There’s one piece of interior design advice we’ve all heard: “paint it white, it’ll make the room look bigger.”

But does white make a room look bigger? Not necessarily.

I tell my clients that if you’re in doubt and you haven’t worked out the look and feel of your home yet, paint it white. White is a great base layer. It’s a blank canvas.

Think about an artist starting a painting. The canvas might begin white, but it’s certainly not where the artwork ends. You wouldn’t hang a blank white canvas on your wall and expect to feel inspired by it every day. There’s no colour, story or personality to connect with.

So why are we so comfortable doing exactly that to our homes?

Somewhere along the way, white became the safe choice. We’ve been told it makes rooms feel bigger, brighter and cleaner. And when we’re nervous about getting colour wrong, white becomes the default.

But white doesn’t automatically make a room look bigger. Sometimes, it just makes it white.

I’m not against white interior. I use white. I recommend white. Sometimes it’s exactly what a room needs. What I don’t want is for white to be the automatic choice simply because you don’t know what else to do.

There’s a difference between choosing white because it works with the light, architecture, furniture and overall feeling you want to create and choosing it because you’re scared of getting colour wrong.

White should still be a design decision.

Take a south-facing room. Here in Melbourne, south facing rooms generally receive cooler, less direct natural light. They can naturally feel darker than rooms on the other side of the house.

And this is where people often panic. “It’s dark in here. We need to paint it white.” But white needs light to bounce.

If there isn’t much natural light coming into the room in the first place, choosing the brightest white paint you can find isn’t suddenly going to flood it with sunshine. White can reflect light. It can’t create it.

In fact, a crisp white that looked beautiful in someone else’s bright, north facing home might look cold, flat or grey in yours. (Stay away from Dulux Lexicon!)

You can keep going whiter and brighter, but you’re fighting something you can’t change: the orientation of your home.

Instead of asking, How can we make this room look brighter?, I prefer to ask: How can we make this room feel good? If a room is naturally darker, perhaps we embrace it. That might mean choosing a warmer paint colour instead of a cool white.

Bringing in timber. Layering lamps and wall lights. Adding fabric, artwork, pattern and texture. We might even take the colour deeper and make that cosiness part of the room’s personality. Not every room needs to feel big, bright and airy.

A bedroom can feel warm and cocooning. A small powder room can be dramatic. A darker living room can feel intimate and inviting. Sometimes the characteristic you’re desperately trying to disguise is the very thing that could make the room interesting.

That’s a big part of how I approach colour as an interior designer in Melbourne. Rather than starting with what’s trending or automatically reaching for white, I look at the home itself, its natural light, its architecture and most importantly, the people living in it.

So, should you paint your walls white? Maybe.

If you genuinely don’t know what direction you want to take your home yet, white can be a great place to start. Live with your home. Notice how the light changes throughout the day. Think about how you want each room to feel and what you want your home to say about you.

Then start adding the layers. Colour, timber, stone, wallpaper, art, furniture, pattern, lighting and the things you’ve collected over time.

You might still decide white walls are exactly right. But now you’ve chosen white for a reason.

At Nikki Weedon Interiors, I work with Melbourne homeowners to move beyond the safe choices and create colour-led interiors that respond to the home, how you live and how you want it to feel.

Whether you’re renovating, decorating or simply trying to work out what your home needs next, we can start with a consultation and take it from there.

Ready to make your house feel more like home? Get in touch to book your discovery call