How to Make a Small Space Look Huge—According to an Expert Who Did It

While every big city is vastly different, one complaint most of its inhabitants share is the lack of space—especially in Manhattan, where square footage is hard to come by. Just ask writer and interiors expert Sarah Lyon whose space on New York City’s Upper East Side is just 650 square feet.

You’d never know, though because her clever design tricks make this jewel box apartment look and feel double its size. What’s more, all of her personal touches add an undeniable European elegance to it that’s hard to replicate for anyone without an affinity for creativity. Take, for instance, the faux fireplace she incorporated that you’d never know isn’t the real thing until you realize lacks the appropriate pyrotechnics, but we digress.

Ahead, discover all of Lyon’s tips and tricks that make her sweet, little space seem deceptively huge.

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For starters, Lyon left the walls white, which generally makes any room feel bigger for two reasons. Chiefly, light can bounce off of them. Second, there’s a visual openness you don’t really get with walls much darker than this. “In this apartment, I really wanted to embrace all the natural light that I have,” she starts. “I didn’t want it to be too cluttered or busy, but I also definitely am not a minimalist.”

Her second trick is a bit more subtle: She hung a massive mirror quite high on the wall. Doing so almost tricks your brain’s perception of depth, making a small room look a lot bigger; kind of like a fun house, but not at all scary. “I knew I wanted a large ornate mirror over the mantel just to evoke that kind of Brooklyn-Parisia townhouse feel with the fireplace,” she admits. “It looks great and it really makes this room feel a lot bigger as well”.

Lastly, Lyon made sure that plenty of her furniture and decor, including the vintage trunk (a Facebook Marketplace find), the end table between the chairs, and the ceiling-height bookshelves, served multiple functions. Regarding the trunk, a very special find, Lyon admits: “It’s so heavy that it’s hard to even move around, but it’s great for storage, which, living in New York, you can never have enough storage.”