Design Tricks to Reshape a Room: Video 2 of 2
Welcome back to the 2nd part of Kimball Starr televised on the PBS TV series “Creative Living” with Sheryl Borden. Kimball Starr is the featured San Francisco interior design expert teaching how to visually reshape a room’s proportions. She wraps up this second segment with how to make a small bathroom look more spacious, along with integrating color and reflective surfaces to visually maximize a small home.
In case you missed the first half of this video, here is Design Tricks to Reshape a Room: Video 1 of 2.
Below is a transcript of the video:
♪[music]♪
– [Announcer] With your host, Sheryl Borden.
– [Kimball] [The first example is] …In a very small bathroom, which is a very common problem in any urban area.
– [Sheryl] Yeah, very small usually.
– It’s very small. This is, shower… there’s no tub. There wasn’t room for a tub. But on the flooring, if you use large format tiles and you angle them, it will actually make the space seem bigger. So if you run planks front-to-back, it’s going to make your room seem longer.
– Right.
– If you run them side-to-side, it’s going to make it seem wider.
– Wider.
– And then if you run it on the diagonal, it widens AND lengthens the room.
– I’ve seen places where they were at a diagonal, but it was usually a large entry or something. I wouldn’t have thought about using a big design in a bathroom.
– And that is a misnomer where people think, “Oh, it’s a small bathroom. I have to use small tiles.”
– Right.
– But it’s a thing with all those grout lines, every time you see a grout line, that’s your eye saying ‘stop, stop, stop, stop’. And if you just see much bigger tiles and maybe there’s only six or eight of them, your eye just flows across the floor.
– Flows. I guess so.
– It seems more spacious. And same thing with the glass shower, instead of having a corner shower jutting out, you chop it so it’s angled and that helps keep the flow open as well. And for little small dining areas, you can use cabinetry floor-to-ceiling, and that’s going to increase your ceiling height. And the thing about this is, it’s all monochromatic using the dark colors of the cabinetry and using the dark island. All the color just flows and the floors are dark. So actually, this is something a lot of people don’t know is dark floors actually recede. So your floors will actually feel more spacious if you do a dark color because the floor is dropping away.
– And I would’ve thought maybe using the black or a dark grey, or whatever, would make it seem so much smaller.
– Yeah. Well, you know, it’s also because we have wonderful glass windows that lets in the light.
– Okay.
– I mean if you have …
– That probably counters it, doesn’t it?
– You do need to take into consideration what else is going on. If you don’t have any windows in the room and you did everything black …
– It would be a tomb.
– That probably wouldn’t be advisable.
– Yeah. I see. Okay. Yeah, I can see that.
– And then this last…
– Oh, I love this.
– Oh, thank you!
– I love these colors.
– And then this last example, it’s a very contemporary space. There’s no molding or trim. It’s very straightforward. So it’s very architectural and there’s very sharp lines. So by doing this built-in banquette, instead of doing a right…
– Oh, it softens it, doesn’t it? That’s why I like that.
– You’re hired!
– I’m hired? Good!
– That’s right. So instead of having a sharp right angle, by creating this curve, it just softens the flow.
– It does.
– And then the other trick is, if you notice, outside the window there’s always greenery.
– Yes.
– If you bring in a color from outside that’s visible from your room and use it as a major color as here, so we have all the greenery and I use…
– So it just extends the room indoors, outdoors.
– That’s right because…
– That’s a great idea.
– Because it feels like the patio is really part of your living space.
– Now, one other question, what about lighting? Is it true that if it’s a smaller space, you need more lighting or what’s the secret there?
– That’s a great question. So when I said the cabinetry, if you go all the way up to the ceiling it makes it seem taller…
– Right.
– If you drop the cabinetry from going all the way to the top, it will make your ceiling seem shorter. But, if you put recessed lighting on top and light up the ceiling, that lifts up the ceiling.
– I can see how it would do that.
– So up-lighting is really important if you want to increase the height of your ceiling.
– And that seems like more and more of the newer houses that I’ve been in have that … is it called cove lighting or something?
– Yes.
– And it does.
– Yes.
– It just looks like it goes on forever.
– Yes. Exactly.
– And some of the rooms aren’t all that big.
– Cove up-lighting is an excellent way to increase the space in your room.
– Well, these are great examples. I can see how people would want to apply these if they had a small space, especially, and make it seem larger. Thank you very much, Kimball.
– Thank you so much, Sheryl. It was great to be here!
Kimball Starr is an interior design expert in San Francisco providing authentic contemporary interiors for homes and commercial interiors thoughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
