible.

If you’d like help to make the right flooring decisions for your project, why not get in touch? At Wood and Beyond, we love coming up with solutions that you mightn’t have even thought about to help you make the most of your interior.