To make a big room feel smaller use warm, darker colours with a yellow or red base. Warm colours visually advance or come towards you.

Create a strong feature wall, in a darker colour, or in a textured finish to add interest to the room. If you have very high ceilings this can sometimes make a room feel bigger than it is. To overcome this you can paint the ceiling a 25% tint of the wall colour and extend the paint down onto the walls. Be careful if you do this not to come down too far.

This is mostly practiced in houses that have picture rails. If you don’t have a picture rail this again is a good way to break up very high walls and give you a feeling of a cosier room.