Interior Designers Reveal the One Thing They’d Never Put in a Small Room

It’s no secret that when decorating a small room, you’re much more limited in terms of what you can place inside of it. And while designers are pros at getting creative and making the most of small spaces—whether they’re bedrooms, living rooms, home offices, you name it—they do maintain that there are a few items in particular that do not belong in petite rooms under any circumstances.

Below, three experts speak to the things they will never be caught weaving into small rooms under any circumstances, as well as what to do instead.

Furniture That Is Too Sizable in Scale

While interior designers do not believe in filling petite rooms with tiny pieces of furniture—doing so can actually make a room look smaller—they are also cautious not to bring in anything that is too large and simply not to scale.

“Scale is everything, especially in more intimate spaces where every inch counts,” says Andrea Schumacher, the founder of Andrea Schumacher Interiors.

The act of filling a room with a piece of furniture that is simply too big can be detrimental for a variety of different reasons.

“When a sofa, bed, or armoire is too large for the room, it visually overwhelms the architecture and swallows up the very sense of openness we’re trying to create,” Schumacher says. “Rather than feeling cozy and chic, the space becomes cramped, heavy, and uncomfortable to move through.”

As an alternative, opt for furniture pieces that are appropriately sized but still offer a bit of character.

“I love to lean into tailored pieces that have strong style and presence without monopolizing the footprint,” Schumacher says, citing accent chairs and sculptural light fixtures as examples. “The goal is to balance comfort with proportion so the room feels gracious and inviting, no matter its size.”

Jill Litner Kaplan, the founder of Jill Litner Kaplan Interiors, echoes many of the above sentiments and shares that when designing small rooms, she, too, will never fill them with large-scale sofas or lounge chairs. Instead, she will scale the furniture she chooses to the size of the room she is designing.

In the case of the study shown here, this meant choosing a modern low slipper chair to sit in the corner.

“If we had installed a large sofa or lounge chairs with a deep seat, it would have consumed the space and exacerbated the feeling of confinement,” Kaplan says.

Sometimes, you may need to think a little bit further outside the box. In another small study, the designer chose to introduce a window seat banquette into the mix rather than go with a sizable, traditional furniture piece.

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Furniture Without Legs

When you’re designing a small room, you will also want to be intentional about selecting furniture pieces that feature visible legs, explains Lauren Saab, the founder of Saab Studios.

“Heavy items with no visible legs turn into clunky blocks that swallow square footage,” she says. “Slimmer styles with raised legs do the opposite, opening up the room and making it feel lighter, brighter, and more spacious.”

As a bonus, pieces with legs offer storage space that those without legs do not. While you don’t want to clutter up any room, large or small, there are ways to be intentional about making the most of the square footage available in a given room by using open floor space to your advantage.

One such example of this is sliding a vintage trunk under your TV credenza, something that I did in my own living room, pictured here. This trunk houses entertaining supplies and other trinkets that I do not wish to part with, but like to rotate out regularly.

At the same time, it makes a decorative statement all on its own. Not into trunks? You could do something similar by sliding a woven bin under your sofa, coffee table, or bed for a more simplistic, yet still functional, approach.