How can you enlarge the space in the living room? Optically combining the house with the garden

There is a great deal of effective tricks for optically enlarging the living room, which are readily used by interior designers. The basic way is to combine it with the kitchen, which will work particularly well in small flats. Thanks to this, we are able to save at least a few extra metres of floor space, which can be used e.g. for a dining room.

Tried and tested ways to visually enlarge space in a flat or house

Another way is using lacquered surfaces of cupboards in bright colours. They will reflect the light, which will effectively brighten the interior of the house. Bright colours of walls and other flat fittings will also support us in the ‘fight’ for extra metres. Shades of white, beige or the recently fashionable grey work well here. However, when we like expressive elements on walls, we can optically enlarge space by using murals with a depth motif. There are numerous designs of this type available on the market, so we can easily find one that appeals to us.

It has long been known that a great and cheap way to visually add metres to our flats is appropriately arranging mirrors. Both the size and layout are key here. In a nutshell, it can be assumed that the larger the mirror, the greater the sense of space. However, remember to keep the mirror frames minimalist, as a massive frame can be overwhelming. It is also a good idea to use them e.g. as cabinet fronts. It is important to position mirrors on the opposite side of windows and patio doors. This way, they will effectively brighten interiors and enlarge them optically. Sometimes, hanging mirrors opposite to each other can also produce an interesting effect.

Playing with light and optics is a great solution to make the living room seem larger.

One can easily notice that light plays a big part in the tricks suggested above. Whether the interior of the living room is beautifully brightened is greatly influenced by the windows and patio doors. It is therefore worthwhile in their case to go for large sizes, which are the domain of aluminium joinery. This way, we will fill the interior with natural light, which, combined with the solutions mentioned previously, will give us excellent results, and our living rooms will seem much larger than they actually are. So which solutions are worth choosing?

In this case, lift-and-slide patio doors will work perfectly. Aluprof has solutions of this type in its offer, e.g. the perennial bestseller MB-77HS or the MB-82HS, whose thermal parameters are even better. Door leaves manufactured in these systems may be of large size (3.24 m x 3.3 m) and weight (600 kg). A slim middle mullion does not obstruct the view to the outside, and a low sill (even a ‘zero’ sill in the case of MB-82HS) is, in turn, the best solution for those who want to enlarge their living room not only visually, but also physically. Why? Because, during the summer season, wide open terrace doors make the living room and the garden become one space!

An even more effective solution will be MB-Skyline and MB-Skyline Type R panoramic sliding doors. Thanks to their concealed aluminium frame, the only visible element of the structure is the middle mullion with a width of just 25 mm. This solution will provide the interior with even more light, and the zero sill will blur the physical boundary between the interior and the outside of the house.

When the terrace opening is small, it is worth considering a solution other than sliding and lift-and-slide doors, as such structures, apart from the movable leaf, are equipped with a fixed frame, narrowing the usable space. In such a situation, the MB-Fold Line HD bifold door will work perfectly well, as its structure will ensure a wide passage from the house to the garden or terrace. We can then almost literally remove the barrier between the interior of the building and the outside.

Thus, there are numerous methods for enlarging the living room, yet, in each of them, a vast amount of light entering the house is crucial. So make sure you bring as much of it into the interior as possible, which the windows and patio doors from Aluprof are ideal for.