Q. How can I make my small bathroom seem larger without adding on?

A: If you don’t live in a customized house with a luxurious bathroom and a separate dressing room, you might be wishing your tiny bathroom were larger.

Depending on the style of your house, your bathroom can:

• Fascinate by its simplicity

• Surprise by its elegance

• Calm with its comfort

• Hearten by its brilliance

Regardless of the style that you are looking to create in this room, with a little lesson in proper color and illumination, you can make your bathroom appear wider than it is.

Start with illusions of light. Light plays one of leading roles in the making space appear larger or smaller than it is. Dissipated or reflected light multiplies the area. That being said, you will want to be sure that the finishing of the room is able to reflect light.

Here are some important qualities about the finish of your paint in your bathroom that you’ll want to pay attention to:

• Light colors reflect light, and dark ones absorb it.

• Glossy surfaces also reflect the light.

• A brightly lit room will also make the ceiling seem higher. And the contrary, a low or dimmer light will decrease the height of the room.

• Try to avoid dark corners. They narrow the area optically.

• For little rooms it is better to use built-in light units or hidden illumination. Using this type of illumination around the perimeter of the room will create the atmosphere of airiness and lightness.

Another way to expand or make your bathroom appear wider is to pay attention to the effect of color. Select light tones for walls and ceiling. They visually widen the area. But try to combine light colors for a better overall effect. You can even add color to the bathroom by choosing a rich color for your floor.

Here are a few general rules about how color impacts how big or small a room feels:

• Light Colors: The colors that visually widen the area are: white, beige-orange, yellow, light blue, blue, dark blue-green.

• Dark colors: Dark colors diminish the room; these include black, umber, yellow-red, orange-red.

• Neutral colors: Neutral colors do not change the visual perception of the area. These include your grays and some greens.

• In general you should to stick to the following rule – cool colors (blues especially) widen the area, and warm colors (orange) visually diminish it.

If your bathroom is painted a darker color and you aren’t able to repaint it, add something light in the room. For example, hang up a light shelf or replace shades with white ones, put the vase or light candles. You can also buy ceramic decorations for the tiles in the shape of various designs and add these as decorations to lighten the room.