Narrow rooms

What the condition actually does

A narrow room turns into a corridor the moment furniture runs down both long sides with a walkway between. The fix is asymmetry: load one long wall, keep the other nearly bare, and put one element — a chair, a plant, a reading lamp — perpendicular to break the bowling-alley line. The short walls are the room’s best feature, because anything on them faces you full-on when you enter.

The first move

Move everything off one long wall — completely. A narrow room with one loaded side and one open side reads as a room with a generous edge, not a corridor with furniture.

Light under this condition

Never one line of ceiling lights down the middle. Stagger sources left and right, and light the far short wall brightest — pulling the eye to the end widens everything before it.

What fights it

• Matching furniture runs down both long walls
• A rug shaped like the room — it re-draws the corridor you are trying to erase
• Downlights in a single centred line, which reads as an airport walkway
• Stripes running the long way in flooring or paper