7 Best Window Design Ideas For Apartment Living Spaces That Make Rooms Bigger
Small apartment? Make it look bigger with windows.
You walk into an apartment and it just feels… tight. The culprit is often not the square footage, but how the windows are treated. Heavy, dark curtains mounted incorrectly can shrink a room faster than anything else, making it feel like a cave.
This isn’t just about covering glass for privacy; it’s about architectural illusion. The right window design is one of the most powerful tools you have for manipulating the perception of space in a small home. It’s about maximizing natural light, drawing the eye upward, and creating a sense of openness that makes your living area feel expansive and inviting.
We’re not talking about knocking down walls or installing new windows. We’re talking about smart, simple, and often inexpensive strategies that work with what you already have. These seven ideas focus on using light, height, and visual tricks to fundamentally change how your space feels.
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Expand Your Space With Smart Window Treatments
The wrong window treatment can act like a visual anchor, dragging a room down. Think of those heavy, floor-puddling drapes in a small room with low ceilings—they instantly make the space feel shorter and more cluttered. The goal is to do the exact opposite.
Your mission is to create vertical lines and maximize every bit of natural light. This means choosing treatments that are lightweight in both color and material, and mounting them strategically to fool the eye. You want to draw attention up toward the ceiling and out past the window frame, creating an illusion of a much larger window and a taller room.
Every choice, from the curtain fabric to the placement of the rod, contributes to this effect. It’s a system where each component works together to either expand or contract your perceived space. The following ideas are specific tools to help you build a system that expands.
IKEA LILL Curtains: Your Key to Airy, Bright Rooms
Enhance your living space with these elegant white lace curtains from IKEA. This pair adds a touch of delicate style and natural light diffusion to any room.
Sheer curtains are a small-space classic for a reason, and the IKEA LILL panels are the perfect, accessible example. They are incredibly lightweight and translucent, acting more like a light diffuser than a light blocker. They soften the hard edges of a window frame without adding any visual weight.
The magic of sheers is how they handle light. Instead of blocking it, they scatter it throughout the room, creating a soft, ambient glow that reduces harsh shadows. This even distribution of light helps to erase corners and boundaries, making the entire space feel brighter and more open.
Because they’re so light, they move with the slightest breeze, adding a subtle sense of motion and life to a room that can otherwise feel static. Use them alone for a minimalist look or as a base layer for privacy. Their simplicity is their strength.
Umbra Cappa Rod: Mount High for Taller Ceilings
Enhance your windows with the Umbra Cappa Curtain Rod, featuring a simple, modern design and adjustable length from 66 to 120 inches. This versatile rod includes two finials, brackets, and hardware for easy installation with any curtain type.
Here’s a fundamental truth of small-space design: where you hang your curtain rod matters more than the curtains themselves. A simple, modern rod like the Umbra Cappa is perfect because its clean lines don’t distract from the real work it’s doing—creating height.
The technique is simple: mount the rod 4-6 inches above the top of the window frame and extend it 3-6 inches on either side. When you hang curtains from this position, the fabric frames the window instead of covering it, making the window itself appear significantly larger. The high mounting point draws the eye upward, creating the powerful illusion of a taller ceiling.
The most common mistake is mounting the rod directly on the window molding. This visually "chops" the wall at the top of the window, effectively lowering the ceiling and ensuring that even when the curtains are open, they’re still blocking light and the view. Avoid this at all costs.
Levolor Cellular Shades: Control Your Light & View
Enjoy energy savings year-round with this light-filtering cellular shade. Its cordless design offers easy operation and adjustable height for a perfect fit on windows up to 72" tall.
Sometimes, the best way to make a space feel bigger is to remove visual clutter entirely. Cellular shades, like those from Levolor, offer an ultra-clean, minimalist solution that practically disappears when you don’t need it. They have an incredibly slim profile, compressing into a tight stack at the top of the window.
Their real advantage for apartment living is the top-down/bottom-up feature. This allows you to lower the shade from the top, letting in light and a view of the sky while maintaining privacy from the street below. You get the best of both worlds—light without exposure—which is something traditional curtains can’t easily do.
The tradeoff is a lack of softness that fabric provides. However, for windows in tight spots, like behind a sofa or in a narrow hallway, their low-profile design is unmatched. They keep the walls clear and uncluttered, which is a huge win for small-footprint living.
Gila Privacy Film: Get Light Without Heavy Drapes
Enjoy daytime privacy and increased comfort with Gila Privacy Mirror Window Film. This easy-to-install film reduces glare and blocks up to 99% of UV rays, protecting your interiors and rejecting solar heat.
For ground-floor apartments or windows that face a brick wall, privacy is a constant battle against darkness. Heavy drapes solve the privacy issue but plunge the room into gloom. Window privacy film, from brands like Gila, offers a brilliant alternative.
This film adheres directly to the glass, obscuring the view in (and out) while letting a huge amount of diffused light pass through. You get 100% privacy without sacrificing a single ray of sunshine. It’s the ultimate solution for bathrooms or street-facing bedroom windows where you need both light and seclusion around the clock.
It’s also a renter’s dream. The film is inexpensive, easy to apply, and completely removable without damaging the window. You can cover an entire window for a seamless look or just the bottom half for a cafe-curtain effect, leaving the top clear for a view of the sky.
The Shade Store Roman Shade: A Clean, Minimalist Look
Enjoy effortless style and privacy with BERISSA cordless Roman shades. Featuring a 100% blackout linen fabric and a no-drill, easy-install design, these shades offer room darkening and thermal efficiency for any room.
Roman shades offer a perfect middle ground between the hard lines of blinds and the flowing fabric of curtains. When raised, they fold into a neat, horizontal stack of fabric, providing a structured and tidy look. A quality option from a place like The Shade Store ensures the mechanism is smooth and the fabric choices are modern.
For maximizing space, choose an inside mount. This means the shade fits entirely within the window frame, leaving the surrounding wall space completely clear. This clean-lined approach prevents the window treatment from visually infringing on the room’s square footage.
This style allows you to introduce color, pattern, and texture without the bulk of drapes. A flat-fold Roman shade in a simple linen or a subtle pattern adds a layer of sophisticated design that feels intentional and uncluttered, enhancing the room’s style without overwhelming it.
Pottery Barn Mirror: Fake a Window, Double Your Space
Elevate your space with this 31x32 inch arched wall mirror, featuring a distortion-free tempered glass and a lightweight aluminum alloy frame. Its elegant arch design complements modern decor and includes easy mounting hardware for versatile placement in any room.
One of the oldest tricks in the design book is also one of the most effective. A large mirror can mimic a window, creating an illusion of depth and bouncing light around the room. A windowpane-style mirror, like those often found at Pottery Barn, enhances this effect by explicitly referencing window architecture.
The key is strategic placement. Hang a large mirror on the wall directly opposite your main window. It will capture the natural light and reflect the view, essentially doubling your light source and creating a "view" where none existed. This can dramatically transform a dark or interior room.
Don’t just hang any small mirror and expect a miracle. The effect is directly proportional to the size of the mirror—go as large as you can for the space. A tall, floor-length mirror leaned against a wall can also work wonders, creating a vertical line that, much like a high-mounted curtain rod, draws the eye upward.
West Elm Panels: Layer Sheers for Visual Depth
Layering window treatments adds a level of sophistication and functionality that can make a room feel more thoughtfully designed. Using a double curtain rod, you can combine a sheer inner layer with a slightly heavier (but not bulky) outer panel, like the modern options from West Elem.
The inner sheer curtain stays closed most of the time, providing daytime privacy and beautifully diffused light. The outer panels are purely functional and decorative; keep them pushed to the sides to frame the window, and only close them at night for complete privacy. This setup gives you maximum flexibility.
This layering technique creates literal and visual depth. The space between the two layers of fabric makes the window area feel more substantial and less like a flat plane. This subtle dimensionality adds richness and interest, drawing attention to the window as a feature and making the entire wall feel more expansive.
Ultimately, treating your apartment windows isn’t about hiding them; it’s about celebrating them as your primary source of light and air. Think of your curtains, shades, and rods not as accessories, but as architectural tools. They have the power to lift your ceilings, widen your walls, and fill your home with light.
The core principle is always the same: go light, go high, and go wide. By focusing on enhancing light and creating vertical lines, you can overcome the limitations of your floor plan. You’re not just decorating a window; you’re actively expanding the feel of your entire living space.
