8 Ways To Make Your Office Feel More Spacious Instantly

Key takeaways

• Daylight and glare control can help your office feel more open during the day
• Clear walkways first, then position desks and storage around the flow
• Closed storage and cable control reduce "busy" surfaces fast
• A calm, consistent colour palette makes walls feel less crowded
• If you're trying hard and still struggling, it may be time to rethink the space

Tip 1: Let daylight do more of the work

Natural light is the fastest way to make a room feel less boxed in. When daylight reaches the back of the office and corners stay bright, the space feels wider and calmer. When light is blocked, everything feels tighter, even if the floorplan has not changed.

It's also worth treating daylight as a practical workplace issue rather than a style choice. In the UK, workplace rules include having suitable and sufficient lighting, with natural light used where reasonably practicable, as set out in the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, Regulation 8, which is a useful nudge to fix the basics properly.

Quick fixes for windows, glare, and blocked light

Start by standing at the window and looking back into the room. If you see tall storage, stacked boxes, or even a row of high-backed chairs blocking light, move those first. That one change can brighten the whole office without spending anything.

Next, deal with screen glare the right way. Many teams keep blinds shut all day because the monitors face the window, which makes the room feel dim. Turning desks so screens sit at a right angle to windows often solves the problem, and guidance in the HSE lighting at work resource (HSG38) explains why glare and poor lighting can contribute to eyestrain and discomfort.

Finally, keep window areas visually clean. A windowsill full of mugs, cables, and paperwork turns the brightest part of the room into a clutter magnet. If your goal is to make your office feel more spacious, the window zone is prime real estate, so treat it like a "no storage" area.

Tip 2: Use layered lighting so the room feels "even"

Many small offices rely on a single set of ceiling lights. The result is usually bright spots in the middle and dull corners around the edges, which makes the room feel smaller than it is. Even when the light level is fine, uneven lighting makes the space feel closed in.

Layered lighting fixes this by spreading light across different heights and surfaces. The aim is not to blast the room with brightness, it's to remove harsh contrast so your eye reads the room as one continuous space.

If you're making changes as part of a wider refit, it can help to sense-check your plan early, before you commit to power points and fixed furniture. The Flexioffices article on generative AI for office layout planning is a useful starting point for quickly exploring options, especially when you're trying to balance desks, storage, and shared space.

A simple lighting plan for small offices

Think in three layers: general light, task light, and soft background light. General light is your ceiling or main fixtures. A task light is a desk lamp used for focused work. Background light is what stops corners from feeling gloomy, such as an uplighter washing light onto a wall.

If you can only do one thing, add soft background light. Brightening corners and the far end of the room changes how large the room feels, because your eye stops hitting "dead zones".

Warm or neutral bulbs often feel more comfortable than very cool white light, but consistency matters most. Mixed bulb colours can make a tidy office look unsettled, which works against the calm, open look you're trying to create.

Tip 3: Start with walkways, then place desks

Layout problems often show up as tiny daily annoyances: chairs that catch on cupboards, people turning sideways to pass, and bags ending up under feet because there's nowhere else to put them. When movement is awkward, the room feels smaller because your body is constantly reminded of the squeeze.

A better approach is to treat walkways as the "first draft" of the office. Once movement works, everything else becomes easier, including storage placement and where shared equipment should live.

This is also where flexible workspaces can help, as well-designed centres tend to incorporate sensible circulation and shared areas. If you're comparing options, Flexioffices' guide to serviced office space explains why plug-and-play layouts can be more efficient than squeezing every function into a single private room.

Layout rules that stop the room from feeling tight

Define your main route from the door to the primary work area, then keep it clear. If the room is long and narrow, that route should be visually obvious, not broken up by chair backs and random storage.

Next, create one secondary route to the things people use daily, like printers, supplies, or a water point. When people have to zig-zag around desks to reach basics, the office feels busy and smaller than it should.

Finally, try to keep the first sightline from the entrance as open as possible. If the first thing you see is a tall cupboard, the room feels full straight away. If you see daylight, a wall, or a clear zone, the room feels larger before you've even sat down.

Tip 4: Choose furniture that matches the scale of the room

Furniture can steal space in two ways: it takes up floor space and visual space. A bulky table in a small room makes everything feel tighter, even if you can technically still walk around it.

The fix is not to make everything tiny or uncomfortable. It's to avoid "heavy" pieces that dominate the room and to pick furniture that supports how you actually work.

If your team has grown or your working style has changed, this is a good moment to check whether you're forcing the room to do more than it can. Flexioffices' overview of managed office space is helpful if you want a tailored setup with built-in storage and meeting areas, as these features reduce the need for oversized furniture in your day-to-day workspace.

Small changes that free up floor and visual space

Look for opportunities to replace a large item with a slimmer one that performs the same function. For example, a deep filing cabinet can often serve as a lower unit that also holds the printer, freeing up both floor space and a chunk of visual weight.

Choose pieces with legs where possible. When you can see more floor, the room reads as bigger. It's a simple trick, but it works because the space feels less blocked.

If you need a meeting spot, consider whether a small round table would work instead of a rectangle. Round tables often give better movement in tight rooms, because there are no sharp corners catching hips, chairs, or bags.

Tip 5: Reduce visual clutter with smarter storage

Clutter makes a room feel smaller because it fills the places your eye wants to rest. Even if the office is clean, too many visible items can make the space feel "noisy". That noise makes people feel like the room is tighter than it really is.

Storage is not just about having cupboards. It's about making storage easy to use, so people actually put things away. If storage is awkward, clutter will always win, because it is faster to pile than to file.

There's also a wellbeing angle. Research and discussions from the American Psychological Association on clutter describe how clutter can link to stress and avoidance, and in a work setting, it can quietly affect focus and confidence, even when nobody says it out loud.

The "one-touch" approach that keeps desks clear

Start by identifying the three biggest clutter sources in your office. In many workplaces, it's paper, cables, and personal items with nowhere to go. Fixing those three often changes the whole feel of the room.

Next, use a "one-touch" habit. If something arrives in your hand, it should go to its home in one step, not two or three. That means your storage has to be close to where the item is used. If the stationery cupboard is across the room, stationery will live on the desks. If cable routes are awkward, cables will sprawl.

Also, prioritise closed storage for anything that looks messy. Open shelving can be fine for a small number of tidy items, but most offices are too busy for it. Closed doors hide visual noise, instantly helping the room feel calmer.

If you want a quick test, take a photo of the office from the doorway. In a photo, clutter hotspots stand out clearly. Fix those first, and you'll notice the room starting to feel more open in a way that lasts.

Tip 6: Use colour to calm the space and push walls back

Colour affects perception. Light, consistent tones tend to make walls feel further away, while strong contrast can chop a room up and make it feel shorter or narrower. This is not about following trends, it's about helping the room read as one space.

A calm palette also makes everyday mess less obvious. In a small office, that matters, because the room changes many times per day, with coats, bags, parcels, and paperwork coming and going.

If you're picking colours as part of a refresh, the Flexioffices post on the psychology of office colours can help you choose tones that support focus and comfort, not just looks.

A practical palette that works in real offices

Choose one light base colour for most walls, then keep trims and large storage in tones that sit close to it. When big surfaces match, the room feels less chopped up.

Use accent colours in small doses, such as a chair fabric, a pinboard border, or a plant pot. If accents are too dominant, they become visual clutter.

If you have a narrow room, avoid very dark colours on the side walls. Dark side walls can make the room feel tighter. If you want a darker feature colour, it often works better at the far end of a long room, because it can add depth rather than squeezing the space.

Tip 7: Improve visual flow with lines, zones, and repetition

Visual flow is what your eye does when it enters a room. If the room has clear zones and repeated materials, your eye moves smoothly, and the space feels calmer. If everything competes for attention, your eye gets stuck, and the room feels smaller.

The nice thing about visual flow is that it does not always require spending money. Often, it's about removing blockers, simplifying what's on show, and aligning small elements.

Workplace research also supports the idea that experience is shaped by the environment people spend time in, not just by policy. Findings discussed in the Gensler Global Workplace Survey 2024 are a helpful reminder that design choices affect how people feel and perform in the workplace.

What your eye sees first matters

Start by lowering anything that blocks the view across the room. Tall cupboards, stacked boxes, and high dividers can break the space into smaller "chunks". If you need privacy, consider a lower divider, a plant, or frosted glass rather than a solid wall effect.

Next, repeat materials and finishes. If you have three different desk styles and several chair colours, the room can look chaotic even when tidy. Reducing variety makes the space feel larger because the room reads as one system.

Finally, define zones with placement, not barriers. For example, a small meeting corner can be defined by a rug and a lamp rather than a full screen. Barriers often solve one problem while creating another, because they block light and sightlines.

Tip 8: When the space is genuinely too small, change the setup

Sometimes you can do everything right and still feel squeezed. That is usually a sign that the office is doing a job it was never designed to do, such as hosting a larger team, taking daily calls without enough quiet space, or storing more kit than it can sensibly hold.

In that situation, aiming to make your office feel more spacious is still worthwhile, but it becomes a short-term patch. If people are booking meeting rooms just to take a call, or desks are permanently covered because there's nowhere else for equipment, the issue is capacity, not styling.

If you're not sure where that line is, a quick sense-check can help. The Flexioffices office space calculator is a practical way to compare your current setup with what a more comfortable fit might look like, based on how many people you need to support.

Flexible options that give you room to breathe

Flexible workspace can be a clean solution when you need more space without locking yourself into a long lease. Serviced offices can get you up and running quickly, while managed offices can give you a more tailored setup that still avoids the heavy lift of a traditional fit-out.

It also helps that well-run spaces usually offer shared facilities, which prevent you from cramming everything into one room. When meeting rooms, phone booths, and breakout areas are available nearby, your private office can stay focused on the workstations it needs to host.

If you want to talk through options in plain terms, the Flexioffices contact team can help you compare spaces based on light, layout, storage, and the kind of work your team actually does, not just a desk count.